Extra paycheck...what to do?

Posted 09/30/2012

DH and I are paid bi-weekly.  His is the (significantly) larger check, especially at this time of year - lots of OT.  We use YNAB, and our budget is based on 4 checks per month, two from each of us. 

This will be our first winter on YNAB.  In the past we haven't really budgeted at all...we just know when to cut back in March, April and May before his OT kicks in again.  Heading into winter this year, we have a full 1-month buffer.

My dilemma is this: Since we started YNAB, we haven't had a normal base pay month yet.  We probably won't have one until November, which means not budgeting that until December.  I don't really know how close we'll be to covering our costs.  Right now, we are able to put a lot into our sinking funds for long-term projects.  I'm wondering whether I should:

1. put our balance this month (we had some miscellaneous income that hasn't been budgeted yet) and the extra paycheck from next month into our sinking funds (this is what we've been doing all summer)

2. try to stick it into some of our budget line items that are bigger, so if/when we have a lower pay month that doesn't cover everything we want in our budget, we can 'skip' one of those budget categories

3. create a new budget category for "Winter" or something like that so we can pull from it to cover things wherever needed over the winter

I know ultimately it's not a big deal...whichever option I choose will end up with the same ultimate result, but I have never had to put a negative number in a sinking fund to cover budgeting for another category.  I like to think of those as untouchable after the money goes in.  If you've come up against this, what have you done?

Comments (1)

sfess · Original Poster
Posted 09/30/2012

Also, I'm trying to think about what the repercussions for this would be on my reports...if I understand how they work correctly, this will have NO impact on them whatsoever, as long as negatively budget from wherever I stash the extra money and positively budget it into the correct line item as needed.  Then the reports will pull from the categorizations in my actual expenditures, right?

What's on your mind?

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