Build a Summer Spending Plan That Lets You Spend Without Regret

Summer has a way of making everyone a little looser with money. Dinners, trips, long weekends, weddings, beauty appointments, beach days, concerts, random Target runs, and that very dangerous sentence: “It’s summer, I’m just going to enjoy it.” And honestly? You should enjoy it. But enjoying summer without a plan can turn into an August credit card statement that makes you wonder, “Wait… did I have THAT much fun?” In this episode, Shari walks you through how to build a summer spending plan that lets you spend on purpose without making summer feel restrictive, boring, or guilt-filled. This is not about tracking every tiny purchase or creating a budget that yells at you. It’s about deciding what you actually want your money to do this summer before your calendar, your group chat, your family obligations, and your exhaustion make those decisions for you. Shari breaks down why traditional budgets often fall apart in summer, how to use flexible spending ranges instead of rigid numbers, and the five summer spending categories she would actually use: travel and weekends, family/friends/obligations, food and convenience, social life, and personal joy and ease. You’ll learn: Why summer spending feels different from the rest of the year The two questions to ask before setting any summer spending number Why “permission without a plan” leads to regret How to use spending ranges instead of strict budget categories Why planned spending deserves to be enjoyed How to choose one guilt-free yes and one clear boundary for summer How to do a 15-minute summer spending setup before the season gets away from you This episode is for the woman who wants to enjoy summer without entering fall with a black cloud of money doom hanging over her head. You can spend money and still be responsible. Those are not opposing values. Grab the free Summer Spending Plan at everyonestalkinmoney.kit.com/summerplan Want support sticking with this kind of system all season long? Check out the Everyone’s Talkin’ Money Club, where podcast episodes become tools, routines, community, and real money decisions. Follow Everyone’s Talkin’ Money on Instagram ⁠@everyonestalkinmoney⁠ and let Shari know what you’re spending guilt-free on this summer. If you’re ready for personalized, judgment-free financial guidance, learn more about working with Shari. Shari Rash is the founder of GWA Wealth, a virtual advisory firm helping women make confident, values-aligned decisions with their money. Visit GWA Wealth to explore your next step. Talkin’ Points → where your money gets smarter. Real talk, practical tips, zero guilt straight to your inbox. Sign up here. Be sure to like and follow the show on your favorite podcast app! Shari Rash is a financial planner and Investment Adviser Representative of GWA Wealth, a Registered Investment Adviser. The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Listening to this podcast does not create an advisory relationship with Shari Rash or GWA Wealth. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal. Any references to specific investments, strategies, or securities are for illustrative purposes only and are not recommendations. You should consult your own financial advisor, tax professional, or attorney regarding your individual situation before making any financial decisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 1:30Speaker 03

  A quick summer update. New episodes will be dropping on Tuesdays during the summer. I'm keeping things simple while life, travel, and all the expensive summer chaos are in full swing. So make sure you're subscribed and I'll be in your ears every Tuesday with smart, honest money conversations to help you feel more in control without overcomplicating your life. Summer has a way of making everyone a little, maybe, looser with their money. Not as restricted, a little freer. Could it be the nice weather, the concerts, the sitting outside on your deck drinking Aperol spritzes? I'm not exactly sure, but it has this effect on everyone.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  And summer spending starts with a lot of reasonable yeses. Like, none of this stuff is crazy. I'm talking dinners, trips, long weekends, beach days, pool stuff, cute outfits for the dinners, weddings, beauty appointments, because now that it's summer, we gotta make sure we're looking nice as well, right? Random target runs. But it also has that dangerous sentence of, it's summer, I'm just gonna enjoy it. And I am very pro enjoying your life, like genuinely.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  I believe life is for living and our money is what helps us live the life we want to. So I'm not here to lecture today and I'm not here to say having fun and doing all of these extra fun things is bad. That's not the issue. The issue is not wanting to enjoy summer. The issue is going into summer with a vibe, enjoying the sunshine, feeling a little freer, instead of a plan. The vibe most of us enter summer with is, I'll figure it out. But the reality is, your credit card does not send you a gentle reminder in July going,

