When the temperatures go up, so do costs! Not only do you have air-conditioning costs to contend with, you also have children home all day (plus neighborhood children if you're the IT house like us!). Children require activities, food and drinks and you may notice your monthly expenses rising. Even little things like using more paper products and cleaning products can really add up when you are entertaining your children every day.
It's important to find some money-saving activities such as summer camps and food ideas to stay on a budget this summer!
The days of having a bag of expensive cookies or a pint of Starbucks ice cream that you enjoy nibbling while the kids are at school are over! You need bulk snacks that are healthy and affordable to keep the kids from raiding the pantry or refrigerator.
Popcorn goes a long way. Better than bags of microwave popcorn laden with butter, you can now purchase a popcorn maker for the microwave and use the less expensive popcorn that we used to make on the stove. You can flavor this in a number of ways from making it cheesy with inexpensive cheese powder to spicing it up with pepper flakes.
Sugar-free Popsicles can be purchased in bulk, but save yourself a mess by requiring that they be eaten outside. Jello is very inexpensive and a tasty, cooling treat. Make it yourself rather than buying the pre-made individual containers.
For more sustaining foods, try keeping veggies such as celery, carrots and trail mix on hand as well. You might want to make a deal with the other parents in the neighborhood to either send the kids home for lunch or switch every other day as to who will be serving lunch.
Drinks
Water is the best form of hydration and if you can avoid serving sugary beverages, you'll save a bundle both in money and health! This only works, however, if you have a filtered water source because purchasing bottled water really adds up. Make a one-time investment on an RO (reverse osmosis) system or a simple charcoal-filter attachment that you can usually install at the kitchen sink yourself.
Plan ahead and keep pitchers of the water chilled in the refrigerator. Assign a reusable water bottle or cup to each of your children and their friends. You might even talk to the other parents in the neighborhood and agree to send your children with their personal water bottles.
If the temperature are really high and your children are exerting themselves physically, you might consider sports drinks on occasion. Water may not be enough if they are really burning energy, and sports drinks offer electrolytes necessary to restore hydration for your little athletes! Unless you hit an awesome sale on individual bottles, you should buy the gallon jugs or powder mixes.
Activities
Weight loss camps and other types of summer camps can be costly, but in the end, they will save you money. When you free yourself for a month or so of not providing all the daily food, beverages and activities such as going to the movies, you'll quickly see that a structured summer camp can offer tremendous savings.
Determine what your child's needs and interests are and choose from a wide range of summer camps such as fitness, weight loss, academic, computer and even fantasy camps!
David Kraft is a freelance author with many areas of
specialization. He promotes healthy living for youth and provides
information about fitness camps. You can learn more at his teen weight loss camps site.
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