How to Budget on a Bimonthly Pay Cycle
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2024
- You've had it. You're done. How in the world are you supposed to make a monthly budget work when you're paid every 14 days, no matter how many Mondays are in a month?! With YNAB, it's not quite as impossible as you think. Learn how to pace your bimonthly or biweekly pay to not only guarantee your bills are paid right on schedule, but also ensure that beachside vacation gets funded by next June.
- TIMESTAMPS -
0:00 How to Budget on a Bimonthly or Biweekly Pay Cycle
0:40 The Secret + Why We Don't Forecast
1:50 Budgeting the First Paycheck of the Month
5:43 Budgeting the Following Paycheck(s)
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This girl is impressive. Her ability to be funny and engaging while teaching a somewhat daunting subject for some, needs to be applauded.
Hannah is a treasure.
Love Hannah!
You are the best asset to YNAB.
Agreed!
Well said 👋
I jumped into YNAB without reading the directions. Just did the forecasting thing like all the others. Got frustrated, confused and walked away. When I tried again and it finally clicked, I was all in! Watch this video and don’t skip the directions!
I was totally forecast budgeting. I didn't understand how the goals worked. Once I got that figured out everything else fell into place
“Complicated things are hard.” 👏🏼 You couldn’t have said it better.
We need to call you Hilarious Hannah!! As a self-employed person I pay myself twice a month but I fund for several months in the future. That's how I was able to survive when COVID hit and the world stopped buying anything but toilet paper.
I honestly was about to delete my YNAB account until I saw these Heard It From Hannah videos. I have been applying lot of what I learned from this series to my budget and life. The tips are relatable and she is funny af. She def makes YNAB less intimidating for sure. I feel way more in control of my finances. Thanks Hannah!!
Wow, DJ, this makes me so happy!! I'm so glad you gave YNAB a second shot! Keep letting us know what you wanna hear or learn more on, and I'd love to produce content that answers your questions! Thanks for sharing that word of encouragement :)
-Hannah :)
I spent my Friday night, using all of your tips. And yes you know you are way into budgeting when you get excited about adding emojis to the categories cause I was a happy girl. Arranging the monthly bills by due date was such an aha moment for me. I also used your category headings. BTW thanks for making learning about budgeting entertaining and informative.
I think it’s important that you put rent with a due date of the 30th, meaning it’s a rent payment most likely due on the first of the next month.
I get paid every other Friday (seeking to be clear while avoiding the debates over terminology!) and in one of the YNAB videos I got the idea to add a note to each month that reminds me the dates of the paydays for the month, that way in October I can see clearly that I expect new money coming in on the 2nd, 16th, and 30th so I know how far ahead that money needs to go, including into the following month. And I've learned that it just so happens that most of my big bills are due toward the end of the month, so I make sure to budget ahead to those with my first check so I'm not left struggling to cover everything with paycheck #2.
"per yooge"...LOL love that I get a real laugh while learning to budget! SNL for you next girl
at first, i was watching to learn how to budget but happened to laugh. now, i'm watching to laugh but happen to learn how to budget. thanks for the content Hannah :)
Oh my gosh, I love the idea of organizing the bills under the category of monthly and then adding the due dates. I know how I am spending my Friday night.
Well, this is technically semimonthly. But I see why you put biweekly. I have been lucky enough to be in jobs (including my current one) where I'm paid semimonthly. But the times I was biweekly, those two magic months of the year with a third paycheck were great for budgeting things I wouldn't normally do or tossing a little extra at a debt. Those were the catalysts which got me get a month ahead, actually. I've been there ever since and haven't looked back. Happy YNAB user since 2012, happy Hannah crusher since 2019.
I just want to be able to add fortnightly goals to my fortnightly bills. Wouldn’t that be good so I can align funding for these categories to my 26 annual paycheques.
Semi-monthly means twice a month. My boyfriend gets paid semi-monthly. He is paid on the 7th and the 25th. I am paid bi-weekly/bi-monthly. I am paid every other Friday. This demonstration showed exactly two weeks between her first paycheck and her second paycheck. Bi-weekly fits better than semi-monthly. Now fortnightly and semi-monthly are definitely more synonymous. While bi-weekly and bi-monthly can be synonymous and not even remotely the same. The American English language is hard.
