My partner (60m) and I (53f) have been struggling for years. We ended up homeless for a while, and took out a finance loan ($281.31 lendumo) and two interest loans ($117+183.82 netcredit, one each), along with payday advance loans (I don’t know how many he has, I have two that vary month to month, depending on what they’ll give me each month). We have recently been housed, and the organization that helped will help us next month, but can’t/won’t help with rent after. I’m grateful for what they are helping, and trying to keep from taking any payday advances, just use our budgeted money to get us kinda caught up. We are disabled, and are both on fixed income. I’ve figured out that we can divide up each of our stipends and put 50% each (he gets more) into a shared household expenses fund. And it looks like we should be able to do that, and have our basics covered, with some for gas, laundry, and food, which will be a variable that will fluctuate. Due to me being able to better manage money, I want to be in control of the shared funds. He’s resistant, so here’s where I need help. I know how much we each make. I know how much the expenses, the fixed ones, will be. I want to see if people can help me figure out what, if anything, I’d transfer to him if he has to pay the rent out of his account. We have separate accounts, although I’m on his, and can therefore see what he spends. But, both accounts aren’t local. We’d need to get a local bank to make rent payments. I can’t change banks, he can. So I’d have to pay my fair share of the rent money, minus his share of the rest of the shared expenses. He makes $1680, half of that goes to the shared funds. I make $1278, and half goes into the same fund. Our rent, $995, is the one where I’d have to transfer money to him, IF my fair share (not fifty fifty, because he gets more, so his fair share is higher than mine, but still only half of his income) is around 40% of the rent, then would I even send him anything, if he doesn’t transfer his share of the other monies? My created budget doesn’t leave me much wriggle room for MY stuff, at least while I’m paying off my two main loans. But I’m fine with that. It’ll take me about a year to pay them off, then I’ll be much better off. And I’ve taken on some of his costs, because I’m trying to reduce his overdrafts from at least one a month, down to nothing a month. For now, I’m just trying to figure out how much of the $995 rent is me, so that I can figure out what to send him if we use a local bank.
You make $2958, your percentage of that is 43.2%. Multiplied by $995 rent and you’re talking $430. Your fixed costs (housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, debt minimums) sound like they’re eating up the entire budget. That doesn’t leave you much room for pop-up expenses, minor emergencies, let alone building up savings for major ones. Discretionary spending gets squeezed out almost entirely.
Ok, shared fixed costs are rent (no utilities), vehicle insurance, internet, streaming. The non-fixed amounts are groceries (my food benefit and food stamps will be able to offset part of the food costs, and are not being counted as part of my contribution).
Sometimes it is easier to think about the beginning of a budget in three parts. Part 1 is collecting the information for the monthly budget – expenses, savings goals, debt repayment, whatever you have going on. Part 2 is looking at your monthly budget and your monthly income and making sure they balance. Part 3 is cash flow, which is where you are stuck.
You could also switch to budgeting via pay period, rather than monthly. But you will still have to figure out how to get current or even ahead to do this.
Fintan said:
You could also switch to budgeting via pay period, rather than monthly. But you will still have to figure out how to get current or even ahead to do this.
This. I budget per check. The month is too broad for me.
For my bigger expenses, I budget half of it for each paycheck. So if your mortgage is $1000, I would budget $500 from the middle of the month paycheck and another $500 on the last paycheck of the month. You don’t have to physically do anything with the first $500, you’re just budgeting it out and that amount is unavailable from that middle of the month paycheck.
I do this and keep a second account that money goes into per budgeted check. That way it’s out of sight, out of mind, and doesn’t accidentally get spent.
If you can’t change the date on your bills, you are going to have to pay part of this month’s bills with the second paycheck of last month.
Divide your bills by 2. Mid-month paycheck, put that money aside, I recommend in a savings account. Then, at the first of the month, you have the other half of the bills and you pay them all.
Something I have done over time is set $50-100 aside per paycheck to cover a month’s worth of expenses in advance.
May also receive comments at r/yNAB and r/daveRamsey. Many were in this situation. What are you trying to ‘fix’?
What are you putting aside in savings, if anything?
We gave up and just created a budgeting that lets you budget to a biweekly schedule rather than monthly. You’re not an idiot. You got this!
If you get paid every two weeks, the next time there’s a three paycheck month, put most of that check aside so that you can get ahead on your bills.
I’m trying to switch to YNAB which makes you use the previous month’s income for the current month’s expenses so that’s one option.
One way is, try to control your spending one month as much as possible on the second half of the month and keep aside and use it for next month’s first half.
What worked for me was saving ahead - I live on last month’s income so the money goes into the bank in a special account.
You have to build about one month’s expenses in checking, then eventually a couple more months in a high-yield savings account.
Just use February’s two paychecks to pay for March’s bills and expenses.