Creating a weekly budget for your family can be the easiest or the most complicated task, depending on how you approach it. Based on information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 30% of Americans are paid weekly. This resonated with my own experiences in managing weekly budgets for various clients. On paper, it sounds like a good thing, right? More liquidity and opportunities to plan expenses. Having worked with many families in similar financial circumstances, I’ve seen firsthand the advantages this approach can bring.
When I first started creating a weekly budget for my family, it felt like trying to put a puzzle together without knowing what the full picture looks like. I can tell you from experience, it’s a whole different game compared to creating a monthly budget or even just planning grocery expenses.
It’s not the same as creating a monthly budget or a simple grocery budget. But fear not! I am here. Drawing from my years of hands-on experience in family budgeting, I’ve honed a method that simplifies this daunting task. By working closely with families, learning from their unique needs, and testing different strategies, I’ve crafted a system that’s both approachable and effective. The insights I’ve gained from these real-life scenarios form the backbone of the method I’m excited to share with you.
Why a Weekly Budget?
While having a weekly budget might feel like an overkill for most, considering how many people don’t like doing it—1 out of every 3 Americans don’t think they need a budget—it does have its advantages.
Financial Flexibility
Monthly expenses such as rent, car payments, and student loans are easy to manage with a monthly budget. What about the little expenses such as grocery shopping, dining out, emergencies, and other variable expenses? These are much harder to plan for in the long run.
Here’s something I’ve learned from managing my own family’s finances: having a weekly budget opens up new levels of financial flexibility. I’ve been able to track our weekly transactions, pinpoint exactly where we were spending unnecessarily, and identify those tricky financial black holes. Let me guide you through the specific steps I took to turn this into a manageable process.
Fewer Transactions
Budgeting is tedious and frustrating because there are lines upon lines of transactions to track. I find that breaking this down into a weekly exercise reduces the number of transactions to track and makes it less frustrating. When I am less frustrated, I am more likely to actually do it without tearing my hair out. I hope that rings true for you too!
Also see: How to spend less money without feeling deprived
Manage Your Paychecks
If you or your spouse is paid weekly or bi-weekly, then a weekly or bi-weekly budget is absolutely necessary. There will be months when you have five paychecks (for weekly people) or three (for bi-weekly people). These extra paychecks can go toward your emergency fund or long-term financial goals. Or hey, what about that vacation you have been dreaming about?
Assessing Your Income and Expenses
Before you can budget for your money, you need to know how much you are actually bringing in every week. I like to focus on the regular or standard income instead of the odd jobs here and there. One way to do it, especially if you are a visual learner, is to color code your paydays. If, for example, you are paid every Friday, all the Fridays on your calendar should be designated as payday and color-coded. The color coding will help you visually assign each paycheck to a designated financial duty or budget category, such as debt repayment, savings, groceries, and so on. And who doesn’t love a good color coding activity? If, on the other hand, you work in the “gig economy” and don’t exactly have a set paycheck amount every week, you can use budgeting tools or apps to track your income and expenses. Over time, these apps will give you an average of how much you make every week; from that, you can create a workable weekly budget.
Also see: 12 ideas to help stop spending money
Creating Your Weekly Budget
Once you have critically assessed your weekly income and expenses, it’s time to come up with the budget. While there are many weekly budget templates available online, I prefer to create my own budget spreadsheet. This way, I can customize it as I see fit. The issue with using templates is that once you see the template, the line items on it will subliminally guide your budget, and in some cases, that just might not work with your lifestyle. With that in mind, here are my steps for creating a weekly budget.
Determine Your Earnings
We already touched on this when talking about assessing income and expenses, but let’s go a bit deeper. Start by determining how much you earn per week. If you don’t have a static salary like many people today, use budgeting apps to determine the average or simply determine the average based on the last three months.
Add Up All Your Expenses
There’s a good chance that you have variable expenses from week to week. This is where you need to pay close attention. How much you spend will determine how much you can save or how much credit card debt you can cut into by the end of the week. Add up everything, including the bills you find ridiculous or want to put out of your mind. This will not only determine your cash flow but will also give you a clear picture of your actual spending habits, and from that, you can determine which changes need to be made to cut down on your weekly spending. Yes, it has to be done.
Also See: How to Save Money From Salary Without Sacrificing Your Lifestyle
Categorize Your Spending
There are fixed expenses that can’t be avoided. Things like transportation (gas), grocery shopping (although this can be amended to fit the budget), and the electric bill (you can split this into weekly expenses to make it light at the end of the month or sign up for budget billing). Call these mandatory expenses. Then there are lifestyle expenses such as coffee from Starbucks (obviously non-negotiable), takeout, weekend hangouts, etc. Once you have a clear picture of what is mandatory and what is a lifestyle need or want, you are halfway to actually streamlining your weekly budget. You will find that there are a lot of lifestyle expenses you can do without if you really put your mind to it. Maybe compromise and only go to Starbucks every other day?
Cut Spending
I remember a time when our lifestyle expenses were spiraling out of control, and bad debt was looming. Sound familiar? I sat down, analyzed our balance sheet, and realized our expenses were over 80% of our weekly income. That was a wake-up call! It wasn’t easy, but I managed to bring that down significantly. Here’s my personal approach to trimming the fat without sacrificing the joy in life.
Aim for somewhere around the 50-60% mark, and you will have enough money left over for your savings account and investments. I should mention that your first weekly budget attempt won’t be perfect. Chances are you will aim too high and frustrate yourself or aim too low and not achieve your broader financial goals fast enough. Finding the sweet spot takes practice and some creative tweaking. The idea is to keep reviewing the budget from week to week until you find a system that works perfectly for you and your family. Remember, when the income increases, please fight the urge to increase the expenses with everything you have. Instead, increase the savings.