One thing I've been stressing to people I work with who've started using YNAB (and we're paid bi-weekly BTW) is that you should plan ahead your bills with the second paycheck the exact same way as the first. For example, some of my bills are paid within the first few days of a month, and some months my first paycheck isn't until the 10th or later. Sometimes those early bills need to be funded from last month's paycheck! This really makes mass funding the budget tricky until you get that 1 month ahead.
I struggled so hard at first because I didn't understand that the goal is where I can sort of future budget. I kept budgeting what I knew I would need and then I was always over spent. Once I started using goals, everything fell into place.
Miss Hannah, you're so good at this, it's not even funny. But you sure are. Who knew budgeting could be so much fun? Thanks for the spoonful of sugar. Cheers!
YOU, my friend, are SO sweet. Thank you so dearly for your kind comment! I love my job and I'm glad others can love it too!
Also, I feel your user name so much. My whole life I feel like I've been "yet another Hannah." I've come to love my name but it took a while 😉
-Hannah :)
I figured out a solution just last week to my monthly budget/fortnightly pay. I have a category group called Fortnightly and then I split my income to those fortnightly bills, it goes straight to the category and doesn’t all go into To Be Budgeted. I always have to pay mortgage, another loan and food (weekly) out of EVERY pay cheque regardless of month. The leftover is then budgeted to the main budget
First try with ynab, I forecasted for the whole month. Had to quickly pivot and re-do. And set goals for the month. It’s easy now.
I needed this video, I was trying to understand why I would use goals; so the feature to automatically add dollars on the second pay check was great 👌🏾
This video really shows bimonthly pay cycles. It should show pay cycles for both 2 times per month and 3 times per month. The examples would be more realistic if the pay days were not the 1st and 15th. This month my pay says are 2nd, 16th, and 30th. That is reality,cause most people are not paid on Tuesday.
Technically semimonthly (bimonthly would be every two months), but you are right on! This topic has a lot more complexity to be discussed, and for me YNAB just doesn't work well if you don't get paid monthly. Such a shame, because it is such a good app! If it gave options for weekly/biweekly/semimonthly budgeting, I would use it and recommend it to everyone I know!
I don't know if you take suggestions for topics, but I have one that I'm pretty sure you guys haven't covered. I do a lot of traveling (and spending) with my best friend and rather than reimburse each other, we pay for different things and keep a running tally in a google sheet that we try to keep more or less equal, but can get temporarily unbalanced by several thousand dollars. Unfortunately, this sort of obscures some of the metrics on different budget categories. For example, we recently went on a SCUBA trip to Mexico and I paid for our hotel (which included food and diving for a week) dog boarding while we were gone, and gas. She paid for airplane tickets, transport to the airport, tips and a side excursion we did that was paid in cash, but I was behind on our tally because before we left I forgot my wallet when she was dropping me off at the mechanic for a $3000 car repair, so even though I was way "overbudget" on my trip category because I paid for more than half of the expenses, I could move some money from auto repairs to cover it, since I never had an outflow for that. However, this doesn't actually tell me if I stayed in budget for our trip (because what she paid for isn't on there and everything is sort of fuzzy) and at the end of the year I won't be able to look at my auto repairs spending and quickly be like "this car is costing too much to operate...time for it to go." Similarly, I have budgeted more than I know I will spend individually for an upcoming trip and less for other trips because one of the other of us is taking primary responsibility for arrangements on different trips. I can use our separate spreadsheet to check how much we collectively spent on each trip, but I wonder if there is a better way to account for things in YNAB so all my categories reflect the actual money spent, not just what I spent out of pocket. I feel like having it in YNAB would make information more actionable (like whether a particular trip was worth the exact amount we spent on it).
My goodness! I've never found a more fun budgeting channel anywhere!
Well, budgeting is usually a RIVETING topic. Glad we can spice it up a bit for ya :)
-Hannah 🌻
This was fun to watch
Thank you, Hannah! Excellent video!
