Paid fortnightly? Your budget should be too
Why monthly budgets fight fortnightly pay, and the small change that makes them work together.
A lot of New Zealanders are paid every second Wednesday or Thursday. A lot of budgeting tools reset on the first of the month. Those two calendars don't line up, and it shows.
The two-pay months and the three-pay months
A year has 26 fortnightly pay days but only 12 months. So most months you're paid twice, and twice a year you're paid three times. A monthly budget swings between feeling tight and feeling generous for no reason except the calendar. People start to ignore it, and then it's not a budget any more.
Line the budget up with the pay
When your groceries, petrol and eating out reset on payday, each budget covers exactly what one pay has to cover. The spare money in a three-pay month stops vanishing into everyday spending, and you can send it somewhere on purpose: a goal, the home loan, or an actual brunch.
Not everything is fortnightly
Some costs follow the month, like rent paid on the first, phone plans and subscriptions. Others make sense weekly. That's why Worthberry lets every budget pick its own rhythm: weekly, fortnightly or monthly, with fortnightly ones lined up to your payday.
Want to try it? Our guide to setting up budgets that follow your pay walks through it in a couple of minutes.