Weird Pay Schedule

[kthomas140]

Hi! I'm just starting to look into budgeting and I have a few questions.
*My husband works in the oilfield and his work schedule is 2wks on, 1wk off. He gets paid every 2 weeks but with his work schedule his paychecks go-- 1wks pay, 1wks pay, 2wks pay. I've used the Dave Ramsey budget calc. and it shows percentage for yrly income but how do you break that down into the weird pay schedule?
*Also, my husband is guaranteed overtime but the amount of overtime changes from 80 hrs a wk to 105 hrs a week.

Any advice would be very appreciated! Like I said, I'm just starting!
THANK YOU!

[humandraydel]

Do you have any savings built up? Weird pay schedules like this are perfect for the YNAB type budgeting where you already have 1 months worth of pay in checking as a buffer.

As for calculating it, the only real way is to take annual pay and divide by 12 for monthly.

[snafu]

I suggest you print out a full year-on-a-page calendar. Circle all the pay days with 2 circles identifying/differentiating the two week sums. If overtime has such a big variance, I'd note the actual sums as they come in on the Sunday column and like humandraydel suggest, designate one full month's pay to stay ahead of expenses.

There are certain amounts that must be paid on specific dates like rent or mortgage, vehicle loans/vehicle insurance, Student Loans. Category 2 variable expenses like utilities [heat/light/cell, cable/internet, Credit Cards] are due on specific days but variable amounts. Category 3 like Food, vehicle operation/maintenance, clothes, stuff, entertainment all have variable dates and amounts. Pick the average sum spent from the last three months and do your best to stay in that budget. Give yourself $100. cash at the start of each month for incidental, un-planned costs.

Most of these expenses can be paid on-line, some automatically, some as line items as the sum changes for heat and electric for example. Most CCs will let you chose the due date like last day of the month for example. In our system, 10% of all money, no matter the source, gets transferred to a linked Savings Account before any spending takes place. It's often called 'Pay Yourself First. By the end of the month, you can tell if everything has been processed. If you've followed humandraydel's method, you should have one month's expenses in your chequing account. Anything extra gets swept into that linked saving account mentioned earlier.

Just now, because savings pays a paltry 0.09% I can't stand it! If DH has an employer sponsored Retirement Plan he could use those saving to access any matching sum the employer offers. If not...I suggest a low cost, no fee plan like Vanguard 's own plan staying with Index to start.

I hope you find something noted here useful

[LizfromtheBronx]

This is where a manual budgeting spreadsheet would probably be most useful. My pay differs between 2 amounts that alternate every pay period - my normal pay, and my pay plus my monthly cell phone reimbursement.

Payments (bills, savings, etc) run across the top in columns, all totaled up, then balanced against amount of net pay. Pay date runs down the first column in rows. I'm happy to share the template if you're interested.

[kthomas140]

Thank you all for your help! And yes, if you don't mind I would love a template

[LizfromtheBronx]

Thank you all for your help! And yes, if you don't mind I would love a template

If you PM me your email address, I'll send it to you