I get paid weekly, but thanks to previous videos, and some extra tips in this video, I'm on top of things!
Things can be tricky at times, like when an unexpected, larger expense comes up, but that's nothing a little bit of Rule 3 can't fix!
This is extremely helpful.
Awesome personality!
I use the leftover money from the second paycheck to budget ahead some categories for next month.... age that money baby!
If I have some odd dollars left (less then 10) I use it for wish farm or bumping up vacation money etc
Yes, girl!! Good plan! You're gonna kick your budget's booty in no time.
-Hannah :)
0:07 that nod/smile, cracked me up 😅
You are hilarious 🤣 I am cracking up and learning something new too.
That almond milk cold brew stuff is so good!
Thanks for this, this is exactly what I do, excpt I have the per pay figure in the title (e.g. $200pp)
as sometimes I get paid 3 times in a month, and I need to add 150% of the goal to have enough for the first week on the next month.
I love that coffee....... and classes are funny and interesting - thanks I am paid biweekly and it causes issues this helps.
You are so fun to watch,and this video literally made budgeting click for me. Thank you.
Your comment made my day! SO glad to hear it, and hope you'll keep tuning in as you keep building those budgeting muscles!
-Hannah :)
Hannah is simply amazing! Thank you for the very entertaining tips that I will absolutely use.
right on time, I just got paid today!!! 😁
Califia Xxpresso!!! That's the only coffee I drink. So good.
I thought this video was going to be budgeting an “every other week” pay cycle, not a “twice a month” pay cycle. Is there a video for “every other week”?? I need that one.....
Howdy! I'll definitely consider it. Funnily enough, our payment system just changed and I thought I was paid twice a month-I was wrong! I am paid every two weeks. So I feel you, the difference is important! I will add it to the list and hopefully this topic can find it's way on to the calendar soon enough!
-Hannah :)
@@YNABofficial That would be awesome! I have spent the last 15ish years on a 'twice a month' pay cycle (1st & 15th) and had that down to a science. But after losing my job in August I realized that many employers are using an 'every other week' pay cycle, so I will likely have to adjust to a new normal once I find a new job.
Lol thanks for this with emphasis on the gas budget
I would love a video on how to budget bi-weekly expenses. Here in Canada a lot of bills are bi-weekly. Car payments, mortgage, etc. Wish there was a bi-weekly target.
You're not alone! The process on this may be changing in the relatively near future, but I'll add this video idea to my list in the meantime! It's a highly requested one. Thanks for the idea!
🌻 Hannah
Excellent. Now I have a better idea.
Yes the title says bi-weekly. Yes she says twice a month. Yes we know that people who get paid every other week will get 26 checks in a year because there are 52 weeks in a year. People who only get paid twice a month will get 24 checks in a year. What is the argument? The fact that everybody's arguing about these terms is ridiculous. She's trying to show you how to deal with two checks a month people.
See the categories in orange until the next paycheck makes me anxious.
Totally, this is why I removed my goals
Oh my gosh. I thought I was the only one! Seeing that orange sets my nerves in edge 😟
I think I sort of cheat a little and forecast using YNAB but then Undo until before I did it afterwards. It gives me way more of a piece of mind before being a month ahead as I'm used to always using my CC as a "Free money a month ahead" Card instead of only using it when I have the actual funds in my chequing...I know, bad.
I'll just copy my Fiancee and I's weekly income transactions in YNAB (we're both bi-weekly but are on opposing weeks so we take turns getting paid every week!) and then assign it to all the categories and see where we're at. It gives us clarity of what it might look like at the end of the month until we're a month ahead and feels a lot less like we're drowning when all categories are half paid for!
This still doesn’t give us the option to create fortnightly goals for fortnightly bills. I know how to manage monthly bills.
Please add the option to choose a repeating goal based on the number of weeks. Please! It can’t be that difficult, can it?
