74. Laura's Guide to Saving Big This Summer

In this episode, host Laura Sexton shares strategies for saving money during the summer season. From encouraging kids to embrace boredom and creativity to exploring cost-effective entertainment options like visiting the local library or organizing community garage sales, listeners are provided with practical tips to have a fulfilling summer without breaking the bank.

In this episode we’ll discuss:

.     Trim expenses by encouraging play

.     Exploring Budget-Friendly Entertainment Options

.     Frugal Summer Activities and Community Engagement

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Transcript

Laura: 0:46

Hello and welcome to the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. I'm Laura Sexton, your trusted financial coach and money mindset specialist. Join me as we explore the world of money and money mindset while also paving the way for a lasting legacy that extends far beyond money. Together we'll eliminate stress, amplify freedom, and ensure you stop paying for your past so you can start saving for your future. If you're seeking peace in your finances, more margin in your budget, and a legacy that inspires generations to come, you're in the right place. Hey Accelerators! I don't know if you noticed, but summer is right around the corner. The way that I remember summer, summer can be a really easy time to spend money. Well, maybe I'm just thinking back to the college years or early adulthood where I would just spend all of the money I made during summer because summertime is just a free for all. Now, I'm older, now, and I have children, it can be easy to spend all of my money on summer camps, because they are incredibly expensive to do summer camps. That's just how it goes. However, what I'm realizing by taking a little bit of time to study into this, summer can be the best time to save your money. I've been really taking a look at what this summer could look like for us. You all know we're trying to buy a house and we live in Southern California, so the prices are outrageous. And we are going to do everything we can this summer to have the best summer ever, but be balling on a budget, essentially. We are going to have fun and we are going to do it as cheaply as possible. And so while I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about all of these amazing things that we can do where we can save some money, I thought, well, don't you think my accelerators want to learn this too? So here for you are some of the best ways that you can save money this summer. And let me know what you think. If there's one of these that you're like, yes, Laura, that's amazing. That's what we're going to do. Reach out to me and let me know. I would absolutely love to hear it. Shout it out on Instagram. I will shout it out to the community or tell me one of these. You're like, Laura, that's outrageous. And nobody's going to do that. Let me know that too. Maybe I'm the weirdo and I'm the only one. Here's some of the things that I've come up with that are going to be great ways to save money this summer. The first one is probably the most important for your children in the world that we live in today, let them get bored. Let your children be bored, let them explore, let them make up games. This is a great area for you to trim up your fun money. Reduce the amount of money that you're spending on entertainment. Let your kids go run around and play. Studies show that having them make up their own games and referee their own play is one of the best things that we can do for our children. So this summer you get the chance to try that out. Let's go back to 90s kids. Let's go back to the 80s and the 70s and letting the kids run around and play. Let them create their own games. Let them be a little risky on the things that they climb on and play. I don't want them to get hurt, obviously, but let them try, let them explore, let them go in the backyard and come up with whatever game they want. Now, some of you are like me and you don't have a backyard. And so the only way to make this possible is to take them to a friend's backyard, to take them out to a park, to take them to a wildlife area where they can just run and play. The summertime is the best time to have your kids outside exploring, running around. Let them go do their own thing. But that means, parents, that you have to do your own thing. This is a great time for you to trim up your fun money category. Decide ahead of time. We're going to spend less money on going to the movies. We're going to spend less money on whatever it is you're doing. Just choose to spend a little bit less this summer on those categories because you want to allow your kids to spend more time being bored, more time creating their own games. I think that's going to be a really big money saving opportunity for you. If you are like, but I don't want to be bored, Laura, I don't, I don't want to. Make up my own games. What am I supposed to do this summer? Well, when you're not at work, because a lot of us, a lot of us don't get the summers off. A lot of us are not teachers. So we do have to work in the summer. We do want to still be diligent at work. Maybe we can pull back if we're entrepreneurs. I know that I will be pulling back this summer. I am planning to record all of my podcasts ahead of time. So I'm not doing this during the summer. Maybe some of us are pulling back, but the rest of us have to work. So, when you are not working and you want to have some fun, what are some cost effective ways for you to get some enjoyment without spending a lot of money? One of those is to explore your local library. I love my library. I talk about it all the time. The library that we have set up in our neighborhood is fantastic. The children's section is just as large as the adult section. There is plenty for both sides of the family to find a good book and really get lost in a new world. Now, if you are not a reading person, if that's not the way you do things, you're like, I love audio books. Guess what? Your library has those too. Or maybe You're like, I would really just rather, after having a long day of work, I'd really just rather watch a movie. Well, instead of paying for your Netflix and your Hulu and your Prime and your Max and your Peacock and your, how many of these do we have, right? Like, there's so many. Instead of paying for all of those, go to your local library and rent a DVD. I know crazy, right? And you're like, Laura, I don't even have a DVD player. Well, guess what? 12 one time will buy you a DVD player. They're literally that cheap. Go buy a DVD player. And then you will have the ability to get free DVDs every day. From the library, as long as you bring one