Yea, I was actually thinking about that. I think we could do it, first 1 paycheck ahead, then 2, and so on. It would help me feel like I need less of a "buffer" in savings, too, just sitting there.
Shanna On May 21, 6:40 pm, Kevin M <[email protected]> wrote: > There's another school of thought with budgeting that has a fairly > strong following and that is that you spend last month's income this > month. So in a nutshell, any income you get during the month isn't > allocated at all until the 1st of the following month. The beauty of > this approach is that once you have built up one month's buffer, you > are no longer bound to live paycheck to paycheck. Month to month is > somewhat arbitrary but since most recurring expenses (mortgage, > electric, phone, TV etc.) happen monthly it allows you to budget and > allocate income with the same cycle. So then it becomes moot if you > get paid weekly, bi-weekly, twice a month or whatever. You just let > your income sit in "Salary" until the 1st of the month when you > allocate it out for the entire month. > > I realize that for many saving up one month's buffer seems impossible, > but if you set that as a goal and work at it over time you can get > there. I did and many others have too. Gone are the days of timing > the payment of bills with my paycheck and worrying about whether > buying groceries will overdraft me. As long as I'm within my budget, > the money is in the bank because I'm not spending this week's > paycheck, I'm spending last month's income. > > Kevin M. > > On May 15, 7:18 pm, Kevin Hoctor <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On May 15, 2009, at 5:55 PM, stingom wrote: > > > > For the first time since I've actually cared about where our money > > > went (yes, there was a time, long, long ago that I didn't budget...) > > > my husband has taken a position that pays him every other week. I get > > > paid the 15th and 30th. My income on the 30th is not enough to cover > > > our 1st of the month expenses, so we need his income at the end of the > > > previous month to get everything paid. I'm struggling with how to set > > > up the spending plan, becasue it only has 1st half and 2nd half > > > options. In the spending plan, it looks like I'm fine, but if I spend > > > everything that's there on the 29th (as the theory is with zero based > > > budgeting) and my paycheck comes in on the 30th, and then our > > > payments start auto-drafting for the mortgage/rent, etc., we'd be > > > overdrawn. What I've been doing isn't working (just leaving the "left > > > over" from the 15th in the account...in theory we should have a nice > > > chunk of change to put on debt/in savings, but I leave it in there and > > > it just seems to get "sucked up" by non-essential stuff...to be > > > honest, I know it's there, so I don't budget as closely as I should.) > > > If I don't leave it there, though, I'd be overdrawn on the 1st. Any > > > suggestions for how to handle this, both mentally and technically on > > > the program?? > > > Hi Shanna, > > > Be careful with the term "zero-based budgeting" because it doesn't > > mean that you should spend all that you have in your checking account > > but rather move it to savings so you don't have cash sitting around > > that you could spend arbitrarily. > > > In MoneyWell, the concept is to allocate all your income to buckets so > > you have nothing left in your checking account. If you plan your > > spending and set allocate your income as it comes in, it shouldn't > > matter if you get paid weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, or biweekly. > > > If you put the money left over from the 15th paycheck in to buckets > > and only spend what you have put in your buckets, then you should have > > money for savings/debt reduction. Of course, you need to include an > > amount monthly for your Savings and Debt Reduction buckets and > > allocate money to those or that won't work either. In fact, if you > > have no emergency fund in savings, you need to make your Savings > > bucket a high priority allocation until you get a couple of thousand > > dollars in there. > > > The hardest part about envelope budgeting is looking at what's left in > > the buckets before you actually spend money. You can plan and allocate > > religiously but if you ignore the final step of spending only what you > > have allocated, then the whole process falls apart. Let me know if > > this helps at all. > > > Peace, > > > Kevin Hoctor > > [email protected] > > No Thirst Software LLChttp://nothirst.comhttp://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "No Thirst Software User Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/no-thirst-software?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