To clarify why this feature is important:
I get paid 26 times a year, not 24 like I’m guessing some of you do in the US. To align with this very common pay cycle in NZ, a lot of bills are billed fortnightly. I want to set fortnightly goals so I can make use of the underfunded feature to quickly fund fortnightly categories and see glorious green totals.
They have weekly goals, you can set your weekly goal to be 50% of what your fortnightly bill is. I do something similar with our water bill, its due every other month so I budget 50% of what I expect it to be each month.
SilverWolf thanks, that’s a good workaround. Hopefully they’ll soon add the ability to repeat every two weeks instead of every week so we don’t have to do workarounds.
SilverWolf you can actually set a goal that repeats every two months instead of doing a monthly goal at 50%
UPDATE: I’ve been in touch with the development team at YNAB. Unfortunately, if my understanding is correct, weekly, monthly and yearly goals are all calculated using months as the base unit 🤔
This means rewriting a lot of code to accommodate goals based on repeating weeks of more than one week and is unlikely to be included in the near future.
To budget is to make a plan for how the money you will bring in each month will be spent. So you do technically budget money you do not have. What you can't do is allocate money you don't have yet.
Been busy with a house move so I've been neglecting my duties as the President of the YNAB Hannah Fan Club. Now that the move is complete, the regularly scheduled fan-personing over YNAB Hannah and her content can now resume in full. [insert confetti cannon and fireworks]
😂😂😂
Hope the move went well!! Exciting!
-Hannah :)
When I have leftover money after allocating jobs, i usually throw it in to investments, rather than 'getting a month ahead' or breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle. Psychologically, I'd love to get a month ahead and 'break the cycle' but the reality would be extra cash sitting in my current (checking) account, doing nothing that could be earning in investments, so I never leave it there
Hi so I love your video and I have a question. Could be half sleep or just totally confused but when you budgeted for your first paycheck, I noticed you didn’t have any money left. How did you pay back the money you borrowed for gas (or other important or maybe not-so-important things) before receiving your second paycheck? Thanks! - Emily
Hey! Great question. It sounds like you may be on what we call the credit card float-where you promise future income to pay off today's expenses. That means you're kind of perpetually a month behind. YNAB is set up to get you off that float so you always have the money in the account to back up your credit spending, so you're really using the credit card like it's a debit card.
Check out this blog which goes into it in more detail and how to get out of it!
www.youneedabudget.com/are-you-riding-the-credit-card-float/
~BenB
Really wish you had a fortnightly goal option, I can't figure out how to make the goals function work for my fortnightly bills - which is most of them!
SAME. Lack of weekly/fortnightly budgeting is the main reason I don't use YNAB.
How did you enter your paycheck at 2:30?
Fortnightly
I get paid every two weeks so sometimes 3times a month depending on where that Thursday lands
Any tips if paydays don't line up with the month? Mine are 10th & 25th, so the latter needs to cover the last week-ish and first week-and-a-half-ish.
Hey Jack, good question!
Always start by covering those regular bills. So if you have an internet bill due on May 7th. When you get paid on April 25th, click ahead to May and budget those dollars into that category.
For something like groceries, go ahead and budget whatever you need for the next two weeks into your April category. When you hit the end of April, any money you have leftover in Groceries will automatically rollover into your May budget.
So it's the same question: "What does this money need to do before I get paid again?" Make sure you cover any essential bills that may pop up in that first week of May before going back to fund other non-monthly bills, savings goals, or fun money in April.
Hope that helps! :)
- Ben M
Unfortunately, my tip would be to not use YNAB until they offer weekly/biweekly/semimonthly budgeting options--unless of course it is working for you! I know for me, I tried Ben's suggestion for awhile, but in the end I realized that YNAB just doesn't work well for weekly/biweekly/semimonthly paychecks. Back to Excel spreadsheets for me!
What do i do with the categories from the first half of the month. My TTB seems to think that they're still relevent and is counting them. How do I start fresh for the second half of the month?
Hey Fallon! Sounds like it might be helpful to get some visuals to help you sort out your situation. If you write into help@youneedabudget.com, one of the members of our awesome support team will be able to help you figure out what's going awry and where any confusion is!
