Tuesday, March 11, 2008

All Major Bills Due Beginning of Month!

The other day I was going over our budget and our checking account and freaking out. My fiance and I try to keep a minimum of $1,000 in our checking account. That may be high but that's the level we both agreed we would feel comfortable with so that's where we try to keep it.

The problem is that all our major bills are due at the beginning of the month. So we get paid at the beginning of the month and our bills such as rent, credit card, 2 cars, and other smaller ones are due before we get our second paychecks. I realized this month that this brings our checking account balance down very low to a level we are definately not comfortable under $300. We will get paid again mid month and there will be a couple bills to be paid but a majority of those paychecks will go towards our different savings goals and we will end the month off with exactly $1,000 in our checking account.

Right now I am wondering if we shouldn't end the month off with closer to $1,500 in our checking account so that mid month we don't get below $500. Or does it really make a difference? We have plenty of money in our savings that we can transfer over if needed to pay a certain bill if we do get close to running out of money in our checking account. I feel as long as I keep good track of how low my checking account balance goes and make sure I don't overdraw on funds I should be alright. It is really only about one week out of the month where that balance is well below our $1,000 comfort level anyways.

I think we will continue to do what we currently do and if things get to tight we can transfer some of the money over from savings. I wish that our bills were more spread out. The current situation makes me sad at the beginning of the month but very happy towards the end. This is because I'm paying out a bunch of checks at the beginning and then only at the end do we get to see our savings going up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another thought is moving some bills mid-month. I have rent at the beginning of the month (obviously), but take out my Roth IRA contributions and pay my credit cards mid month.

I'm also comfortable with a lot less in checking. In fact, when it gets above $1000 I start wondering if I should transfer some to savings.

Anonymous said...

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