Budgeting software for biweekly paychecks?

May 22, 2014 9:39 AM

This question was posted three years ago, but none of the answers seemed to have worked out and technology moves so fast that I thought I'd check in. Is there a budgeting program that will let me do a biweekly budget?

Preferred features include: app (for iphone); ability to set up recurring bills on a monthly basis too (e.g. my Netflix is billed on the 8th, so that biweekly budget should include Netflix while the other doesn't). Syncing with bank accounts is essential; if I wanted to manually enter transactions, I'd just use Excel.

I've tried YNAB and Mint, but have found them unfriendly towards biweekly paychecks. The previous poster got more financial advice than I think they anticipated, so just to be clear: I have a savings account and am not living paycheck to paycheck, and I do live my life and think of my finances on a biweekly basis so monthly budgeting just doesn't really work well for me.

Does this software/app exist?

posted by c'mon sea legs to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Biweekly paychecks is nearly the norm in the US. All of these programs are fine with whatever frequency of income you have, but they do set budgets on a calendar month (28-31 days). This is because most people think of budgeting big monthly bills like rent, mortgage, loan payments. It also means you only reconcile your budget and accounts 12 times a year.

Are you looking for something that would let you budget 50% of your rent from one check, and 50% from the next? These bills happen every month, and importantly, not every month will contain 2 pay periods. Thus, if your month was a 3 paycheck month, you wouldn't need to budget 50% of rent from paychecks 1 and 2 and 3.

Importantly, the interval of your budget is an arbitrary abstraction. If you're not living paycheck to paycheck, it doesn't really matter what interval your budget is in.
posted by fontophilic at 11:51 AM on May 22, 2014

YNAB handles this. Their blog on fortnightly paychecks.
posted by viggorlijah at 7:10 PM on May 22, 2014

I also thought YNAB wouldn't work very well for biweeklies, but the tutorials had some good solutions. I chose the method of budgeting according to the total that comes in most months. For the two extra-paycheck months, we distribute some where extra is needed, and dump the rest into our emergency fund. (I don't remember the other options; sorry.)
posted by moira at 9:38 PM on May 22, 2014