-Hannah 🌻
So HOW do I enter the paycheck. Its always the same. Doesnt it upload automatic from my bank acct? I set up the budget. Many are exactly the same, so do I need to re enter all that again? Kinda confused.
Depends! If you chose to "Link" your bank accounts when you set up YNAB, the paycheck transaction should import into your budget whenever it clears the bank. However, if you selected "Unlinked" when initially setting up your account, you'll have to enter your paycheck manually. Check which type you have!
Also, there are some banks that don't work quite as seamlessly with direct import. If you think your bank might be one of them, write into our Customer Support team and they can investigate your situation to see if there's a better way to connect your bank to your budget!
🌻 Hannah
What if you are trying to live on last month's income but you get paid on the 15th and the 30th of each month? Is "next month" the next day after your second paycheck, or should you pretend the second paycheck is hitting the next day and should be used for the following month?
Think of it as "the previous 30 days" rather than the previous calendar month. You ideally want your Age of Money to be 30 days.
I apply it to the next month, so I am living on last month but paychecks I get this month get applied next month
This is exactly where I am right now. I want to work to an ideal budget where rather than finishing out my budget with my end of month money, I want to be starting my budget with my end of month money. That is, my pay and VA benefits which come in on the 30th of September I want to start budgeting November, finishing with my mid-month paycheck. As it stands now, all my income that comes in September pays for October. I pretty much just have to age my money 15 more days. It'll take some time, but I can pull it off. :)
@@superslacker87 That's interesting. You're essentially treating the payment on the 30th as if it is coming in on the 1st. The only thing I don't like about that is that it removes the ability to see income per month at a glance and know how much you have to budget. Other than that it could be a great approach.
I'm currently using all of the September income to budget for October and planning to just do end-of-month checklists. As long as I have that small buffer, I think I'll be ok since I also have a fully stocked emergency fund.
What about the September 29th Paycheck, how do you typically handle the next check, as you wont get any inflow in October until October 13?
You would just move over to October's budget and start funding all your categories with a due date prior to October 13, and then your other October priorities.
I understand that, so am I correct that your current month would not have a 0 amount left to budget, not trying to be picky just trying to imagine how it would work. Alternatively I could budget a buffer category to take money from it next month .
My main question do I budget it in current month and because it has a monthly savings goal it would just roll over to next month or do I just move to the next month. I could see both working, just not sure if one is advised over the other.
@@mikecook7630 As far as which is "advised" I would let YNAB answer that. For myself, I've done both. I have a "next month" category that I'll use if the last paycheck is a ways out. That way if I have to roll with the punches, I still have that money in this month's budget. If it's just a few days away and I feel confident in this month's categories being flush until the first, I'll go ahead and budget for next month.
Haley Hinman thank you, I understand the point of budgeting the next month in advance. However I feel like it is not truly doing so. It is budgeting for the time until I am paid in the next month. Hopefully they see this and comment on it or make a new video about the three time per month vs the normal 2 per month. Thanks again for your insight.
You could put the Sept 29th paycheck toward your October expenses (to help in getting one month ahead), put it toward debt/investing/savings, or mix and match.
How can I see if I’m about to fall off a financial cliff in 5 months?
I'm no expert... but I think if you go to your budget, click the box at the top left beside "category..." that selects all the categories... look at the right side column where it says "underfunded" and "budgeted last month," and "spent last month" this will help you understand your shortfalls. I think (I'm no expert).
Stuff is still confusing 🙁. Especially when you get paid on the 8th and the 23rd. The previous months money gets a little confusing with the current pay cycle.
So true! I wanted YNAB to work so badly, and I tried multiple different strategies, but in the end I realized that YNAB just doesn't work well unless you get paid monthly. For those of us who get paid weekly/biweekly/semimonthly, YNAB is surprisingly not setup to follow its own philosophy (only allocating the money you have and not budgeting money you don't have). Back to Excel spreadsheets for me!
