Question

Let’s say rent is $1000/mo and you get paid Bi-weekly (26 checks a year). Do you do $1000 a month, $500 a check or take $1, 000 x 12 and divide by 26 making it $462 a check? That way you don’t have 2 extra checks to deal with? Does anyone budget like this? Taking all your bills multiplying them by 12, then dividing them by 26 and taking that amount out per check? Hypothetically there should always be enough money in the account to cover the bills when they are do? Please share your thoughts  

Answer 1

This is how I want to budget as well. however I am not able to get ahead enough to implement this

Answer 2

The only reason this doesn’t work completely is because you won’t have enough to cover the rent until the two months that have three checks. Other items like sinking funds this works!  

Comments

For example this calendar year I will get the extra checks in April and September. January-March deposits equal $2, 772 ($228 short for rent those months)

Answer 3

Not for all monthly bills but my car and mortgage are set to biweekly. When I was renting I would put half of rent aside every paycheck (paid by weekly) and when I had a third paycheck that month I’d put my rent money towards debt/sinking funds/savings! You do have to start 2 weeks ahead!  

Answer 4

I pay $500 every paycheck rent. The two extra checks per month I set aside the $500 in a separate account. My other Bill's fluctuate too much to set aside a set amount. My car insurance, life insurance and phone are set on auto pay.  

Answer 5

I pay per month and use the 2 extra pays to put aside or credit card.  

Answer 6

I have all my bills scheduled mid month and rent is $1100 on the 1st. Paid biweekly so one check goes to rent and the other check goes to all other bills.  

Answer 7

I laid all my Bill's out on the calendar and based on the timing it works out to put half aside on the first cheque and the remainder on the 2nd. Since I can't reliably count on the 3rd cheque, those become a "bonus" cheque that goes to debt or savings.  

Answer 8

X12 and /26 for my monthly bills like rent.  

Answer 9

We get paid weekly so I take $1250 mortgage x 12 / 52 to get $285 weekly. I put that weekly amount into a savings account and have it auto transfer back when the mortgage needs to be paid. No-weekly you’d have to do $500 per check to make sure you have enough when the rent is due.  

Answer 10

500/check, but know that there’s 2 checks I won’t need to take it from. During those 2 checks i just increase my sinking funds contribution or my savings contribution ( debt free, but if I wasn’t then I would use it towards an extra debt payment. Another option is to just pay the 500 every check and then be happy that you ended the year with a full extra payment made

Answer 11

I do annually, then divide by 52, that's what needs to be put away each week. So in essence the same as you, accept if you do monthly to annually you will be out by 1 month as 52 divided by 4 is 13 months if working off a 4 week cycle.  

Answer 12

I get income coming in all over the place and as much as I would like to budget per pay check, it just leaves too much chance of not being able to cover a bill in full. I have taken all my expenses eg. electricity, petrol, internet, and divided the cost by 52 for a weekly amount. I deposit that amount into my Slush Fund/Sinking Fund account and pay my bills from that account. I have done it this way for 2 years now and it works for me. I use TBM pretty envelopes and just keep a running total for each bill I put money aside for. I hope I’ve explained clearly enough. I use a cashless system for a number of reasons but I use a lot of BBP and TBM ideas.  

Comments

@hepplewhite me too!  

Answer 13

I do half (in your case the $500) because if you only did $462, it won’t cover the entire rent until those two months that have the third paycheck. You’d only be sitting at $924 and it would show up late on your credit, rack up a balance and late fees and other issues.  

Answer 14

Only for sinking funds. Bills no. If I get 3 paychecks a month I’ll decide by 3 though. Rent and some other bills don’t allow me to pay early so I can only keep a partial amount in my account and then I add it to my income as rent savings. So $500 rent savings on the paycheck tracker paying rent

Answer 15

We take all our bills, add them together, divide by four and that’s the first thing we take out of each check and put into a bill account where all our bills are automatically withdrawn from. We put our extra checks in there too, to use as a buffer, and then every once in a while we’ll assess the account and pull out money if there’s too much buffer. We just pulled out $500 last week! It’s always a nice “surprise”. We put it in our house sinking fund. When we got started doing that, we used our tax refund to pad our account a bit, and now it runs smoothly and there’s always plenty of money in there.  

Comments

By extra I mean the fifth check of the months there’s five weeks, as Dh is paid weekly.  

Answer 16

Half every paycheck

Answer 17

I budget exactly like this. I pay my parents rent of $1, 000 per month and I direct deposit $462 a pay check to them. I am always on time with rent.