Budget Cycle Help Needed

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Hi all,

I did a search on the forum but can’t seem to find exactly what I’m looking for, so apologies if this is already answered elsewhere!

I used to get paid on the 1st and 15th of each month, but back in August, my paycheck cycle changed to the 7th and 22nd of each month. This is really throwing me for a loop on the best way to keep track of my cashflow and budget using the Foundational template that has worked well for me for years.

Added to this, outside of a few expenses I pay out of my checking account around the 1st of the month (mortgage, HOA, etc.), I pay most of my monthly expenses via credit card which I pay off on the 6th of the following month.

I thought maybe I could switch the budgeting cycle to start the month on the 7th, but not sure how to do this or if it would break things.

Any advice? Should I switch to a different template format or is there something I can correct in my thinking to make this all make sense?! :slight_smile:

Thank you,
Phillip

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Not sure I have a great solution, but a few thoughts:

  1. I would not mess with the dates of the monthly budget cycle. First thing that came to mind for me was December and January, where it may be very important for tax reasons if something happened in the current or previous year. I’d leave this alone.

  2. How to think about this? I’d distinguish your budget from your cash flow. Your budget is what you’re spending in a given month. Your cash flow is what allows you to pay the bills for what you’ve spent when they are due. I’ve come to the place where I recognize both of these as important but separate, though interrelated, processes. In my own workflow, I use the Savings Budget sheet for the budget part of things, and I’ve recently started using (and very much like) the Scheduled Transactions template for the cash flow part of things. Different sheets for different purposes, but they work well for me to keep track of both my budget and my cash flow needs.

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I appreciate the advice! Great points all around. I really like the additional templates you mentioned and I think those will definitely help me improve my visibility of cash flow, at the least.

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