203. Summer Spending Is Sneaky: Here’s How to Stop It Before It Gets Too Bad

Summer is supposed to feel fun, free, and full of memories—but for many families, it also becomes the season where money quietly disappears. Between snacks, camps, activities, eating out, and the pressure to keep kids entertained, it’s easy to reach August feeling financially drained and overwhelmed.

In this episode of Money and Legacy, Laura shares a practical five-step plan to help parents create a memorable summer without losing control of their budget. From setting simple summer routines to meal planning, snack prepping, planning for boredom, choosing priorities, and finding the categories where money leaks fastest, this episode will help families spend with more intention and less stress.

Because your legacy is not built by doing every activity or buying every experience. It’s built in the everyday moments, the intentional choices, and the memories you create on purpose. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  How summer routines can reduce reactive spending and family overwhelm 
•  Why meal planning and snack prep are key to saving money during school break 
•  How to identify the spending leaks that quietly drain your summer budget

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Transcript

Laura 0:00

As a family of five, we have to be five times more careful how we spend during the summer You are listening to the Money and Legacy Podcast with Laura Sexton. I'm helping families pay off debt, grow wealth, and build a legacy without sacrificing what matters most. This is where money feels easy. Hey, legacy builders. How do we create a memorable summer without feeling financially out of control by August? That's the question and the premise of the show today, and I will tell you, I have been so overwhelmed by the change of moving from California to Tennessee, and it's been overwhelmed in a good way, but it is so much change. And one of the things that's been very important to my husband and I is, how can we possibly create memories and allow the kids to have all of the summer things that they normally have? But we're in a different place, and we just have to be very intentional. But while we're in the middle of transition, and we're moving, and all of the things that are happening around us, it is a whirlwind and a swirlwind, and I know that you are living in a world where you have a crazy summer happening, too, because it doesn't matter how much we plan for, summer always feels a little bit out of control. And part of that is because when we were kids, summer was the coolest time in the entire world. We didn't have to go to school, when you're little, getting out of school for the summer feels like you're gonna have forever to go out and play with your friends. Like, it felt like the wildest time. And then as you get a little older, you get a job, like you got some freedom, and summer's just great. And part of that is the story that we grew up with. We're gonna keep it, and it's not going anywhere And we will be talking about that in a not too distant episode, how growing up affects how we handle our money today. So I wanted to give you a five-step plan for how we can have our summer and not be so overwhelmed by the time school starts. Now, my kids are gonna get a much shorter summer season than they would have had we stayed in California or if we'd gotten out here sooner, because the California school gets out in June and starts at the week before September, sometimes starts in September, as opposed to out here in Tennessee where they get out in May and they start at the beginning of August. So we're getting a shortened summer, which might be the best thing that's ever happened to us because of the transition. The number one thing that I think is going to help you feel financially secure come August when school starts again, is to set a routine. When you don't have a routine, you tend to have reactive spending. So if we want to avoid the reactive spending, we have to set a routine. And it's not just the spending, it's how we waste our time, how we utilize our energy. If there's no routine, we can sometimes get to the end of the day and go, "Did I do anything at all today? Did I get out of my pajamas? Are these new pajamas or have I been wearing these for a couple of days? What is happening?" Having a routine, every morning we get up at this time. Now, it doesn't have to be your regular school day time, because it is summer. I don't have to wake my kids up to go to school. I let them sleep in, and whenever they get up, we get up and we do what we need to do. But we have a routine. And on the days where we're not in our routine, you can tell. The kids are cranky, I'm cranky, things feel so uncertain, and your kids need certainty. Your kids thrive on routine. Now, it could be that they tell you they don't, and they hate when you make them get on a schedule, but they thrive in consistency. They thrive with guidelines. They thrive with boundaries. It's what makes them feel safe, when they know what's coming next. So set a routine for the summer, whatever that looks like for you and your family. Right now, Grandma's doing school with the kids. They have to get up and go to school every day. It's super fun. So number one, set a routine for the summer. Number two, meal plan and snack prep is the saving grace of all saving grace. This is gonna help you with your food cost. I don't know about you, but my kids ask for a snack every 2.3 seconds. They're eating a snack and asking what their next snack is going to be, and part of that is because they're bored, or they're out of a routine, or they don't know what's coming next. They don't know when their next meal is, and that