Budget question

[mom-from-missouri]

OK. I still have not made this years budget because last years did not go so well. The bills are getting paid ok, but I don't know how to correctly put it down on paper.

I can do the outflow just fine, and am good at estimating what the bills will be.

My problem is trying to enter in quicken, excel or even on paper the income. Problem is my husband works the 10-12-14 hour shifts. So, some weeks his paycheck is for 30 hours and some weeks it is for 48 or more hours. It is different for every week and there is no pattern to it. But, by the end of the year, it all averages out to having worked 40 hours each week.

So, how do I enter this?? Should I try to just enter the income monthly instead of weekly??

The budget did work fine, till his work changed him to weekly paychecks. I've done it on paper since, but would like to get it back into excell or quicken.

Anyone else have this problem and how did you do it??

[maat55]

One way to level out your budget is to save one months wages and hide it in your account. Then take the average of your husbands pay to set your budget. Enter a fake check of say 1500 dollars and then work off of 0 after that. When you reconcile your account every month, +1500 is 0. It doesn't have to be a full pay check, it can be enough to cover the flux. Every month or so you can adjust off of the 1500, if you are short or long, change your income amount to level back to your 1500.

[jasanderson]

maat55 post sounds a little confusing but may work.

that sounds confusing that his paychecks are all over the board. Can you maybe deposit all the paychecks into a savings account and transfer out from there what you absolutely need for bills?

Another thing I like to do is in my checkbook I write the actual check amount (ex: $22.12) but I subtract whole numbers from the balance (ex: -$23.00). I have found that by doing this over time I have built up a nice little sum in my checkbook. I know there is something there but I'm never quite sure. I work off what is in the checkbook and when times get tight I do an actual balance of it. Last time around I was actually +$150 in my checkbook. Nice little amount to pay off a bill with.

[zetta]

There's a software package that perfectly fits your situation, where your exact income is variable. It's called You Need A Budget, and you can get it from Personal Budget Software - Excel Budgeting Template, Free Personal Finance Spreadsheets. I've been using it for about six months and highly recommend it.

[PrincessPerky]

I dunno how quicken works, when I did a budget on the computer I used excel..and one of the 'income' fields was 'cushion' I had a cushion left over each month and used it to cover what needed paid before the bills were due. my husbands evened out within the month though...

For multi months I might try a similar thing but keep track over several months rather than just one at a time.

[disneysteve]

some weeks his paycheck is for 30 hours and some weeks it is for 48 or more hours. It is different for every week and there is no pattern to it.

So, how do I enter this??

Do you have any savings or are you working paycheck to paycheck for the most part? If you have a savings cushion, it shouldn't really matter. I'm paid hourly and my check varies from week to week (actually every other week). But I don't spend everything that comes in so it doesn't matter. If this week's check is on the lower side, there is still money in the account to pay any bills that come in before the next check. If not (which does happen once in a while), I just pull some money from our MMF which serves as part of our EF and then replace it when I get the next larger check.

If, however, you are living paycheck to paycheck, that makes things more difficult and I'm not sure how best to handle that.