• 3:38Speaker 03

  hey, let's um, slow down a little bit, or let's, let's second guess a couple of things. Let's, let's take a beat. Your credit card sends you a full statement in August and suddenly you're looking at that number going, wait, I had fun, but I didn't realize I had that much fun.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Today, we are not going through a restrictive budget. I am not going to talk to you about tracking every lemonade stand purchased from your adorable little neighbor. We are not creating the guilt and shame spiral. I am not providing you a list of things you are not allowed to do. And I am not trying to make summer boring for you. What this episode is going to do is help you create a summer spending plan that lets you enjoy your life without turning August into despair, without you entering the fall with a black cloud of money doom hanging over your head.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  The goal for our summer is not to spend as little as possible. The goal is to spend on purpose, enjoy it while it's happening, and not wake up in August wondering where all your money went and why your credit card balance has so many zeros behind it. So I'm going to give you the five summer spending categories I'd actually use, especially if you're managing your own money, your goals, your own social calendar, and your future. Welcome back to Everyone's Talkin Money. I'm Shari Rash, founder of GWA Wealth. And after almost 20 years in personal finance, working with women who are genuinely doing well on paper, but still don't feel fully in control of their money, I can tell you

• 5:32Speaker 03

  this with a lot of confidence. Most people do not need, we're welcome, a more restrictive spending budget. They just need a clearer spending plan. Restriction sounds great for about four minutes. You write down the categories, you feel responsible, you feel like new me, new system, like I am changing things and stuff's going to improve. And then real life shows up. Someone invites you to a weekend away. A friend's birthday turns into dinner, drinks, Uber, outfit, gift. A wedding weekend costs more than a mini-vacation. Your dog sitter costs more than you planned for.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  You're tired and you're ordering dinner again. You realize your calendar is full and your checking account is not. This cycle is not a willpower problem. It's a plan design problem. So today, we're building something that actually accounts for how summer works. Because summer does not work like the rest of the year, and your spending plan shouldn't either. Before you set one number, before you open your spreadsheet, I want you to answer two questions. The first is, what do I actually want to enjoy this summer?

• 6:54Speaker 03

  This is not what Instagram says your summer should look like. This is not what your friends want, not what your family expects out of you, not what sounds responsible. What do you actually want? Do you want more weekends at the beach? Do you want to go on a real vacation because you can't remember the last time you had one? Do you want to have more dinners with your friends? Do you want more work-life balance this summer? Do you want to complete a home project? Go on a trip by yourself? Do you want more rest or more convenience? So think about that. What do you want this summer? What do you want to enjoy? Question number two.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  What do I not want to regret paying for later? Some spending feels amazing in the moment and feels terrible later. And some spending feels expensive in the moment, but it's actually worth it. You're like, oh, my gosh, this is going to cost me a fortune, but I don't care. I loved every minute of it. The goal is not to judge every purchase. The goal is to separate spending that supports the summer you actually want from spending that happens because you're tired, rushed, pressured, lonely, bored, or operating on fumes. A summer spending plan should protect both your joy and your future self.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  They are not opposing things. Your joy today and your future self can work together. You can enjoy your life and still protect your bigger goals. So in a minute, I'm going to give you the actual categories to use. But first, let's talk about why normal budgets fall apart so fast once summer hits. There are four real reasons traditional budgets collapse in general, right? But in summer, most particularly. Like budgets in general fail for most people. And that because they are restrictive, because they are specific, because they don't account for the random things that life presents you.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  But I feel like in summer, it's even worse. Like things are more loosey-goosey. These, this random stuff happens and our budgets, if we set a budget, are not prepared for it.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  So here's the first reason. Summer expenses are irregular. Traditional budgets assume most months look the same, like expenses are similar, spending is similar. But June does not behave like February. July is nothing like November. Summer doesn't care about your neat little monthly categories. Summer shows up with a beach bag full of expenses that your February budget never saw coming. I'm talking travel, weddings, showers, bachelorette weekends, family visits, pet care, beach weekends, rooftop drinks, extra meals out, Ubers, home projects, concerts.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  I mean, we don't have that stuff in the winter. So in summer, though, we do. And that's awesome. And that is what makes summer magical. But using a February budget for July is just not realistic.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  And a lot of times, though, these summer expenses are not always surprises. They can be predictable. If you know you go to a lot of concerts in the summer, if that is your joy, if that's what you value, plan for it. Don't be surprised that you went to five concerts this summer. Plan for it. If you know in the summer you're eating out more often, you're grabbing quick dinners, you're going out for ice cream. Again, don't be surprised by it. Plan for it. Learn from your past summer behaviors. Reason number two, budgeting just doesn't work in the summer. Summer spending is emotional. People spend because they want ease.

