Is it possible to automatically split my budget between two unique SSA deposit schedules?

tampamamba

My spouse and I are both in our seventies, and life is good enough so far to provide enough to scrape by...but no float exists.

Ninety five percent of our income is direct deposited from two social security checks.
My spouse's SSA arrives on the third of each month (or if the third falls on a weekend-the first). My SSA arrives on the third Wednesday of each month.

I want to budget for two spending periods each month. Period A would begin on the arrival of my spouse's SSA (no later than the third day of the month), and end on the arrival of my SSA, on the third Wednesday of the month, which would start Period B. Period B would last until Period A of the next month, and so on.

Can I set this up in Quicken? If so, how? I am tired of transferring my quicken information to my excel program into which I have manually scheduled 24 different mini-budgets.

Help me if you can... this variable deposit schedule, combined with our total dependence causes too many errors and overdrafts that we can't afford.

Sherlock

Quicken's budgeting tool provides an annual budget that may be set by month.  To manage your spending, I suggest you try using Quicken's reminders and projected balances.   The reminders enable us to schedule potential transactions and the projected balances enable us to see the impact the future transactions will have on the account balances.  If you haven't already, you may want to review: https://www.quicken.com/how-project-balances-and-cash-flow

NotACPA

Sorry, but Q can budget by the Month only.

BUT, if both SSA checks are going into the same checking account ... how about setting up Billing & Income reminders, and simply look at the current and future balances in that account?

Those reminders will give you a pretty good idea of when money is coming in and going out.

Sherlock

Quicken's budgeting tool provides an annual budget that may be set by month.  To manage your spending, I suggest you try using Quicken's reminders and projected balances.   The reminders enable us to schedule potential transactions and the projected balances enable us to see the impact the future transactions will have on the account balances.  If you haven't already, you may want to review: https://www.quicken.com/how-project-balances-and-cash-flow

NotACPA

Sorry, but Q can budget by the Month only.

BUT, if both SSA checks are going into the same checking account ... how about setting up Billing & Income reminders, and simply look at the current and future balances in that account?

Those reminders will give you a pretty good idea of when money is coming in and going out.

tampamamba

Thanks for the thought, I simply want to do it the way that will create the least pressure on my spouse and I, who have memory issues.

I do know that from a technical standpoint it's possible to make a more flexible algorithm. So why shouldn't Quicken do it?> @NotACPA said:

> Sorry, but Q can budget by the Month only.BUT, if both SSA checks are going into the same checking account ... how about setting up Billing & Income reminders, and simply look at the current and future balances in that account?Those reminders will give you a pretty good idea of when money is coming in and going out.

tampamamba

At one time, before I reached my lazy age, I knew how to do all these things, and the point is not, how can I do it differently, and overcome the issue, but how can I do it my way...

David Christopher

You can make two budgets. Call one Martha's (a) and the other John's (b). Select the proper income and spending categories for each budget. For this to work very accurately you DO NOT want to use the same categories in the both budgets. 

In our case, my wife and I, my income pays for what I call fixed costs; house, car, utilities, Insurances etc and my wife's income pays for groceries, dining and general shopping categories.

If you do this for a few months and get the idea, you can then make a third budget that combines the first two and use all three a few months until you are comfortable and want to delete the first two.