back, you get to rent another one for free. It's not like Blockbuster. We don't have to be kind and rewind. All you have to do is go pick out a movie and take it home. They don't even charge you for it. If they do charge you, it's like a quarter. I think you can handle that. Many local libraries also have board games that you can check out and take home and play with your family. Board games are a dying art, it feels like. Kids don't want to sit in front of a board and move pieces around. They want to play video games. Well, guess what? It's better for their brains to be sitting down and playing these games all day with a person holding physical cards, learning how to count change like monopoly. There's also a great relational aspect where it brings families together because you're sitting down, you're having a shared experience. Reading aloud to your children allows them to have this shared experience and increased empathy. Playing board games allows you to come together as a family and do things together. I highly recommend as your kids get older, a lot of you have young kids like me, as your kids get older, with them, board games, card games, physical games, dominoes. I don't care what you play, but doing things physically together increases the bond of the family. If you have a local library that doesn't have board games, do you have friends that you can swap games with that you can trade around? So you're not just playing the same game all the time. You can send it over your friend's house and they send a different 1 to you. There are just so many ways that we can have entertaining time together. That's not going to break the bank, and I'm just scratching the surface here. So come along with me as we think about new and different summer savings tips. How about this year, instead of going to the theme parks, instead of hitting up the 6 flags, or the Disney Parks or Cedar Rapids or wherever it is, instead of hitting up a theme park this year, why don't you pick one of the 63 national parks that this beautiful country has to offer. Your tax dollars are paying for them. We might as well go enjoy them. And national park is a chance for your kids to explore, to run around, to play. It's a chance for them to learn something. Maybe it's a chance for you to be outside soaking in the vitamin D it's a great time for you to. Get into nature, maybe discover something, maybe go on a walk, maybe lose some weight. There are great things that we can be doing in nature, in the national parks. The cool thing about national parks is Most of them have places where you can have a picnic, as long as you clean up after yourself, most of them have nature to explore, most of them, some of them even have swimming areas, like check your, check your local listings, but some of them have swimming areas, so you could take a picnic and a swimsuit and have the best day for a very low price. National parks, we have some beaches that I think they're state beaches, so they're not. They're not part of the 63 national parks, but they are state run beaches. You can park your car for 10 bucks and spend the whole day on this quote unquote private beach because it's state run. A lot of them have tide pools that the kids can, see little fish or little mollusks, um, sea creatures. They can have just the best time learning, exploring. And it doesn't cost a lot of money. Yes, you have to drive yourself there. So there is a cost to that. It's not completely for free. But if you have 10 parking, plus a little bit of gas to get you there and you can have an absolutely fabulous day, I'd spend that 10 hand over fist time after time. Your national parks, there's probably one near you. You're probably thinking Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Mount Rushmore. Those are national parks. Yes, But where's 1 near you. Where can you go to enjoy that? You haven't ever thought of before. You know, it's crazy. 1 of the summer savings tips that I came across that I have really enjoyed is this idea of taking a tour of your city, taking a tour of your region. said, find the national partner you. So maybe it's a region. Maybe your city's very small. And so you need to not only just explore your city, but you need to explore the area around you. It doesn't cost a lot of money to drive around your city. It doesn't cost a lot of money to try a new restaurant or to find a new park that you didn't know was in your city or your area. Who knows what kind of amazing things you can find. We found a museum and the city over that I did not know was there and it's just amazing. Wonderful. It's a beautiful place. It is kid friendly. The kids can run around and look at things. It's not one of those stuffy old museums where you can't talk because it is kid friendly. They want the kids to be enjoying and exploring and touching and feeling and learning. Find these things that you didn't know were there. Because you might find some new treasures inside your city. Now, I don't want you to go out and find a new shopping mall, unless your plan is simply to walk around it. I don't want you to go out and spend a bunch of money. That's not the point of this. You can spend money. I'm not saying don't. This is summer. We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves. Make sure that you've budgeted for it first. But touring your own city, touring your own region, finding new things that you didn't know were there. That's a great way to spend your time and your money this summer. A fun one for me and for my children is instead of paying for the car wash this summer, get out a hose and some buckets and some soap and let your kids wash your car for you. Now, are they going to do the wonderful job that the detail shop down the street is going to do? Absolutely not. But they are going to have a lot of fun. Your car is going to be clean. They're outside burning off a bunch of energy. You're saving 15 a car wash. What you are doing here is you are allowing your kids to do the things that you need to have done. They're learning how to wash a car. They're learning how to take care of things that are important to you. Like I said last week, your car is a big purchase. And yes, it's an asset and you want to teach your kids to take care of the big purchases that they make the things that are important. We need to take care of. You are giving so many life lessons and they're having such a good time. I remember when I was a kid, my dad having me wash the car and he had a truck. And so I always wanted to see if I could, you know, Fill up the truck bed and like, I called it a carpool because I thought it was really funny and he wouldn't let me try and fill it up. And 1 time I remember we put a tarp down and then filled up the back