You told yourself you’d be more intentional this year — and then Memorial Day weekend showed up, your friends started texting, and you committed to the trips, the concerts, the rooftop brunches. If you’re being honest, your emotions made spending decisions before your budget could catch up and now you’re staring at your bank account wondering where your money went.
In this episode I’m talking about something most people completely ignore when they decide to become intentional with their finances. Just like the weather has seasons, so does your spending — and if your budget doesn’t change with it, summer will show up, do exactly what summer does, and you’ll be standing in September full of regret. When the sun comes out your calendar fills up, your kids’ activities change, your dining out doubles, and your “I deserve this” moments start showing up everywhere. And none of that is a problem unless you never made space for it in your budget.
I’m inviting you to take a quick pause right now to get in front of your summer spending so you can go into the season with a real plan and come out of it without the guilt, the shame, or the credit card hangover.
In this episode, I walk you through how to actually prepare. Because going into summer with a plan means coming out of it feeling proud of how you spent your money.
In this episode you’ll learn…
- [00:02:00] Why your budget needs to change when the seasons change, and why not planning ahead is what leaves you broke in September
- [00:05:00] How having kids changes your summer spending (and the expenses that sneak up on you)
- [00:07:30] The specific areas of your budget you need to look at right now: holiday weekends, travel, dining out, gas, and what your kids need
- [00:11:00] Three steps to build a real summer budget, one you can actually feel good about
Tune into this episode of Money Files to discover how to prepare your budget for a fun and financially sound summer.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
If you loved this episode on summer budgeting, check out last week’s episode on how to avoid blowing your budget with summer travel, Episode 227 The 7 Questions to Answer Before Every Summer Trip (So You Don’t Blow Your Budget).
Transcript for “Stop Being Surprised by Summer Spending: A 3-Step Budget Reset”
Intro: Hi, and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. So in this show, we are going to talk about spending. And honestly, I love to talk about spending. I don’t know if you know anything about me, but I do actually like to spend money. I’m not a financial coach that doesn’t like to spend money, but I like to intentionally spend. And so I want to get you to think about what is getting ready to happen in your life because the summer is coming, right? We are in the middle of spring. I don’t know where you are in the world, but I’m in D.C. The weather has been like, hey, today it’s 50, tomorrow it’s 80.
And so we’ve had all types of ups and downs this last few weeks. But that warm sun on my skin is definitely like having me in a space where I know I want to be outside, whether a couple of weeks ago, I went out on a patio to do some work and I had lunch there and $70 later, I was very content. So I want you to be thinking about how is my spending going to change because it is getting warmer outside, right? What are the things that I do during the summer and the spring that maybe I don’t do during the winter and the fall? And those are great questions to ask yourself because whether you know it or not, you’re spending changes with the seasons. So you have your temperature changes, you got your wardrobe changes, your schedule changes, and your spending changes too.
And so if your budget doesn’t actually change with it, then summer will show up, it will do what summer does, and you’ll be standing in September wondering where your money went. And this doesn’t mean that you have to overhaul your entire budget, but it is one of my beliefs that you should always be planning ahead. And so right now is a great opportunity to be thinking about what’s going to be happening in the next 90 days with my finances. What do I need to be thinking about? What do I want to be paying attention to? And so we want to get in front of it so that way at the end of the summer, we are feeling really confident going into the fall, that we’re feeling like we had a great summer and we don’t have a bunch of regrets when it comes to looking at our bank statements, when it comes to looking at our credit card statements.
So I want to paint you a picture. During the winter months, a lot of us are homebodies, and maybe it’s not necessarily by choice, but it’s cold outside. It gets dark by 4:30 or 5:00, depending on where you live. And you just don’t feel like going anywhere. So spending naturally kind of declines. You are maybe cooking at home more. You’re not as spontaneous when it comes to going out to eat. And your calendar is just quieter. And then the sun comes out. The days get longer. Your friends, they hit you up randomly. And events start popping up on your calendar, and there’s just a complete energy shift. And right along with that, you’re spending changes.
There’s going to be more dining out, more weekend plans, more yeses to things that sound fun because you want to have experiences. Maybe you are going to start booking more hair appointments because you’re not trying to do your hair, right? You want a protective style. Or maybe you’re getting more manicures and pedicures because you want your hands out, you want your toes out for the summer. And you find yourself experiencing more I deserve moments. And even those I only live once. I got to make sure that I do this.
But here’s what I want you to be able to understand. As the seasons shift, what can happen is that your money shifts. And it doesn’t necessarily make you bad with money because you spend a lot more in the summer. But what you probably haven’t made space for is that you need to actually revisit your numbers because summer just looks different for you. I have clients come to me oftentimes and we’ll be going through their budget depending on when they start with me, I could ask them about eating out. And they’re like, oh I don’t eat out that often.
And if we’re starting in the winter months, maybe that’s true that you don’t eat out often. Maybe it’s like $300. But if we’re talking about the summer months, maybe it looks more like $500. And so we want to understand these things about ourselves so that we can actually account for them. So we can think about where do we want to have strong yeses and where do we want to have strong nos about where we don’t want to spend money this summer. In addition to that, if you have kids like some of my clients, it’s not just about the experiences that you’re going to be having with your friends, but it’s also thinking about how your kids’ lives make your bank account a little bit more active.