• 11:06Speaker 03

  They want to create memories. They want to feel more free. They want to break from their routine. They want to feel better, look better. They want to have some fun. And summer just feels different. Even if we're still grinding, the sunshine makes everything a little bit more palatable. So. Summer spending can be emotional and emotional spending is a lot harder to manage with a rigid spreadsheet. We, we don't know what emotions we're going to have on any particular day.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  So planning our spending with these rigid transactions is not realistic because we do feel a certain way in the summer and our spending reflects it. Reason number three, summer creates permission. So have you said, you know, it's only summer once or it's, it's finally nice out. I want to enjoy it. I work hard. I deserve it. It's just one dinner. I'll figure it out. I don't want to be boring. I don't want to miss out. I can't say no again. I said no last time. Some of this is true. You do work hard. Life is short. Summer should be enjoyed. You should go out with your friends.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Like all of those things are true. But permission to do those things without a plan to back it up is where regret comes in. That's when we start regretting our, our decisions because we told ourselves, we, we made excuses for doing what we're doing. It wasn't part of our plan. We didn't have a plan and then we feel bad about it. So if you have a plan and you know, these are my concerts I'm going to. I'm going out to one extra dinner a week. I'm going to, you know, focus on my beauty routine more in the summer and here are the

• 13:13Speaker 03

  approximate costs and you build it into the plan. It removes the drama of feeling bad or regretting it and having like the bad boy blues.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  If everything, every extra thing is just automatically yes, nothing's chosen. So you have to be a little discerning about what you are saying yes to. Saying yes to everything is how you get to August with a giant credit card bill, or no money left in your checking account, and no clear sense of, was this worth it? Should I have spent this money on it?

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Reason number four, budgets don't work in the summer. Too many decisions happen in the moment. I know no one says it anymore, but it's like we're YOLO, YOLO-ing over here. The decisions are last minute. You get invited. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Let's go. So you're, you're, that comes at a cost, and also it's harder to track. The more things you decide while tired, rushed, or emotionally overwhelmed, the more expensive summer gets. And this is not bad judgment on your part. You're just missing a framework. So we need to build one. And I promise, building it is not going to be complicated.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  So, and what we're going to do is look at the five summer spending categories to help build that framework. So the five categories I'd use with a summer spending plan are because they exist, they're real, but because they cover most of the places your summer money goes to. Like, these are real destinations for your dollars. So, five categories, we are not overthinking it. Category one, travel and weekends. I'd say most people underestimate how much they're spending on travel. Because we just think about like the flight or the hotel. But we don't include...

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Airport parking if we're taking a flight. Rental cars, again, if we're taking a flight. If we're not taking a flight, Ubers everywhere. We don't take into account who is watching your dog. The food at the airport, we don't account for eating out. Or the activities we're gonna do while away. Airport parking tips, everyone's asking for tips. We never account for that. Random resort fees, like, really? I mean, that that could add hundreds of dollars to your bill depending on the resort. I forgot my sunglasses or I left them on the plane. I have to buy new sunglasses. So think about the real number that travel actually costs you.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Not just the price of your plane ticket or your hotel room. Category number two, family, friends and obligations. So family visits, you know, when your family comes visit, that's not cheap. They're getting the free place to stay, but likely you are having more food and drinks and all of that. Or maybe doing activities that you wouldn't normally do because you, your, your family is playing tourist where you live. Gifts, weddings, showers, bachelorette weekends, birthday dinners.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Picking up dinner when you go out with your, your niece or your, your sister. Again, taking care of your pets. If you're out and about for most of the day, you may need the neighbor to come out and come and let your dog out. That could be 20 bucks you didn't account for spending. So think about all of the expense that comes when it comes to family and friends and obligations. And I'm not saying, don't tell your family they can't come for, for the weekend. Unless you want me to, if you want to blame it on me, that's fine. But, or I'm not saying you can't go out and do these things with your friends. But again, it's planning accordingly for them. So that's category number two.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Category number three is food and convenience. This is a sneaky category. So obviously, we, we have food spending every other season of our, of the year. But in the summer, it can get more expensive. You could see more takeout. You could have more grocery delivery because it's like, who really wants to be in a hot car, driving to the grocery store, doing all of that, coming back unloading when you could be sitting by the pool on a Saturday. You're going out to eat restaurants. You know, you're, you're, you're packing snacks for the pool, for the beach. You might be door dashing because it, it's just easier. You're hanging out with your friends and you don't have any food in your fridge to feed them, so we door dash something.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  Last minute dinners. It's hot. The last thing I want to do is cook right now. So the convenience of food and, and the convenience of food and eating out and delivery and all of that is not bad. And it can be supportive and it can be that mental break that you need. The issue is the unplanned convenience. So plan for the convenience you're going to use. So, so then you know, again, we're removing the mystery from the spending. Plan for the convenience you're actually going to use. So then it removes the drama from, from it all. And then cut it off.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  So like, if you feel like you're going to be big into door dashing over this season, then fine, then you do have to go get your own groceries. Right? It's a give and take. So we're not, not, we're not making everything convenient and paying a premium for it. Category four, social life. Right? We, we are more social when it's nice out. We're no longer hibernating in our homes. So we're going out to dinner. We're grabbing drinks. We're, we're going out to brunch. We're going on dates. We're going to concerts. We have different events where, you know, when you're at these concerts and events, like obviously you're going to get, grab something to eat, grab something to drink. You're taking Ubers there because we are responsible adults and we're, when we're

