Savings challenges for fortnightly and four-weekly pay: schedules for 2027

The number of paydays depends on the pay cycle and on the date of your first payday of the year. 2027 starts on a Friday, which matters for people paid on Fridays.

Four-weekly pay means one calendar month a year has two paydays. With a first payday of 8 January 2027, that month is April (2 and 30 April). Fortnightly pay means two months have three paydays; on the same dates, April (2, 16 and 30) and October (1, 15 and 29).

The 52-week challenge saves £1 in week one, £2 in week two and so on to £52, for £1,378 in total. You can keep that total and change only when you save. There are two ways to do it on each cycle: climbing amounts, as in the original, or the same amount every payday.

The flat versions are often the better choice. On four-weekly pay, £1,378 divides exactly into 13 payments of £106, and on fortnightly pay into 26 payments of £53, so a single standing order does the whole challenge.

Here is the climbing version for someone paid every four weeks from Friday 8 January 2027. Each payday covers four weeks of the challenge.

The climbing version ends with £202 on 10 December, just before Christmas. If that is the wrong time for your biggest save, run it the other way round (£202 in January down to £10 in December), or use the flat £106.

The 1p challenge adds a penny a day, from 1p on day one to £3.65 on day 365, for £667.95. Moving pennies every day is fiddly, so batch the days between paydays.

A payday ladder is the simplest challenge to set up for any cycle: save a little more each payday than the last. Pick the step that fits your budget.

With a £5 step on fortnightly pay, the first payday is £5 and the 26th is £130. Check the last few paydays will fit before you start; they are where a ladder gets hard.

If you are paid every two or four weeks, most of your bills still go out monthly. That means the month with the extra payday has more money coming in than usual for the same bills. Decide now what happens to it, before it arrives and gets absorbed.

A good rule is to save a set share of the extra payday, such as half, and leave the rest for anything the budget missed. On four-weekly pay, that one extra payday a year can be the main event of your savings plan. You can also use it to top up a sinking fund for annual bills, which our guide to running sinking funds alongside a challenge explains.

If you claim Universal Credit, extra paydays can affect your payment. gov.uk says that if you are paid every 4 weeks, once a year you will have an assessment period with 2 paydays, and if you are paid every 2 weeks, twice a year you will have one with 3 (Universal Credit and earnings, gov.uk). Plan for those months before counting the extra pay as spare.

If you are self-employed, on a zero-hours contract or paid by shift, fixed amounts can work in a good month and fail in a bad one. A percentage challenge grows and shrinks with what you earn. Save a set share of every payment, with a small minimum for any payment you receive, so lean months still count.

As an example, six payments of £1,200, £180, £1,600, nothing, £2,100 and £950 add up to £6,030. Saving 10% of each gives £603. Adding a £25 minimum for any payment you receive lifts the £180 payment's save from £18 to £25, for £610 in total. The month with no payment saves nothing, and that is fine.

Keep a buffer for the low months before you count anything as savings. Our guide to budgeting on an irregular income covers how to build one.

Whatever the cycle, the challenge works best as a transfer that happens on payday, before the money is spent. A standing order set to the day after payday handles any flat version. For climbing versions, set a reminder for each payday. SYM, our app, can track a challenge on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly rhythm, so you see the amount due each payday. To see how long a bigger goal would take at your payday amount, use the savings goal calculator, or check any start date with the 52-week challenge calculator.