Summer can be a tricky time if you are trying to follow a budget especially when you want to have fun with the family. You don’t have to let the summer be the reason that your budget starts to fail. With some organisation and planning, you can still have lots of fun without ruining all the hard work you have already put in.
How To Stay On Budget During The Summer
Make a plan
Having a good plan in place before the summer starts is a guaranteed route to success when it comes to your budget. Decide which days you want to do the fun activities on and make specific budgets for them. For example, you could choose two activities per week that you know will require a spend and make a sinking fund for those. Planning like this makes it more likely that you won’t blow your budget.
You should also plan for quieter days at home, you don’t need to fill every day with excitement or entertainment.
Follow a routine
During the summer when school is out routine also tends to go out the window too and this can be detrimental to your budget. Keeping a good routine in place even if it’s slightly different to normal means that everything stays on track. When routines like sleeping and eating are disrupted spending habits are often disrupted too.
Find fun for free
There are so many things that you can do for fun this summer for totally free. I wrote this post: Summer fun on a budget which contains lots of ideas for free fun.
Meal plan
The main culprit for blowing the budget is food spending, having everyone home during the summer no doubt leads to an increased demand for snacks. Having a solid meal plan in place, including snacks is the best way to avoid overspending. Keeping meals really simple can help as well, appetites often decrease in the hot weather. You could make up a daily snack box for each person so everybody knows exactly what is available.
Involve the family
Instead of trying to come up with fun ideas for the summer on your own, involve the whole family in the decision-making process. Often kids will come up with fun and cheap ideas that you hadn’t even considered. You could make it a challenge for each person to come up with the most fun thing you can do for free or super cheap.