Budget your driving week around the costs that do not move

Driving is an unpredictable job. A good week, a quiet week, a week the car is in the shop. Most budgeting advice is written for people with a payslip, and it does not fit a life where income changes every seven days.

So here is a different way to do it. Do not start with what you will earn. Start with what you know you will spend.

Step one: list the costs that do not move

Some costs come every week whether you drive 20 hours or 60. Write them down first. For most drivers the list looks something like this:

• Car payment, rental or subscription.
• Insurance, if it is not already in your car payment.
• Your weekly plan or any other subscription you pay.
• Phone and data.
• Rent, school fees and money you send home, divided into a weekly amount.
• Anything you owe that comes off each week.

Add them up. That number is your floor. It is what a week has to earn before you have made a cent for yourself.

Step two: put the costs that move next to it

Fuel or charging, tolls, car washes, food on the road. These go up and down with how much you drive. Look back at your last four weeks and take an average, then add a little for the busy weeks.

Now you know two things: what a week costs you to stand still, and roughly what it costs you per hour on the road. That is more useful than any earnings estimate.

Step three: set aside money for the week that goes wrong

Every driver has the week the car breaks, the week a child gets sick, the week the app is quiet. It is not if, it is when. Even a small amount put away each good week means that week does not start with a scramble.

Keep that money somewhere you will not spend it by accident. A separate account works. So does a rule: 'This is for the car only.'

Why fixed costs are a gift

Drivers who move to a flat weekly plan tell me the peace of mind is worth more than they expected. Not because it is cheaper, but because they know what it is. What you pay this week is what you pay next week.

That is why Detour's plans are one flat weekly amount that you can write down. You see it before you join, and it does not change from one week to the next. You can put it in your list in step one and stop thinking about it.

Where borrowing fits, and where it does not

If your budget shows that a normal week does not cover your fixed costs, borrowing will not fix that. It will move the gap to next week and add a cost to it. The answer there is to change a fixed cost: a cheaper car arrangement, a plan that fits, more hours in the busy windows.

Short-term borrowing is for a one-off: the repair, the licence disk, the slow week in an otherwise good month. If you do borrow, put the repayment in your budget before you ask. Say you borrow R1 000 and the lender charges R200 on top: that is R1 200 coming out of next week. Ask yourself honestly whether next week can carry that and your floor.

And ask for the full cost in rands before you sign, not a percentage and not a 'small fee'. If the person offering the money cannot tell you exactly what you will pay back and when, that is your answer.

A ten-minute weekly habit

1. At the end of each week, write down what you earned and what you spent.
2. Check it against your floor. Did the week cover it?
3. Move something into your 'week that goes wrong' money, even a little.
4. Look at next week. Is anything big coming? A service, a licence, a school trip?
5. Decide your hours for next week based on that, not on how you feel on the day.

Ten minutes, once a week. Most drivers who do this tell me the biggest change is not the money. It is that the week stops feeling like it is happening to them.