can cause them to need or think that they need a snack. Sometimes they're just bored, and if they're bored, they think they need to eat. And that's something that I don't want them to have as part of their brain space because for me, I get bored, I eat. I don't have anything moving my hands, I wanna be using it to eat something. It's not a healthy way to be, so I have to plan ahead. If you meal plan, that also helps you with your budget for going to the grocery store. You know what's on the shopping list. You know what's required. You're gonna spend less on groceries, and you're not gonna have the same mental stress at the end of the night where you've been home with the kids all day every day for, however many weeks now. And the mental load of having to decide what's for dinner is e- exhausting I was just thinking about how I have to figure out what's for lunch right now because I did not meal plan lunches this week, which is silly because we're home all week and I have my dinner meal plan, but I forgot to do my lunches meal plan right now, and that just popped in my head. So I will do that for the rest of the week and make sure I don't have this problem again. Also, snack prep. If you go ahead and cut up the carrots, if you go ahead and cut up the apples, if you make it so easy that they don't have to ask what kind of snack they can have... I know people that have bins for their kids where they put a certain number of snacks in the bins each week, and the kids can grab whatever's in there. But they know, hey, when this is done, it's done for the entire week, so you have to learn to budget your snacks. You have to learn to ration. You have to learn to make decisions. What do I want now so that I still have things that I like at the end of the week? These are really important life skills that they're going to need, and it's done in a safe way. If they run out of snacks, it's not like they're not going to have food. You're still going to have lunch and dinner for them. However, if they run out of snacks at home as a child, that is a much better lesson to learn than if they're out on their own and they run out of food and they run out of money and they don't know what to do. So we start it when they're young so they know how to do it when they're older. That brings me to number three. Go ahead and plan for boredom. The first thing to do here is go ahead and write out a list of age-appropriate chores for your children to do. I promise you, if your children come to you and go, "Mom, I'm bored," and you start giving them chores, they're gonna quit coming to you and saying, "Mom, I'm bored." But the next best thing to do is go ahead and have a list of age-appropriate activities for them to do, some inside, some outside. Let them know, here are the things that you are allowed to do on your own. You don't need mom to hold your hand and walk you through each and every step. Now, you should be doing stuff with your kids weekly, daily. Every couple of hours, you should be sitting down on the floor or at the table with them so they know you still, are paying attention to them and they are still important. There's something about this idea of filling up their bucket. 10 intentional minutes with your kid every single day makes them go to their friends and go, "Yeah, I spent the entire day with my mom yesterday"? That's how connected they feel with just 10 minutes a day. If you spend 10 minutes a day with your child intentionally connecting with your child one-on-one, when they grow up, they will only remember that they spent all that time with you, and they will not remember the rest of the day, the other 23 hours and 50 minutes that you spent apart I hope that that is comforting for some of you. Now, that is not permission for you to spend 10 intentional minutes with your child and then go play on your phone for the rest of the day, but I am hoping that I can free up some of you from the emotional worry or negative feeling, guilt that I get from a lot of parents that are like, "Well, I just, you know, I, I'm supposed to sp- be spending all my time with them. I don't have time to go get another job. I don't have time to do the dishes and the chores, so I have to get a nanny. I have to get a house cleaner." It, it's not true. And in fact, if you can bring them in on those things, you get intentional time, plus you get the chores done. Maybe that's a podcast for another day, but plan for boredom. And I'm gonna go ahead and say this because I found this really fun the other day. Never underestimate the power of a water hose. The giggling and the invention and just the fun. Can you remember that as a kid, the fun of having a water hose and, like, spraying your parents with the water hose or spraying your siblings with a water hose or setting up sprinklers outside? And just the cheap sprinklers. We don't have to get crazy. We don't have to get fancy. Just cheap sprinkler at the end of the water hose that's spraying back and forth, and it's super fun for the kids. Never underestimate the power of a water hose. I came out of my house the other day. I'd just finished up my work, and I was putting... I had finished up a work day, and the baby needed to be put to bed, and I took her upstairs, and I cuddled her, and I sang to her, and I put her to bed. And I came downstairs to just squeals of laughter, and I was like, "What in the world is happening?" And I walk out my front door, and my husband is squirting the kids with the water hose, and they can't get away. And they were running back for it, right? They were trying to get wetter and wetter and wetter. I was like, "Oh, my goodness, this is gonna be so much work to get them dry and inside, and they're gonna mess up my brand-new floors." And