Budgeting when getting paid every four weeks?

[Magstermay]

We're just getting to the end of a second maternity leave and with various things that have happened and a distinct lack of budgeting, we are now £11,000 in debt.

Much of this is my DH's, he's not very communicative where money is concerned, but as I've been on SMP he's been doing his best. I now want to take control of our finances and have been working out a budget, but although I get paid monthly DH gets paid every 4 weeks. Does anyone have any tips on how to best manage this? Sorry, that was quite a long post for a simple question!

Could you use your wage to mainly pay for things that get paid monthly like mortgage/rent, bills, debt repayments etc and your DHs wage to cover things like food and fuel, general spending, towards annual expenses, things like that?

Alternatively, get his wage paid into a different account and then set up a standing order to transfer the bulk of it to your main account once a month. There will be a spare wage as he will get paid 13 times a year, but that can go towards a contingency fund, annual expenses, extra debt payment or even treats or whatever.

If you are inexperienced in budgeting, look at the moneysavingexpert budgeting section and subscribe to their weekly email. Lots of tips on cutting expenditure, getting the best deal, making extra money, getting out of debt etc etc. You could also post your full budget on their debt free wannabe forum to get detailed advice on how to get out of debt as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Thank you Barbara that's a good way to look at it. I will have a look at MSE too.

Try YNAB, they have tutorials for people who are paid in different cycles.

We used to be in the same situation, oh salary was paid four weekly so we opened two accounts one for bills and the other for food petrol etc. We then just made sure we didn't touch the money to cover the bills for the month ahead, it gets harder as the year goes on as you are never paid on the same day of the month. Bonus is you get an extra pay packet at the end of the year.

That's a good idea Scot, we've got our own accounts as well as joint ones so might have to fiddle around. It's a real pain, but I'll look on it as a challenge!

Over a year, a month works out at 4.3 weeks on average. So if you multiply your husband's weekly wage by 4.3, you'll get a figure for roughly how much he's paid in a month. Then you can budget as normal.

We do it this way. Occasionally on a 'long' month, one or other of our accounts will go slightly into the red, but it corrects itself throughout the year. We have a fee free overdraft of £500 (smile Internet banking - they're awesome) which means it's very straightforward.