You've probably already watched this video, but YNAB is meant to work for anyone on any pay cycle, even those with variable incomes like freelancers!
ua-cam.com/video/3wVdL91E2Yg/v-deo.html
It's all about looking to whatever the next priorities are and funding those *first*. As someone who's paid twice a month, you likely won't be able to fund a full month of expenses with just your first paycheck of the month, so start by funding only the ones that need to be paid before the next paycheck arrives (like bills due in the next two weeks), and for other "living" categories (like gasoline and groceries) just fund them halfway with your first check. If you find your first paycheck of the month isn't carrying you to the second paycheck of the month, that may be a sign that your expenses are outweighing your income, or that your bills are frontloaded for the first half of the month. This happened to me when I first started with YNAB, and I was able to call a few of my utility companies to change my bills due dates so I had more bills spread evenly throughout the month instead of all of them due at the start of the month. Something you could consider!
🌻 Hannah
I felt good not having to live paycheck to paycheck while watching this video.
Dear YNAB: constructive criticism: you're trying WAY too hard to be funny in these videos, and it's ending up appearing as if you're trying to be funny, which takes away from the funniness. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these videos, and that's my only constructive criticism. KEEP UP THE KILLER WORK!! LOVE YOU GUYZZZ!!
What if you get paid on the 5th and the 20th but you have a bill that needs to be paid on the 3rd? The money you get on the 20th has to go toward that bill next month. But your budget says you already paid it for this month, it's green because you paid it on the 3rd, so you think you're good to go and don't budget for it when you get paid on the 20th. Next month comes along and your budget tells you that you need that money by the third, but you don't have money for it until the 5th because you used the money that you got on the 20th for other things, because your budget told you already had what you needed?
Great question!! This is where I'd actually click ahead into the NEXT month and fund that bill there instead.
So: you're charged your bill on the 3rd and the category shows it's been funded and spent for the month. That's great, and YNAB is functioning exactly as it's meant to! Now when I get paid on the *20th*, instead of funding that same "3rd" category in the CURRENT month, I'll click ahead to the next month and fund it *there* instead, in the same way that you use your 20th paycheck to fund your 27th bill (they 27th and the 3rd are both equally in the future, we just have to click one month further to get to the 3rd bill. We're not limited to budgeting only in the current month!). Then when the month turns over, that 3rd bill is already funded and ready to go!
The eventual goal with YNAB is to get at least 30 days ahead with your money, so inevitably when you're getting far enough ahead, you'll always be clicking into a FUTURE month and funding it with the CURRENT months paycheck. For example, right now my husband and I are able to use our July paychecks to fund our *September* budget (because July and August are already fully funded) and it feels SO GOOD.
I hope this helps!! Don't get tripped up by sticking "within the month"-it okay to find upcoming bills in future months, as long as you're only assigning dollars you actually have!
🌻 Hannah
Biweekly? Does America know the word fortnightly exists? or is that a British/Australian only thing?
As an American, I can say that the percentage of Americans who use the word 'fortnight' is very low. I would imagine that many of us do not even know the definition.
It seems they don’t understand. I’ve been asking for fortnightly goals for ages to align with my fortnightly pay and fortnightly bills but it feels like I’m shouting in the wind.
😂 as an American I know what fortnightly is, but I’ve only ever seen it used in literature or from foreign acquaintances. We don’t really have fortnightly billing, though, even though many people are paid that way. I can’t think of anything I pay that isn’t monthly or less often (for bills).
Elizabeth Mellen, I guess it’s a similar historical cultural hangover, like the US is the only country to still use Fahrenheit and pounds and ounces while the rest of the world uses metric 😉
Fortnightly, bi-monthly, and semi-monthly all mean twice a month. Bi-weekly means both every other week, and twice a week. Bi-monthly can mean every other month. England started using Fahrenheit inches and ounces, Then realized in order to trade with the rest of Europe it would be easier to go back to the metric system. I really don't understand why we ,the US, continue to use these difficult forms of measurement.
So is YNAB for folks that are trying to budget their lives paycheck to paycheck? It seems very helpful, but I have leftover money in my account that I don't want to give a job to...I don't want to just put it towards something that I don't need to..what then? I ended up adding the next check to the budget while having extra money from before...not sure what I should be doing.
