Are you stressing about summer spending? I share proven summer preservation tips to prevent your finances from diminishing.
Summer is one of my favorite seasons, but honestly, it can be fast and expensive! During holidays, extra activities with kids, dining outdoors, and seduction of treats at all farmers’ markets, sunny days can hit your wallet.
When we prepared for a renovation of our home in the summer of 2023, we tried not to spend any really unnecessary dollars. Fortunately, many of these budgeting tweaks continue! This year, we look at our budgets back and forth while we’re on a big trip now. The rest of the year is planning on traveling in points to save money thanks to the world of great travel rewards.
In today’s post, I’ll share my favorite summer saving tips to help you enjoy the season without overexpending. Here are some of my summer saving tips!
My best summer saving tips
1. Make a plan for all your dollars.
I consider myself a PhD budgeter! I love using ynab to manage our money. (This is the blog post I did about it.) My brother-in-law and I have regular chats with YNAB about budgeting. And if you want to nerdy towards the maximum level, listen to the Budget NERDS podcast (by YNAB employees, you can make me laugh about how nerdy we are).
Using budgeting software makes me feel very organized and gives me all the dollars at work.
2. We communicate summer costs throughout the year.
In the summer there are always summer pool payments, beach trips where you can’t use travel rewards, and summer camps for kids. Showing my summer expenses has traveled back my months. I take everything from once a year car and liability insurance to birthday and Christmas season categories. Split the annual fee for 12 months and then put it aside each month to avoid any surprising expenses.
3. Learn to travel for free.
Summer is the season for travel! There is an email course if you want to share your credit card strategy about travel rewards and learn to get started. When we visited Willow Grove inn, I paid it with our Capital One Venture X card and then wiped out almost the whole thing using the points I was sitting there! If you can turn a $350 hotel into a $50 hotel, it will save you all the best luxury living and money in one.
4. Trade services.
A great way to save money is to trade services with friends and neighbors. If you’re traveling a lot, swapping a sitting pet with a neighbor can save hundreds of dollars for both of you. My parents sat and swapped cats with their neighbor Susan for decades. There are so many creative ways to trade your skills for others – we should all do this more! (If you are trading in comments, we will share it.)
And if trade is not an option, then there may be a way to embrace your habits, so you are at least paying less for what you are already using.
5. Grow food.
It’s the season for a wealth of agricultural products. Certainly, we have not had a strong garden for a few years, but my in-laws have a great garden and will tell us some of their rich vegetables! But you can start small things – the basil factory offering pesto will save you from buying in the store 🙂
