Question

How would you fill out your bill by paycheck worksheet when one person gets income quarterly in the year and one gets paid every other week? Really I just don’t know how to fill out the worksheet with a quarterly payday  

Answer 1

If its possible for you, I would live off of the biweekly paycheck and then use the quarterly check towards debt, savings, sinking funds etc. Not exactly the same but my husband gets a quarterly bonus and we don't rely on that for our bills so it's just used to boost savings or pay for upcoming expenses or debt. I still use a paycheck budget page to write it out, but it would just be too confusing for me to used towards monthly bills unless you just put the check into some kind of bill account.  

Comments

@ursi36 I wish, but I don’t make enough to cover half our bills  

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@trachoma in that case I would transfer his money to a bills account. On the paycheck budget sheet, write down each bill that is covered (ex: March Rent, April Rent, March car payment etc). If you don't already have it, I would download the budget mom bill tracker to keep track of which things you have covered.  

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I would do this too, but also make sure you flip to the calender page of each month and mark that bill paid so things don't slip through the cracks. For example pay march, april and may rent, car payment and insurance. Each on a seperate line on the bill tracker. Then go to each month and put a checkmark by each item and note pd 2/15 for example

Answer 2

Just out of curiosity. whst type of job gets paid quarterly? I've never heard of that before! It's not my business so you obviously don't have to answer if you don't want to

Comments

@breeze9684 I’m interested too. Lol But. I would maybe use the quarterly income to pay fixed bills for 3 months and use your reguar pay for things like gas and groceries and debt?  

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@heritor72247 that's a great idea

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@breeze9684 I don’t want to be judged by our decisions. I already know that it’s not the best decisions, but it was the best decision for our family. It’s from student loan refunds. My fiancé is in dental school.  

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@trachoma there’s no shame in that! Part of my student loan debt was I needed that extra to cover my gas, occassional lunches, and books and supplies

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@trachoma no shame at all. Im a physician assistant and I took out 150k+ in student loans to do that. I would have my career if not. There was no other way for me and that's true for a lot of people

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@trachoma i really don't think student loans are bad if they are for a career where you will be able to make the income t pay them back. They definitely have their place. I think the bigger problem is for people who take out 100k+ for their undergrad degree at a private university and then end up in a career where you make 45k a year. those loans will drown you if that's the case. Much better to go to an affordable school

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@breeze9684 that’s true. I work for a private university it’s crazy how much debt people get in. In order for him to go to school we had to move states and we live in a pretty expensive area, our rent is more than half my monthly income. There is no way we would survive without student loans. Our expenses doubled but my income barely increased. With your amount of debt and job we’re you able to get out of debt fairly quickly?  

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@trachoma I still have loans. It was hard by myself but now that I'm married and my husband is helping and we've started budgeting seriously we are making definite strides. You guys will do great. Way ahead of the game if you're in this group. Just keep life simple until they are paid off. even if it's tempting to start upgrading when he starts making real money. That's what we are doing now. Decided to stay in our small house, e. t. c, until debt is paid off and emergency fund and savings are fully funded. It's tempting to upgrade now with dual income but we are staying put!  

Answer 3

If the checks are the same, you can add up quarterly amounts to get yearly total and divide by 26 to get the biweekly amount that translates to. Or you can do a separate budget for that check/income

Comments

@galvano I did look at a monthly amount and when I did that we had enough to cover everything with leftover. But since we budget separately I was thinking about just asking for him to transfer me the money I’m short for my paycheck budget sheets and count it as income for me  I’m really lost on how to handle it.  

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@trachoma I used to get paid 1x a month. We used my 1x lump sum to pay as many bills as we could. We then lived off my husband's biweekly checks.  

Answer 4

I would just divide it up into whatever is easiest. That is, you could give yourself a paycheck when your other one comes in, or do it once a month. Or, depending on how much it is, you could use it for a specific large expense (housing and car payment, etc) or to fully fund your sinking funds. reducing what comes out of the other paychecks regularly.  

Answer 5

I leave my irregular pay cheque for sunk funds

Answer 6

I would divide it into thirds, and stick 2/3 into savings and then transfer that over as income 1/3 at a time for the next two months. It will help it last for the quarter and make it an easier amount of money to work with to pay bills and living expenses.  

Comments

@funicle this makes sense! Thanks!