We are have officially reached the best time of the year – SUMMER!! 

I personally plan for this summer to be a renaissance of sorts, where I am getting outside and saying yes and finding a renewed zest for life!

Summer tends to be a season of higher spending, given the days are longer, you may be taking a vacation, and in general there is more social activity happening. 

Because of this, I HIGHLY recommend taking some time to work through a Monthly Money Review with the perspective of resetting your money for the summer season. 

There are so many benefits, like:

💸 Increased financial awareness

💸 Improved financial decision-making

💸 Confidence + clarity around your financial future

I always recommend you work through a money review at the end of the month, but today I am going to share a few extra tips around how to adjust to truly enjoy your summer while you balance reaching your various financial goals!

Here’s a quick summary of what we’ll cover:

👉🏻 Tracking + Updating Your Monthly Numbers

👉🏻 Changing Your Spending Behavior

👉🏻 Planning Ahead

As always, I use The Personal Finance Dashboard to plan and manage my finances. You can learn more about it here. And if you’re someone who is ready to take your financial power back, consider getting the PFD! 

💸 TRACKING + UPDATING YOUR MONTHLY NUMBERS

Goal: This first step lays the groundwork for the remainder of this reset routine. It will help you understand where you are landing for the month so you can adjust accordingly going forward.

Action:  This is where you track EVERYTHING:

👉🏻 Income

👉🏻 Expenses

👉🏻 Savings transfers

👉🏻 Investment contributions

👉🏻 Debt payments

👉🏻 Net worth

It might sound like a lot, but if you keep up with this regularly (I recommend every week), it will be pretty quick!

Tip: Grab your budgeting tool and do the following:

1. Pull up your CC/debit statement to track your expenses

2. Make any savings/investment/debt payoff transfers or payments (and track them)

3. Review each of your accounts to calculate your net worth

Summer Tip: Take an extra close look at your spending from May and compare it to some earlier months in the year. Are there any areas where you’ve noticed an uptick? These may be indicative of where you may need to adjust your spending categories going into the summer months!

💸 CHANGING YOUR SPENDING BEHAVIOR

Goal: This section step is where you will understand why you use your money the way you do, identify triggers, and begin to make adjustments to your day-to-day financial behavior.

Action:  Take a look at your final numbers for the month and ask yourself the following questions:

👉🏻 How does my spending/saving make me feel?

👉🏻 Am I proud of the progress I made last month? Why/ why not?

👉🏻 What changes do I need to make going forward to improve my financial position?

Tip:  Be super honest with yourself here. It might be a little uncomfortable, but the goal is to become more aware so you can make the necessary changes.

Summer Tip: Think about how you have spent your money in summers prior. Do you find that you tend to go out to eat a lot more, take a lot of trips, buy more clothes? Summer spending behavior is often quite different than spending behavior during other parts of the year, and we want to be realistic!

P.P.S. Most people skip this step – don’t be one of those people! There is a dedicated space for you to work through a monthly review inside The Personal Finance Dashboard. 

💸 PLANNING AHEAD FOR NEXT MONTH

Goal:  To create your zero-based 3-bucket budget for June (and the summer months) that incorporates any changes you need to make from February alongside any upcoming plans/events/travel you have for March.

Action: Using what you learned about yourself from step 2, and the insight you gleamed from updating your numbers in step 1, create your budget for next month.

Remember to ensure your budget is a zero-based 3-bucket budget that allocates every dollar of income you earn towards either an:

💸 Essential expense

💸 Financial goal (saving, investing, debt payoff)

💸 Non-essential expense

Summer Tip: I have a baseline budget that I use month-to-month, and will adjust it during this exercise depending on any unique or specific events I have going on. 

A baseline budget is your bare-bones, monthly average spending + savings plan. I adjust my baseline budget every quarter to reflect the season we are in. In the summer, I find my expenses tend to be a few hundred dollars higher from socializing + travel!

I track all of my spending using The Personal Finance Dashboard! if you have spending goals, saving/investing goals, or debt payoff goals, you need a tool to track where your money is going. Join thousands of others using the PFD and take your financial power back!