Retire In Style

How to Budget Bills with Biweekly Paychecks?

Budgeting is tough enough when you are working with a weekly pay schedule – but budgeting with biweekly paychecks throws an entirely different curveball into the mix that you might have to contend with.

budgeting bills with biweekly paychecks

Thankfully though, with just a little bit of due diligence (and armed with the inside information we highlight below) you’ll be able to tackle budgeting with biweekly paychecks a whole lot easier than you might have in the past.

Split Your Biweekly Checks Into Two

The very first thing you’ll want to do is get a hold of at least a month’s worth of biweekly paychecks (and ideally three months or so worth of biweekly paychecks) to figure out what your average individual paycheck looks like over a 14 day block of time.

Once you have your average, simply split that into two – basically breaking things down to your “weekly” pay.

Factor In All of Your Monthly Expenses

The next piece of the puzzle for budgeting with biweekly paychecks is to go through all of your bank statements, credit card charges, etc. to find your monthly expenses and add them all up.

You want to add each and every single one of your monthly expenses up into one big number – then worked to divide that number by two as well. This tells you exactly how much money you’ll need to set aside in your savings account every two weeks to cover your bills and your bills alone. Divide this number by four and you’ll know how much you need to sock away every week to cover your bases, too.

Don’t Forget About Your Bonus Checks

The beautiful thing about this approach to budgeting with biweekly paychecks is that you’re going to be doing a little bit of napkin accounting with 24 paychecks in mind.

In reality, however, folks getting paid on a biweekly basis can expect to land 26 checks every year. That means there are going to be to individual paychecks that aren’t accounted for when it comes to factoring in your monthly expenses and savings goals – and that means that these are two “free” paychecks that you can use to pay down your debt, set aside for increased savings, or do something else entirely with (it’s totally up to you).

At the end of the day, you’ll want to make sure that you are focused on doing your best when it comes to budgeting with biweekly paychecks. There’s definitely a little bit more planning and a little bit more “elbow grease” that has to happen behind the scenes to make a biweekly paycheck process work – but it definitely can work.

Hopefully the help provided in the quick guide above helps you hit the ground running with biweekly budgeting, giving you all the details you need to get started on your road to the financial freedom you definitely deserve!

And with that, we officially end this blog post. But before you go, can you do us a solid and spread the love (or laughter) by sharing this on your social media? Who knows, maybe we might even find someone who can relate to our content and benefit from it... Wink