Monthly Pays

[mzcatieboo]

When I was married that was how we did it...I organised all the bills to come out around the 2/3rd of the month and then worked out hoe much I spent on groceries etc per week and tried really hard to stick to that!

Cate - can I just ask...do you really fuel up your car and it lasts a month??? I'm lucky if I can squeeze a week out of my tank!

I have 2 tanks .. even tho we live in a small country town i go to DH work atleast 3 times a week and thats 15 minutes away and we always go 4WD on the weekends. def helps having 2 tanks tho.

[AllisD]

Hi

We used to get Monthly pays but with a change in jobs at the beginning of the year we are back to fortnightly.

We were on Monthly for years and I didnt really think too much about it but there were a few things that I did.

1. Set up another bank account with NO card access
2. Organise for all loans/regular bills to come out of this account
3. Organise a set transfer for the amount of all bills/loans to be automatically transferred when paid each month or some companies will pay directly into 2 accounts.
4. Set up a isaver/direct account with high interest savings.
5. Organise a direct transfer of a set amount (it doens't have to be huge - $50-$100 or even less) into this account. Again make sure that you do NOT have card access to this account. This was our savings/emergency fund.

I used Internet banking a LOT!

The money left over is your money for the month. I then used to divide it by 4 and only spend what was supposed to be allocated for that week. I lived in a rural area so only used to shop every 2 weeks to monthly.

I hope that this helps.

Cheers

Allis

[AngelPunks]

My goal for this year is to live off my fortnightly pay for the month, well attempting to do that until we move, then NFI how we'll get paid then (family business with travel & living paid for)

[UntoldAngel]

DP was paid monthly for nearly 10 years, and I am paid monthly as that is when I put my invoice in. We coped with it really well - mortgage was due at the start of the month, utilities and rates etc are mainly due at the start of the month or quarterly, and we put everything else (food/fuel/entertainment) on credit card. We can do this because we pay the full amount at the end of the billing cycle, as it generally falls around pay time, so we have never paid interest.
DP though changed jobs 13months ago and now gets paid weekly, which we have found to be more of a challenge as we have to work out how much we need to pay / set aside each week so that we have enough money for the bills (we are both contractors so hours and $$ are not guaranteed week to week / month to month) but generally it isn't too bad.
Good luck and I hope you can work a system / budget out

[~Raven~]

We've gone onto monthly pays about 4 months ago and have found it quite easy! The first one was really hard, but I have found before I know it pay day is here again

The details may not be the same for you but as we have our own business, we have a cc that all of our expenses go onto. Our pay goes into our business account, out of which the cc gets paid when it's due. On pay day I pay what needs to go into the mortgage and also a few hundred $$ into our keycard so we have access to cash through the month if it's needed. Anything left over stays in that account until it's needed for bills we can't put on the cc. It's pretty easy!

[LionsandBears]

We organise things similar to Allis

We use internet banking or direct debit as much as possible.

We have our personal accounts, but also we have a "Direct Debit account", an "Accrual Account" and a "Long term savings account"

All the bill/rent etc come out of the Direct Debit account - this account does not have a card. We pay groceries etc on the credit card and pay it off in full each month. We have worked out a budget of what this can be. Things like health insurance and gas/electricity comes out of this account.

The "Accrual account" is for things like car rego, car repairs/servcing etc. This also has no card access.

The Direct Debit and Accrual accounts are all linked with the daily transaction account (which does have a card), so I only pay 1 set of bank fees for the lot each month.

The Savings account is a high interest savings account, without a card. This is for long term stuff. At least 10% of the pay is automatically paid into this account.

In addition, we've organised monthly automatic deductions of gas and electricity ($50 and $70) and we make up the difference every quarter. The phone bill is a set amount for all phone calls, including broadband, which is deducted each month.

I used to be useless at budgeting. I found a system that helped me, though I don't use it religiously - look up Simply Budgets. Also the Barefoot Investor has a good ideas.