As summer starts and school is out, you might already be looking for money saving tips to keep your children entertained. This is because of one fact – summer activities can be quite expensive to take on. As such, it can have adverse effects on your budget if you are going into it unprepared.
Camp Electric shares that some private and specialty summer camps can set you back at least $30 a day and day camps range from $25 to over $300 per day. If you were not able to save for that amount of money, chances are you are looking at charging the amount and trying to figure out where to get the money to pay for it later.
This is where tips that will help you save money during the summer break would come in handy. It may not be as complicated as trying to figure out if you are supposed to focus on your retirement fund or the kid’s college fund but it is an important decision nevertheless. Going into it and throwing caution to the wind can land you in a lot of trouble. Here are some money saving tips to help you plan the summer activities with the least expenses.
Create fun and educational activities at home
As the children will be staying at home for extended periods of time, one of the money saving tips you can consider is to take on activities right at home. Do you have some home improvement projects that has been on hold for the past few months? This can be a good time to get to that to-do list with the children.
They can paint over walls, be your clean-up crew, or even be an extra set of hands. You can even create a fun activity at home that will help them learn a few skills. You can start painting a mural on one of your walls and let them express themselves. Give them a brush and a can of paint and see how it turns out.
Do you need to fix something with the car? Get the kids to help you out. This is a good time to teach them the basics of car maintenance and identifying basic car tools. You can let them loosen up screws or even slide down under the car to perform some minor maintenance. This can help them learn a new skill and increase their confidence as well.
Work with other parents in the neighborhood
Time explained how child care can unknowingly burn a hole in your pockets. The average cost in a child care center for a week for a single child is over $190 while sitters cost about $214 for 15 hours and a nanny is a whopping $556 per week. These numbers are quite astonishing, to say the least, and when left unguarded, can run up your expenses quickly in a month’s time.
This is why one of the great money saving tips you can look into is to encourage other families in the neighborhood to pitch in with summer activities and child care. You can work with a few parents who have kids the same age as you yours. You can take turns where one family will be in-charge of taking care of the kids for the whole week or even for just a few days. What you do is to just drop them off before work and pick them up on your way home.
This way, you only have to get off work for a few days when it is your turn to look after the kids. As a benefit, your children learn to socialize with other children and get to know people in your neighborhood. You get to save money as well as get to know the other kids in your area that could become your child’s friends.
This is a good time to have family over
American Progress reports that extended families in the country makes up about 17% of households in the country and has risen from 58 million to 85 million in 13 years starting 2001. That being said, there are still a lot of families that lives far from each other and the summer break is a great chance to bond with other family members.
What you can do is talk to siblings, aunts, and uncles and especially grandparents of the kids to see how you can make arrangements. The children can spend a few days with some of them to get to know the family better. You even help them immerse in different places and widen their experiences in life. It is also one of the great money saving tips because they get to spend time with family without the expensive cost of daycare.
Explore nearby attraction is one of the great money saving tips
There can be nearby areas of interest where you can bring your children so they can enjoy their break. Apart from museums and parks, there could be nearby beaches you can visit with the whole family. There can be shows or free classes near your place where the kids can learn new and fun skills.
This is actually one of the things people look into as a viable way of having fun while balancing a frugal lifestyle. Helping them do this and explore this alternative at a young age teaches them valuable life lessons they can use in the future.
Use miles and rewards for travel
If you are going to travel for summer, you can check your miles to see if you can travel for free or at the very least, at a discount. There is no question that traveling with family for a vacation remains to be one of the most expensive and using miles accumulated in past flights is a pretty good way of lowering down that amount.
Though it would be good to know that Forbes shared recently that airlines have started to change their policy where they now award points not on distance flown but on the dollar spent. There are a lot of pros and cons as airline companies take on this change but in the end, this remains to be one of the great money saving tips when traveling.
Summer job
Nothing says summer for a lot of children than sleeping in and going to bed late. However, this is also a great time for them to take on summer jobs especially for the bigger ones. This is also a great source of money lessons for children. They get to experience first-hand how it is to earn their own money.
You can help make sure that the money they earn goes to a fund they can monitor. It can be for a toy they want or a dress they like to buy. It can even be for a college fund they get started with. What you can do is to urge them to save for their college expenses by matching whatever they get to save for it.
There are a number of money saving tips you can look into as your children start their summer break. The important thing to remember is that they have a good time as well as learning a thing or two to make it even more memorable for them and you.