• 19:41Speaker 03

  going out, you may go buy a new outfit. So all of this stuff, it is, it adds up and it is a big category, especially in the summer.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Category five, personal joy and ease. So I'm putting this one in here on purpose because if your plan has no room for joy, you will rebel against it. Right? It's the caged animal effect that I talk about. If you are not purposefully spending on things that make you happy and you're completely restrictive, then at some point, yeah, it's going to work for a little bit. Then at some point, you're going to explode. And you're going to make up for lost time. So we need to have some joy in our budgets. So beauty, clothes, fitness, that workout class that you're like, I've been dying to do this. And I think it would be so much fun.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  And summer body, hello, like it all makes sense. Getting that massage, getting that book that you've been, your friends have been talking about, starting a new hobby, spending time together, upgrading your home. Cause now that the sun's out and it's shining on your house, you're like, oh my gosh, we need, we need a new paint. We need this upgrade. Going on a trip by yourself, doesn't that sound wonderful? So do building in those things that make summer feel like your summer. It is curated for you, not for someone else's Instagram feed, not your neighbor, not your best friend, but your summer.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  Give this category a real number and do not make this the first place you cut. When guilt shows up, you cut your family visiting. I'm just kidding.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  So every money decision has to support your life, your future and your financial freedom.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  So if you're listening right now and thinking, okay, this is exactly what I need because summer spending always gets away from me no matter what I do. I have something for you. The summer spending plan. It maps out real summer expenses. It helps you choose categories. It helps you set flexible ranges and helps you decide what you actually want your money to do this season. The goal here is not to create some miserable budget that makes you feel guilty every time you enjoy your life. The goal is to spend with more clarity, more intention, and a lot less regret. You can get it at everyone's talking money podcast.com backslash one, five, three, four,

• 22:29Speaker 03

  or get it from the link in your show notes. There are five steps to putting this together and none of them require a degree in Excel spreadsheets. Step one is to pick your categories. So use the five categories I gave you or customize it. Do not overcomplicate this. Think of where you spend your money in the summer. Even look back to last year, run your transactions on your credit card for last year and see where you spent your money, learn from the past, right? And, and just create five categories, not 42. We are not getting super specific because specificity, when it comes to budgets, never works.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  We get overwhelmed. Things don't fit neatly into the, in, in, into the little areas and we give up. So we are trying to make this as useful as possible for you. Step two, set a spending range for each category. This would be really helpful to go back and look at past transactions. Because you may be like, I have no idea what I even would spend on, on this. What do I spend on concerts? Like tickets are ridiculous.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  I don't even know where to start. So looking back on past transactions could be helpful, but give yourself a range. A range gives structure, but it also gives you breathing room. So example ranges.

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  Travel for a weekend, you know, $1,500 to $2,000 for two weekend trips, right? Food or the convenience of getting food, $600 to $800 a month. Family, friends, other obligations, $400 to $700 a summer. Personal joy, $200 to $400. Whatever it is, but these numbers depend on, one, your income, right? We need to be realistic. We need to look at your goals, your lifestyle, your debt and your priorities. So we don't want to abandon any automatic savings strategies you've had. We're not stopping those.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  We don't, obviously, clearly, we don't want to spend more than what we bring in. So we have to be realistic with these numbers and maybe also redirect. Like if you have a gym membership that you use during the colder months, maybe see if you could put that on pause because you can go outside and walk for free in the beautiful weather. And then that frees up money to be used elsewhere on a more summer type expense. So the lower number in your range is the target. Like, that's what we're going for. We don't want to spend the upper number. That's not our goal. That's the ceiling. That's our buffer.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Anything in between the target and the ceiling is okay. But again, let's, let's go for the target, but knowing in the back of our mind, if things are more expensive than what we expected, we have a little extra built in.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  A range of expenses gives you structure and breathing room. So it doesn't present as a failure if something was like 50 bucks more expensive. Your budget is not blowing up and yelling at you the way traditional budgets do. Step three, decide your non-negotiables. So a spending plan should tell you what you are protecting. And like I mentioned, we are protecting our monthly savings transfer or our monthly investment. We are protecting our debt payoff. I mean, how horrible would it be if we enter summer, we spend more than we, you know, planned for and we're still in debt because we stopped paying towards our debts? Or we have even more than what we started?

