I’m using the Foundations Template and both my husband and I get paid biweekly, so 4 months out of the year we have an extra paycheck per month coming in. Previously, I’ve always just used “our regular paychecks x2” as our spending budget every month, meaning those 4 extra paychecks are not included in our budget. But, as I’m working on my 2021 budget setup, I’m realizing that it might be better to account for those 4 paychecks within my budget. (Coincidentally, I’m also accounting for more annual expenses as well as periodic ones, too, as opposed to just strict monthly expenses, and those “extra” paychecks will come in handy for that.)
I was thinking I could average out my monthly income and use that as my spending budget every month…but in doing so, I would then have a higher spending budget than my actual income for 8 months out of the year, and that makes me a little nervous.
Has anyone come figured out a good solution for this kind of scenario (using the Monthly Budget)? I’ve really enjoyed the simplicity of the Monthly Budget, but am wondering if most people solve this by using the zero-sum/envelope budgeting template (or the new savings budget) to resolve this.