Robert Rerite I have seen some people create a category called “Holding” where they put money that they don’t have a specific job for yet.
@@DioneFogle that's a great Idea. I had the same issue and just decided to put my extra money into savings. I was so shocked (but happy) I had all that "extra money" but it was really money that just hung around in my checking acct lol
@@DioneFogle I could try that....that would help prior to adding the next paycheck
You could budget your extra dollars into the next month- that way little by little you get ahead of your expenses and you actually break the paycheck to paycheck cycle.
Make a job up :) “Savings”, “To Be Decided”, “Buffer” etc I changed pretty much all the main categories and category lines, as they were didn’t work for how I like to look back at spending trends or how I really think about my money and where it should go
I find that there's a little more to this topic than what was explored in the video. A big part of bi-weekly pay cycle is that when you get paid the second time of the month (which could happen any day between the 15th and 31st depending on where your payday falls), you gotta make sure your bills are covered the next month before you get paid again. For example if you get paid every other Friday, last month that was the 7th and the 21st. So when you get your paycheck the 21st you have to make sure that all the bills that come out at the beginning of September (up to September 4th, the next pay) would be covered. Once you get a month ahead it becomes very simple, but until then I find there's a lot of back and forth between budgeting in the current month and the next month.
One could always move the expenses thru the 4th (using your example) to the current month. So if you normally order your fixed expenses by date, you could order them starting with expenses that hit on the 5th of the current month and then the last items in the list would be for those for the 1st thru 4th of the next month. That way you don't have to go back and forth between months. In Hanna's example she says she'll use the second check to fund rent. She might list her rent due on the last day of the month even if she's paying it on the first of next month. She's capturing her next month's expenses in the current month's budget.
CJ Sitko but then you’d have to change the order of your fixed expense categories each month, because this month my first paycheck might come in the 4th, but if we keep with the same example in November I won’t get my first paycheck until the 13th. Your paychecks on a bi-weekly schedule (as in every other Friday) is all over the place and different each month. I don’t think covering your early next month bills with your current month second paycheck is a complicated step, but I believe it’s a very important one for bi-weekly budgeters. In the beginning at least.
AMEN!
Feel like this needs an update with the latest features of Views!
Oooo, that's a good shout. Adding that to our idea list, thank you!
- Ben M 🎨
I'm a huge YNAB fan. But, the title should be "Bi-Monthly." Bi-weekly is getting paid every two weeks--like me. Which is why I clicked. =)
Ron-that's a really great idea! I *totally* did not realize until the comments started rolling in that I used the wrong word, but changing the title and thumbnail might help prevent some misled clicks! Big learning lesson on this one for me-biweekly and bimonthly are not the same 🙃
-Hannah 🌻
@@YNABofficial Keep up the great work! I love me some YNAB!
@@YNABofficial You're right. Emojis are life changing!
If 'bi-weekly' means getting paid every two weeks, doesn't 'bi-monthly' mean getting paid every two months? I thought the correct term for getting paid twice a month was 'semi-monthly'
@@ShoelessJoeChristian Bi-monthly can mean every 2 months or twice a month.
AHHHH WHAT IF YOU GET PAID ON THE 24TH?!! No but really - do you guess how much you'll spend on groceries for the remaining 7 days of the month and then allocate the rest in the next month, or do you just put them all in this month?
Hey Shane! The method is the same no matter how often you're paid or when you're paid! Always start by funding your highest priorities first, then when those are covered, fund everything else accordingly.
Personally, I would fund 7 days worth of groceries in the current month, and then budget the rest of that grocery money into the next month. Then just repeat that process when you're paid again on the next 24th!
If you spend your full grocery budget every month, then you'll stay on this funding cycle. But if you ever spend LESS on groceries than you budget for groceries, eventually that money will build up into the future and you'll be able to fund the WHOLE upcoming months worth of groceries on the 24th of the previous month. I hope that makes sense!
-Hannah 🌻
@@YNABofficial thanks a lot, Hannah. You're the best!
