How to Budget for Summer When You're on a 9-Month Salary

In my previous life, I was a professor. And everyone knows that a huge perk of working in education is getting your “summers off” 🤪. While I never got to take a full summer off, my paycheck certainly did! 

Our academic year ran from mid-September through mid-June, so I got 10 paychecks. Eight full and two partial (equivalent to 9 months of pay), with July and August completely paycheck-free. At that point in our lives, Mike stayed at home with E, which meant there were zero dollars coming in during the summer unless I managed to land summer funding (which did happen a few times). 

When I first started, I missed the HR deadline to have my paychecks spread evenly across the 12 months of the year. Missing the deadline actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I realized that if I parked the “extra” money from my paychecks into a high yield savings account (HYSA), we could earn some interest on it. After that first year, I actively chose to manually move some of my paycheck funds into a savings account and get some “free” money in return instead of having the university distribute my paychecks across the year (and get nothing!).

Yes, my income was irregular, but it was predictably irregular. I knew exactly which months would be lean. That made planning pretty straightforward, and it worked a lot like sinking funds.

How I Set Up Our Summer Funds

First, we got clear on our monthly expenses: What our bills totaled to (monthly and irregular), our average and highest spending on variable expenses like medical bills, gas for the car, entertainment, groceries, etc. We included everything we could possibly think of (within reason), so when in doubt, include it! Having a detailed budget certainly helped this process go smoothly.

Alternatively, you can start with your annual take-home pay and divide it by 12 to get the amount of money coming in each month. You can sometimes calculate this through your university's HR system, or just use your prior year's paychecks as an estimate. We use zero-based budgeting, so our monthly income equals our monthly expenses.

Looking back at our budget from my academic days, our monthly expenses totaled $4,267, so I’ll use that for this example. 

From there, I figured out exactly which months I’d get a full paycheck, which months would be paycheck free, and which months would have a partial paycheck. For partial paycheck months make sure to determine what percentage of your full paycheck you receive. 

I had 8 full check months (October through May), 2 partial paycheck months that were half of my regular paycheck (June and September), and 2 paycheck free months (July and August).

Next, I added up the total amount I’d need for my paycheck free and partial paycheck months. 

$2,134 for June 
$4,267 for July
$4,267 for August
$2,134 for September

$12,802 total for summer

After figuring out our total, I calculated how much to set aside from my 8 regular paychecks. I took our summer total of $12,802 and divided it by 8 to find this amount.

 $12,802/8 ≈ $1,600

So October through May, I took $1,600 from my paychecks and moved it into savings.

This is essentially what HR would have done by spreading my salary across 12 months, except here, the money sat in our HYSA earning interest while we waited. On a balance that grew throughout the year, that meant a few hundred extra dollars by summer, just for keeping it in our account.

Finally, we used our saved money! Once June rolled around, I pulled $2,134 from savings, though I’d usually wait until later in the month to see what we actually needed. If we didn’t need the full amount, we kept the extra in savings. 

For July, I’d pull the full $4,267. If we didn’t end up spending the full amount that month, I'd only move enough in August to bring us back up to $4,267, leaving any extra in savings as a bonus.

If your expenses and/or income change during the year, don’t forget to adjust your calculations to make sure you’re still on track to have summer covered. Also, if you have a partner that has an income and you share finances, incorporate their earnings into your calculations. Mike got a part-time job towards the end of my time as a professor which allowed us to reduce the amount we had to set aside for summer funding.

What If You Go Over Budget?

This system works really well if your spending is fairly predictable. Of course, life happens, and some summers cost more than you planned for. Here are a few things that helped us and are worth building in if you can.

• Round up when you estimate expenses. When calculating your monthly expenses, be generous. Include everything you can think of and then add a little buffer. It's much easier to have a small surplus at the end of summer than to come up short in August.

• Have a separate emergency fund. These summer funds are for covering regular bills and spending, not emergencies. Having a separate emergency fund meant that if something unexpected came up, we weren't raiding the money we needed to get through the summer.

• Don't forget irregular expenses. Things like car registration, annual subscriptions, back-to-school costs, etc. Make sure to factor them into your expense estimate.

• Pad your savings with unexpected income. We’d often put some of our tax refund, or cash gifts/bonuses, or any leftover money during the month into savings to serve as an extra cushion.

• Use a high yield savings account. Any interest earned can be used to offset overspending.

That being said, we are not big spenders and tend to err on the side of frugality, which definitely made this process easier. I realize that's not everyone's default mode. If you tend to spend more when money is available, moving your funds into savings immediately, before it mingles with spending money, is probably the most important part of this whole system. Or just have HR redistribute your paychecks for you so it completely takes the option away! 

Final Thoughts

I actually really enjoyed getting paid this way. Watching the HYSA balance earn interest felt like a small win every month. And in years where I did have summer funding, that income was truly a bonus. It kinda made me wish I could just receive a lump-sum salary for the year and manage it myself. 

Future post on how we handle my current, truly irregular business income is coming. It’s definitely been more of a learning curve.