And so it could be that you are starting to pay for camp. There are additional expenses. Maybe they’re taking a sewing camp or a skateboarding camp. And so you have to buy supplies for these things. And you’re not spending that type of money during the school year with aftercare. And so you want to be thinking about, maybe I need more groceries in my house because my kids are at home more or I am providing them a bigger lunch because at school, maybe with the tuition you paid or if they’re in public school, maybe lunch was already covered.
And so your expenses just naturally shift. And then let’s not forget about at the end of summer, what happens? Your kids got to go back to school and now you’re doing back to school shopping for supplies and for clothes. And so these are things that are happening in the next 90 days that you might not be thinking about right now, but you’re thinking about them now because we are having this conversation. So I just want you to pause and just ask yourself, does my current budget support summer? And does it support my actual summer?
I know that you don’t know every single thing that’s going to be happening this summer, but I do want you to think about like, what is my ideal summer? What was I doing last summer? What’s changed in my life that I said, oh, this summer I’m going to make sure that I’m there, that I’m here. Like how have you already started to think about your summer calendar?
So that leads me to what I actually want you to do is open your calendar. Look at your phone, look at your text messages, look at your planners. Like what is coming up for June, July, and August? What have your friends already invited you to? What summer concerts, what vineyard events? Where are people asking you to show up? What’s on your calendar? Not what you think is going to happen, but think about like, what are the things that you want to be able to say yes to? Because what I see happen all the time is that you might be living off of a list of bills and your list of bills is considering your mortgage or your rent, your utilities, your subscriptions.
And it’s not actually considering the fact that you like to be outside in the summer, that you want to feel your feet in the sand or that you want the sun to be on your shoulders because you’re going to be at every music festival. Your budget isn’t reflecting that. So I want you to get really specific and think about what’s happening. What holiday weekends am I celebrating? Is there something coming up for Juneteenth? Is there something coming up for Fourth of July or Labor Day? Are you hosting barbecues? Are you traveling? But really thinking about where do I need to make space so that I can have a good summer, not only in enjoyment, but also I can have a financially good summer. And being able to spend money in the way that I want to be able to spend, being able to say yes where I want to say yes and not right now where I know that I need to say not right now. So I want you to think about specific areas and I’m just going to give you a list.
I want you to think about your holiday weekends. I want you to think about your travel. Are there quick weekend trips coming? Do you have a family trip? If you listened to my podcast last week, I actually talked a little bit more about how to not blow your budget with your summer travel. I want you to think about gas and tolls. Sometimes we don’t get that granular when we’re thinking about this, but even if you’re taking just a ton of road trips, like I live in DC and so if I go north or south of me, there are tolls. And so if I’m driving, I also know that I could have to spend an extra $40 just on tolls depending on where I’m going or thinking about gas that’s needed.
So what needs to increase in your budget? Think about your dining out and your socializing and think about what your kids need as well. How are they going to impact your summer spending? So you might be like thinking like, Keina, this is a lot, but I don’t want you to become really overwhelmed. I don’t want you to think about like, oh my goodness, I’m going to have to say no to so many things. I want you to really think about this as an opportunity to decide in advance how you want to show up. I want you to think about yourself having a plan. If you have a plan, you can also redirect some of these things.
I love to tell people, I’m like, listen, you think that you don’t have any money and people are like, I want to be able to do whatever. I’m like, girl, we are all in the same boat. Sometimes your friends, you might need to say, girl, let’s come over my house or let’s not go to every single concert that we have planned because you want to make sure that you are helping your friends also honor their financial goals. So doing this process and sitting down to think about your summer right now, isn’t just helping you, it’s going to also provide your friend group and your circle with new skills.
And you guys can have new conversations about how you want to spend time together. Where do you want your yeses to be yes and your nos to be nos? So what I want you to do with what we’ve talked about is I want you to add up what summer is actually going to cost you. Take the calendar that you just looked at, put a number to the different pieces. What’s happening Memorial Day weekend, the girls trip, the back to school shopping. What are the actual numbers that you need?
Step two, I want you to look at your current spending, and figure out what do I need to adjust? So if you’re going to be spending more on dining out and social activities, what else might you need to temporarily pause or revisit, but what is going to have to adjust to make space for the other thing that you want to make space for? And then step number three, give yourself a real summer number, not something that you have to feel guilty about or I need to save every single thing, but what’s a real number that’s going to allow you to actually enjoy your summer.
So as you were thinking about your budget, you’re changing the numbers, change it in a way that’s going to allow you to have the space to enjoy your summer while also honoring the other things that you’ve said that you want to honor. Because I want you to go into the summer with a plan for how money is going to change. I want you to go in and come out satisfied with how you spent money this summer. So summer’s a season, it’s a beautiful one. I want it to be full of memories for you and moments and just like the seasons change, your budget is going to change as well and pull out that calendar.
Look at what’s happening for June, July, and August and build your budget, your summer budget, off of what’s actually happening so that way when September comes, you’re not going to have the guilt, you’re not going to have the shame, but you are going to feel good about what’s in your bank account. So thank you so much for just tuning in to this quick episode this week and I will talk to you next week.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files, if you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