that was all the thoughts that were going through my head as I'm watching them giggle with delight. And I was like, who cares about floors? Who cares about the mess? This is the joy. This is why we bought this home. This is why we are where we are. So just never underestimate the power of a water hose. Number four, go ahead and choose your priorities ahead of time. Choose one camp, one activity. Not all of them. Some people have childcare needs. I know my sister, when she only had one child, she was working in a high-power law firm, and she was busy, and she couldn't take time away from work And it was really important that she had her child in something enriching and fun while she had to work, and she was going up the ladder at this law firm that she was f- fulfilling her dream of being a lawyer. And she had her daughter in a different fun camp. Now, she could afford it. It wasn't straining for her financially to put the child in a camp every week. Sometimes that's cheaper than daycare, and you have to do what you have to do to make sure that your children are cared for. However, if you are home with your children and you would not have the expense of daycare, choose one camp for the summer. Now, maybe you've already gone a little overboard and you bought a bunch of different camps and you're feeling really strapped right now. It's okay to call them and say, "Hey, we can't come. Can we get our money back?" A lot of camps have waiting lists and people that are willing to fill them, and they will relinquish your spot so that somebody else can get in that camp Your children do not need to be entertained all day every day to have a wonderful summer. Do not put them in camp because you feel like you're allowing them to be bored. Let them be bored. You know the best thing in the world that can happen is your child get bored and come up with their own game. My seven-year-old this morning sat at the kitchen table for 45 minutes designing what she wanted her bedroom to look like. She took into account the sister that she shares it with. She took into account what her sister liked and what her side of the room would look like, and then she said, "Well, this is what my side of the room's gonna look like." And she drew it all out, multiple pages, multiple directions of what it would look like when you're standing in the middle and you turn around and look. I didn't direct her in that. I didn't suggest it. She came up with that all on her own. I love when my kids are bored and make stuff up and dream and are imaginative. We need more of that. So choose your priorities this summer. The things that are important get our time, our attention, and our money. The things that are not important, they go down on the list. And if we can't make it work, we don't make it work. Choose. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. You go ahead and choose. And number five, identify three categories where you find money disappearing fastest. They're there, I promise you. There are categories where you're like, "Where in the world did the time go? How did I spend the money now? What in the world?" For a lot of people, that's food. For a lot of people, that's activities. There are so many different things that it could be, and so I want you to sit down and look at your budget look at the last week. Where did you spend your money? Look at the last month. Where did you spend your money? Are there places that money is going that you were not intentionally thinking, and they just happen to take all of your money? Going out to eat during the summer, that's a big one. I have one couple that I worked with last year, or maybe it was the year before. I don't know. Time flies so quickly. And they kept spending money at the Blue Lagoon, and I was like, "What is the Blue Lagoon?" They had sent me their bank statement so I could see, because they were like, "We don't know where our money's going." I was like, "Well, what is The Blue Lagoon? 'Cause you've spent $600 there this week, and you spent $700 there last week, and you spent $500 there the week before. What is this place that you're spending all this money?" And they said, "Oh, that's the food at the pool that we have a membership to. We go there 'cause it saves us money I said, "You just spent $1800 there in three weeks. How is this saving you money?" And they're like, "Well, we don't have to build a pool, so we're saving money." And I was like, "Great. What is The Blue Lagoon if it's saving you money? What is this?" And they're like, "Oh, that's the restaurant outside of the pool, so we can order food there. We can't bring food there." I said, does it cost you anything to go into the pool?" And they said, "No." And I said, "How far is that from your house?" "Oh, you know, it's about a three, four, or five-minute walk." Walk home, get food that you have already paid for, eat it, and then walk back. You need that time for the food to settle before you jump back in the pool anyway. $1,800 to save money on a pool? No. Identify the three categories where money is disappearing the fastest. If you set a routine, you meal plan and snack prep, you plan for boredom, you choose your priorities, and you identify where the money is disappearing quickly, and you plug those leaks, you are going to have a very financially savvy summer. The thing I need you to know, my friends, is that legacy is not the money in your bank account. The legacy comes in the everyday moments of life. If you want to leave a legacy to your children, if you want to accelerate the legacy that you plan on leaving, it starts with intentionality. It starts with that 10 minutes of play on the floor with your kids. My friends, your legacy starts right now. Go out and make a difference