Over the past few months, I have been trying a new way of budgeting and so far, it seems to be working well for us. I get paid bi-weekly and the hub works 4 weeks on/4 weeks off, so his monthly income varies greatly.
Since I know what our monthly expenses/bills are (mortgage, utilities, etc), on the first of the month, I transfer that amount to one checking account. I transfer our family budget (food, entertainment, gas, etc) to a second checking account. Non-monthly expenses such as car insurance, vet bills, Christmas, birthdays etc. goes into a special savings account and is transferred to the family checking as needed.
As paychecks come in, that money is transferred straight to savings. Once the savings balance surpasses the amount needed for the next month, the extra is transferred to long term savings.
As expenses occur, the money comes out of the respective checking account and at the end of the month, both account balances are usually depleted. (Occasionally, the family budget runs short, which helps me to understand where we are over spending.)
This is working well for us because we are not as tempted to absorb any extra pay into the budget and on those months when the hub gets one paycheck, the budgets are still fully funded. We have managed to sock away a nice chunk of savings and avoid stress in short paycheck months this way!
Trying a new way of budgeting (at least for me!)
September 16th, 2020 at 05:48 pm
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