Household Budget: Controlling Summer Spending

One of the things I have noticed over the years is how much more money I spend during the summer than at any other time of the year. Controlling summer spending is something that is hard to do, since there are so many things available to spend money on. Consider:

• Increased electric bill as the air conditioning is turned on.
• Family events and reunions lead to increased travel.
• Summer vacations.
• Activities for children who are out of school (day camp and the like).
• Eating out as the summer schedule messes up meal planning.
• Home improvement and yard projects.

There are some things that are a little cheaper. Fresh produce means less money spent on food, and the fact that our garden starts to yield its bounty is also helpful. But that savings doesn’t do much to offset the costs of summer spending.

One thing we have done is use personal finance software to take a look at our overall spending throughout the previous year. Then we average it out to a monthly amount. We set aside, in a high yield savings account, the “extra” money from our overall average. That helps reduce the impact of our increased summer spending.

Do you find you have to resort to budget tricks in order to offset summer spending?