Can You Have Fun without Going Broke This Summer?

You’re daydreaming about your summer plans. You’re imagining road trips and cottage visits, restaurant dinners and patio brunches, afternoons by the pool and evenings on the dancefloor. You want to squeeze every exciting activity that you can think of into the season.

The only problem with your plans is the cost. Your bank account can’t handle all of these expenses in such a short amount of time. Read ahead to find out how you can find a good balance between managing money and summer fun:

Make a Good Budget

Before you start making any plans, you need to make a budget to see exactly where you stand financially. Calculate all of your necessary monthly expenses like housing, utilities, transportation, and groceries. Subtract that from your income and see what’s left. A portion of this can be used for summer fun.

Why not all of it? If you spend the rest of your budget on expenses like event tickets, takeout food, and swimwear, you’re going to put yourself in a financially risky spot. If a sudden unexpected expense crops up, you’re not going to have enough money to cover it right away. Nothing will ruin your summer fun like a bill you can’t afford.

If you want to avoid this kind of trouble, click here to look through the financial resources from MoneyKey to see how you can save more for your summer budget and how installment loans could help you get through an unexpected emergency expense.

Get Back to Nature

Exploring the outdoors for an afternoon won’t come with a huge price-tag. At the most, you’ll need to pay for gas, parking, and bug spray. So, go for a hike on a nature trail. Go for a picnic in a national park. Go soak up the sun on a sandy beach and cool off in the water.

You can also save on travel costs by setting your sights on spots that are close to home. Enjoy a picnic, bike ride, or leisurely stroll at your local park. It will be a perfect way to enjoy the great outdoors without spending a fortune.

Bring the Party Home

Going to a club, bar, restaurant, or concert is fine once in a while, but making it a weekend habit could hurt the bank. Instead of going downtown to hang out with friends, invite them to your place. It will be perfect if you have a yard, balcony, or rooftop patio to lounge on. Then, you can enjoy the warm weather and save yourself some money.

If you’re worried about the price-tag that comes with hosting a party, there are lots of ways to make your plans more affordable. You can host a potluck so that every guest brings a delicious dish to share with the entire table. To shrink the cost of drinks, you can make summer batch cocktails instead of stocking your fridge with different bottles of wine, beer and cider. Or, better yet, make it BYOB. Then, you only have to worry about filling your own cup.

Fight the FOMO

The term “FOMO” means the fear of missing out. You’re worried that everyone else has more fun and more money to burn than you.

The anxious and envious feeling can sour your entire summer. Try your best to focus on your experiences. You can’t live in the moment and enjoy yourself when you’re busy wondering what everyone else is doing. If that’s not enough, look up other ways to cope with FOMO so that you don’t spend three months feeling glum — or worse, push yourself to overspend to keep up with the Joneses.

Ignore the temptation to spend beyond your means this summer. You can still have a wonderful time with your friends and make amazing memories while sticking to a savvy budget.