• 26:26Speaker 03

  We are not pausing our emergency fund progress.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  You know, if if you know in the fall you have travel, if you have expenses that are out of the ordinary, we're not pausing saving that. Okay, so we want to keep future self still aware and planned, planned into our summer range expense numbers. Because if we don't, summer's going to spend that money.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Summer likes to spend. She's not malicious. She's just quiet about it, but it's one convenience charge. It's one dinner out. It's one aperol out on the porch at a time. So we need to protect our our goals and be aware of them.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Step four, pre-decide where you are and where you are and are not flexible. So where am I willing to flex? And where am I willing to not flex? What am I willing to give up? Because the concert was more expensive than I thought, or the weekend away was more expensive than I thought. Where am I willing to give up and make and create some wiggle room?

• 27:35Speaker 03

  You may not be willing to give up dining out every for the entire weekend you're traveling, right? You may want to have breakfast, lunch and dinner out versus having, you know, bringing, going to the grocery store and grabbing some granola bars for breakfast. Going out to eat while traveling may be your thing. You may not be willing to give up one event you really care about.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  The convenience, maybe grocery delivery, you're not willing to give up, but there could be other things you are willing to concede on.

• 28:08Speaker 00

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• 28:41Speaker 03

  The plan is not there to control you. It's there to keep guardrails up and to keep one category from cannibalizing all the other categories. So you might be thinking, but Shari, what if something comes up? Because something will come up every single summer. That's not the reason to avoid the plan. That is exactly why the plan needs flexibility built in from the start. And we're not trying to predict a perfect summer. It's just a framework for navigating an imperfect one. Whatever you do today and plan for your summer

• 29:23Speaker 03

  is better than what you've done last summer and the summer before. Like if you came into this episode going, yep, I have no idea. Summer spending, I have no control over it. I always spend way more than I wanted. And you end this episode and you download my worksheet and you're like, I'm going to create a plan and follow it the best I can. You're already so much ahead than you were last summer. So be gentle on yourself, be realistic and, and just think about it. Because the problem is, is that we don't think about this stuff. So step five is to run a quick summer calendar scan.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Take a look at the next eight to 10 weeks and identify your trips, your weddings, your showers, your birthdays, the visitors, your family plans, concerts, events, long weekends, pet care. And see the expensive weeks before they happen and set realistic ranges. Stop pretending every week is blank and you have nothing going on. You have something every weekend. I'm, I'm confident of that. You are so popular and you have so much going on that you, you are busy.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  So now you have the framework, you have the categories, you have the ranges. So here's the part no one talks about. How do you actually spend without guilt, once you have a plan in place? A lot of women I work with can build the plan, and that's the easy part. But the harder part is letting themselves actually use it without auditing every purchase. So guilt is usually not about the purchase. Guilt often comes from not knowing whether the purchase fits, or if it was okay. So buying lunch and immediately wondering if you should have. Booking a massage and then debating cancelling it. Saying yes to a trip and then obsessing over every expense. Going out with your friends and thinking about the Uber cost of it versus if you clearly just stayed at home.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  When you don't know what is in range, even reasonable spending feels suspicious. When there is a plan, you already have permission. You already granted yourself permission. And the permission is not like, it's summer, I'm going to figure it out later. It's actual permission. And if it fits in the plan, it fits. And that's it. No more analysis, no more guilt, no more drama around it. Point two, planned spending deserves to be enjoyed. If you chose it, you planned for it, and you protected your priorities, then you do not need to punish yourself while enjoying said thing, or said event, or said expense.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Do not spend money and then ruin the experience by emotionally auditing yourself the entire time. That is not financial responsibility. That is anxiety on vacation, wearing a cute dress. High achieving women struggle here. It's the discipline that helps them earn and save and build. But that same discipline can also make spending feel wrong. But spending that fits your plan is not irresponsible. You worked hard for your money, and enjoying it is not a betrayal of your money.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Point three. Fun money is not a moral failure. Money is not only for bills and emergency fund and retirement and future goals. Money is also for living, looking good and feeling good. Ease, connection, experiences, pleasure, rest. So going on that solo trip, going out to dinner with your friends, hiring a cleaner for your house, buying that dress you love and you look great in, having that beach weekend, going to the concert. If you are protecting your priorities and not going into debt, you are allowed to spend on things that feel good. Point number four. Use the no regret rule. Will I be glad I spent this when the bill comes?