Bi weekly is not the same as twice a month though
She really does a good job trying to convince us that budgeting monthly is actually a good thing for people who get pay weekly or fortnightly. But the reality is - this is just a YNAB limitation that they want it to look like a good thing.
SO TRUE! I love YNAB, but the main reason I don't use it is that I get paid fortnightly, so monthly budgeting just doesn't really make any sense. Instead of YNAB I use Excel spreadsheets.
SO TRUE! I love YNAB, but the main reason I don't use it is that I get paid fortnightly, so monthly budgeting just doesn't really make any sense. Instead of YNAB I use Excel spreadsheets.
This was a semimonthly pay cycle. Without more context, bimonthly means every two months.
ERROR in this video-
Bi-weekly means you get paid every other week equaling 26 paychecks in the year. So 2 months per year, you will get 3 paychecks.
Bi-monthly means being paid twice a month=24 paychecks a year.
oh stop being so technical, smart ass. Majority of people call it bi-weekly.
I agree with your definitions. 👍 I think she would make the same recommendations though
The distinction between biweekly and bimonthly is definitely important. And I’ve had both being in YNAB and you definitely have to keep more aware when you’re on biweekly
I mean if we're going to get persnickety, it's bi-weekly (every other week) and *semi*-monthly (twice a month). Bi monthly would be paid every other month.
@@HaleyHinman yes. you are correct!
I miss the bloopers!!!
I really wish YNAB had displayed the budget of someone responsibly saving for retirement. No investing here, no future potential for growth - just $150 a month in dinners out and $20 leftover. Being stuck like that year after year... *shudder* Compound interest is a powerful wealth builder and this budget has NONE!
I linked my retirement account as a tracking account. I don't have my investments accounts linked but I'm pretty sure I can add them but since they change by the minute it would be hard to keep it accurate.
The pacing of these videos is too slow
Is it just me or could you understand the gas joke horribly wrong.
Don't get wrong, I have a really dark humour myself but people on the internet can take things in a really weird way.
Bimonthly and biweekly are two different things....
Yes and no. Bi-monthly can mean twice a month or every other month. Bi-weekly can mean every other week or twice a week. Technically the terms can be interchanged.
@@lauriethomas1924 no, they can't. There are not 4 weeks in a month except for February. There's a difference if your paycheck comes in the first of the month or the 9th because the 9th is every other Friday. If you get paid twice per month, that's 24 paychecks per year and every other week is 26 paychecks per year. Makes paying for things on a monthly basis like mortgage/rent difficult.
I need the real biweekly video, not the semi-monthly. They don't mean the same thing. Biweekly means once every two weeks. Semi monthly is twice a month. The former gets paid 26 times a year, the latter 24. Bimonthly would be once every two months, so six times a year, but I don't know that it really exists.
@@ajshadrach every month has at least 4 weeks. so yes there are four weeks in every month. February has exactly four except on a leap year where it's four weeks and one day. The 9th does not always fall on a Friday. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, then yes only being paid twice a month (bi-monthly) would be difficult. However, if you are able to stick to a tighter budget and get a month ahead then it is not so difficult to budget for your mortgage. I get paid every other Friday. So I get 26 paychecks a year. My boyfriend gets paid on the 7th and 25th every month. He only gets 24 paychecks a year. I'm not sure what your comment really is about.
@@stuarthellen9792 biweekly also means twice a week, bi-monthly also means every other month. Semantics people. You get paid twice a month some people get paid three times a month twice a year some people get paid weekly. This example is biweekly. This example is for people who get paid every other week.
Bimonthly means every two months. The word you're looking for is semimonthly.
Oh, don't worry Edward, I learned my fortnightly lesson BIG TIME 😂 I've will double-triple-quintupplequadruple check before I use the word bi-weekly ever again 😅
-Hannah 🌻
Actually, bimonthly in paycheck-speak does indeed mean twice a month (typically on two specified dates of the month, same dates every month). Biweekly is when you are paid every two weeks. Very confusing but this is the languages businesses use! With biweekly you collect 26 checks per year, with bimonthly, 24.