with soap and water. And we drove around the neighborhood, just sloshing the water out. And I was in the back and I thought it was the most fun thing in the entire world. And I'm pretty sure you can't do that now, but statute of limitations have run out for child endangerment. So he's fine. I'm fine. Everybody's fine. It was so fun. And I will never forget that one day during that one summer. Do I have any idea how old I was? No. But I do know that I had a blast and all I was doing was washing a car and my dad let me be silly and my dad let me make a carpool and it was amazing. Let your kids have those memories. He got his car washed for free. He got his car washed at the price of my giggles. I think that's a price that I would like to pay. I loved it. I thought it was absolutely wonderful. And I have friends that have already said, yeah, bring your kids over, bring your cars. Let's do it. We're gonna let our kids come together and Multiple children from multiple families watching multiple cars. If they want to, they don't have to, but I bet they're going to laugh a lot while they're spraying the hoses and the waters. And if our cars get clean, great. And if they don't also totally fine. Our kids had fun. While we're talking about our community, our families, our friends have potlucks. We don't do potlucks enough anymore. Potlucks are amazing and fun and wonderful, and we should really try to do that more often. Big meals. If you're having a 4th of July party, don't take it all on yourself. Share that responsibility with people. One of my best friends did mother's day at her house this year, and she made, she made the meal, she made the brisket and we She doesn't have to take all that on for herself. She shouldn't take it all on for herself. We should all be part of a community that brings things together. My mom's group, every week, a different table brings brunch and it is a chance not only for us to have warm food without our children, but also it's a chance for us to serve each other and give to each other and fill somebody else, which in turn fills us. Trade off on the big meals. Share a potluck, come together, share food. Breaking bread over a table just increases your relationship with a person. I love the idea of sharing a meal. Not each of us getting our own thing, but everybody sharing together. Increases community, and it doesn't cost as much money. Hey, speaking of community, you know what's really great? It's a community wide garage sale. I love these. I love when communities get together and everybody has a garage sale, because you only have to put one ad in the paper. More people come and buy more stuff, because they know that they can go house to house to house, and just get a bunch of different things. We live in a culture where you have too much stuff. You just do you have plenty of things that you can get rid of tomorrow. Even if you didn't think that you had enough stuff to get rid of tomorrow, you have stuff that you can get rid of, have a community wide garage sale, sell stuff, and then use that money towards your next financial goal. Also. In the summer, if you have kids that are growing out of stuff, their old winter clothes, guess what? Sell it. Alright, it's summer time, I know that I can get rid of the winter clothes from last year, we're not gonna need them anymore, they're not gonna fit in them next year, so go ahead and sell it. Anything that you have that you're like, I'm never going to wear this again, no longer fit in that size, sell it. Let's go. You don't need to have 14 pairs of jeans in your closet that you're going, well, one day I might fit in them again. No, just sell them. If you get on track and you lose the weight and you get back to that size eventually, then you can go buy yourself some new jeans. It'll be a great reward. Sell them. Just get rid of it. If there's extra stuff, it is cluttering up your space. It is cluttering up your mind and it is not helping your financial goals. This is your chance. I'm giving you permission. Go ahead and sell your old clothes. Summer is the absolute best time to have a picnic. Pack up your lunch when you go to work and go outside. Get away from your desk for a little bit. Go outside, soak up some vitamin D, eat your nutritious food, and enjoy your lunch. That's my last tip. That's my last tip, guys. if you are looking To travel the summer, make a budget for that. If you are looking to go to one of these national parks, make a budget for it. If you just have a big savings goal, you want to do all of these things that I'm that I've mentioned, or some of these things that I've mentioned, and you want to make a specific goal for yourself this summer. Can I save 100 extra dollars a month this summer? Can I save 300 June, July, August? That's a great goal. Maybe you want to double down you're like, I bet I can trim up my fun money budget and we can do our car wash at home and we can have a community garage. I bet we can save a 1000 dollars this summer, whatever your goal is. I have an awesome summer savings tracker that you can use. It's super cute and all you have to do is scroll down the show notes and you can find it, or you can go to accelerateyourlegacy.com/resource and go on my resource page where you get all of my awesome free stuff. Any of the tips that I gave today. There's more information about those. You can find a list of the 63 national parks. Anything that you need that is going to help you succeed. And There is a free download that comes with the savings tracker. So just go ahead, go check it out. I know that whatever goal you set this summer, you can definitely achieve if you're paying attention and not just paying for what feels good in the moment. Pay attention, make a goal, make it happen. If I can help you in any way, I would absolutely love to do that. Reach out to me at accelerate your legacy on Instagram or Laura at accelerate your legacy. I would love to have a conversation with you about any of these things, but also just because I care about you. All right, friends, that's it for this week. Go out and make a difference. Thank you for investing your time with us today on the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. Remember, your legacy isn't just measured in dollars and cents, but in the tools, habits, mindset, and reputation you leave behind. Don't just listen to the show, but take action on what you've learned. Share this wisdom with a friend who can benefit and help us spread the word by rating and reviewing the podcast. For questions or encouragement, reach out to me on Instagram at Accelerate Your Legacy or explore the resources listed in the show notes. I will be back with you next week. Until then, build your legacy with intention.