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Ask yourself that. Will I be glad I spent that money? If the answer is yes, go right ahead. Proceed. Enjoy it. If the answer is no, or you're unsure, pause and give it 24 hours. Let the urge to buy or to do settle. Spending that often causes regret is pressure spending, boredom spending, loneliness spending, last minute spending, reflexive upgrade spending. So we're just upgrading out of habit. Everyone else is doing it, spending. Spending to avoid saying no. Spending on plans you didn't actually want to do,

• 34:12Speaker 03

  but have kind of felt pressured to do. The type of spending that rarely creates regret are things that you consciously chose. Things that are planned for, things you genuinely wanted, things that you waited for, and stuff that supports the summer you want. Regret comes from spending that was never consciously chosen. And that is exactly what the plan helps to prevent. So before you go, here's the 15 minute setup I want you to do this week. It's June, it's getting hot out. Some kids are out of school. You're hearing your coworkers talk about the vacations they're gonna go on. So we need to start this now. Step one, open your calendar.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Look at the next eight to 10 weeks. Identify the trips, the weddings, the family visits, concerts, friend plans, work, travel, long weekends, all of that. You gotta get the lay of the land before you start setting numbers. Step two, pick your five categories. So here are some that I suggest. Travel and weekends, family, friend and obligations, food and convenience, social life, personal joy and ease. But adjust this to fit your actual life. I mean, some, some food inconvenience or convenience in general may not be that attractive to you or it may not be necessary. So whatever it is, right?

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Figure out the five categories for your summer life. Write them down, name them. Step three, set ranges. So for each category, ask yourself what would feel reasonable? What feels too high? What can I spend while still protecting my bigger goals and priorities? Go back and look at your past spending and probably add like 15% for inflation because that's, that's the reality of the situation. And write the range, write the lower number, upper number. And no, anything you're spending in between is okay. But like strive for the lower number. Step four, choose one guilt-free spending category. So this is important and you need one intentional yes.

• 36:23Speaker 03

  So for example, this summer I am intentionally spending on beach weekends. This summer I am intentionally spending on dinners with people I love. This summer I am intentionally spending on going out with my friends because I want to have more of a social life. This summer I am intentionally spending on convenience because I am not gonna lose my mind over grocery shopping. Name the thing. Give yourself actual permission for the thing you care about. And it's a real permission with numbers. Step five, choose one clear boundary. So one example may be setting a cap for takeout or spending, setting a cap on social spending,

• 37:09Speaker 03

  group trip boundary, target boundary, Amazon boundary, a beauty spending range, not saying yes to every random upgrade, checking your calendar and you're checking a count before saying yes. We need one guilt free yes, and we also need one clear boundary. That is what's going to change the feel of your summer. So here's what I want you to take from this episode. A summer spending plan is not controlling every dollar. It's not punishment. It's not a list of things you cannot have. It is not a way to make summer smaller. It's not a way to create more guilt or feel bad. A summer spending plan is about making sure your money goes towards the summer you actually want,

• 37:54Speaker 03

  creating memories you care about, the ease that you need, being with the people you want to spend time with. You can spend money and still be responsible. They are not opposing values. You can enjoy summer and protect your bigger goals and you can have real fun without every expense becoming a surprise. But it takes a plan. If you want help building out your summer spending plan, visit everyone's talking money podcast.com backslash one, five, three, four, or click the link in your show notes. It walks you through the categories, the ranges, the calendar scan, everything I've discussed today.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  And if you want support sticking with the system all season long, not just building it, but actually using it, check out the ETM club. This is where we take episodes and turn them into tools, routine, community, and real money decisions. Follow the show on Instagram at everyone's talking money and please leave a quick rating and review. Remember, money is not just there to pay bills and stress you out. Money should be a tool that helps you live life on your terms. I'll see you next time.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG: HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.

• 39:54Speaker 01

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