Hi everyone,

Here's my problem, I work 28 days on and 28 days off which means i get a different paycheck every 2 weeks.

I have been playing with spreadsheets trying to figure out a way to forecast my pay so it is easier to manage my money.

For Example 1st payday I get 2500
2nd payday I get 6800
3rd payday I get 5000
4th payday I get 0

It repeats this cycle over and over so its a pain to manage monthly income. I have about 300 left over after all items are taken out for the budget so if I make a mistake it can get me upside down really quick.

Is there a spreadsheet or a program that I could set my paydays and bills up in that would forecast it out for the next 2 months or more and make it easier to manage. Im trying to snowball my debt but because of these crazy paydays I'm scared to take that 300 and put it towards anything in case I have missed some expense. Basically I have a month where I dont get a paycheck and this last time I had to get a pawn loan because I missed an expense that was due a month away.

I'm sure to some of you this is very simple but to me it's very frustrating.

For me, I manage our budget by taking the allocated budget money out of each of our paychecks and putting it in a seperate account(s). Than I pay the bills/manage the budget out of that account and it makes it a lot easier to not go over budget.

so I don't overspend on groceries/household, I make sure to track that expense closely and in the beginning I'd take the allocated amount in cash and when it was spent, that was it until the next month. This amount can be broken down to a weekly amount.

Look at it this way: You have $14300 coming for a two month period, or $7150/mo. If your expenses/budget is $14000 or $6850/mo (assuming the $300 left over is for the 2 month period):

For Example 1st payday I get 2500 - put $2400 towards bill/budget
2nd payday I get 6800 - put 6700 towards bill/budget
3rd payday I get 5000 - put $4900 towards bill/budget
4th payday I get 0

Since you are cutting things very closely, you might benefit by tracking your spending for a few months to see why you don't have a lot of wiggle room in your budget and where you can cut back so that you can make the most of your snowball plan.

Feel free to check out my budget workbook that can be downloaded below. I use this in conjuction with Quicken to manage our accounts and expenses.

Good luck!!

Thanks for the suggestions. I have been using Yodlee for the last month to try and narrow my expenses down and see what I can cut. That is an awesome spreadsheet, looks like it took alot of time to make. Thanks for the help.

Quicken. You can set up as many paychecks and for whatever amount and date you want. I have my husbands checks (7th and 22nd set up) as future deposits. I then have my income (sparatic and different amounts) set up each time for a different amount.

With Quicken it will tell your prospective balance after deposits and bills, etc forever. I love it.