Summer with kids can be one of the most expensive times of the year for some reason when they're all home and they're all eating meals at home all the time, it can end up being even harder to stay on budget. In today's first summer episode of the Debt Free Mom podcast, I'm going to talk about managing our finances and our time with kids at home for the summer.
the first part of the episode will be about being home with the kids during the summer. And then the second part of the episode will be about being on the road, traveling with kids during the summer. This episode is just chock-full of my little tips and tricks that I've found along the way for managing summers at home with kids and on the road.
Until this summer, my husband worked at a summer day camp during all of our other years of being married and having kids. So he was gone 50 to 60 hours a week and summers were basically just me and the kids. In that time, I have learned a lot about being home with the kids, not blowing the budget simply because we were bored, and still having a great time together. So let's dive in to summer at home with the kids.
I don't love having a strict schedule. I find that having a bunch of little kids doesn't tend to lend itself to sticking to specific times of day, but I do enjoy having a routine. So I opt for having predictable rhythms to our day when everybody is at home, as opposed to strict timelines. I also try to minimize the number of activities that we do that have specific times we have to be somewhere so that it can feel like a more relaxed time of year as opposed to school. One of the ways that I stick to a routine or rhythm instead of a strict schedule is to use a set of magnets that act as a visual schedule. So I found this set a year ago on Amazon. It's a whole bunch of tasks and places to go and parts of your day like mealtimes or chores or personal hygiene or reading or going to the park or going to the dentist. And they are magnetic. So, especially during the week, I try to set up a daily rhythm to put on the fridge that all the kids can see. And it's picture based, so even the ones who can't read can follow along with what they expect us to do during the day. All of the magnets start on the left side of the fridge. And then as we do something, we move it over to the right side of the fridge to show that it's done. So the kids know what we have done and what is coming up.
We also try to alternate between low and high energy activities between things that are on a screen and off a screen. This helps to get all of that energy out while still also giving me breaks by utilizing tools like iPads or movies. So we might eat breakfast and then run straight outside to play on the swing set while it's still cool in the morning. And then we'll come inside and watch a couple episodes of Bluey while I get myself ready for the day or have my own breakfast. And then once that's done, we might go to the park and then once that's done, we might play some video games. So we have this rhythm, I have found alternating between something that uses a lot of their energy, and then going into something that allows them to sit and rest has been a helpful cadence to our time at home. So often when I find myself getting overwhelmed or the kids fighting more than normal it's because they need to get energy out or because they need to rest. So I try to alternate these high intensity activities with a low intensity activity right after or something on a screen with something deliberately off a screen. So we might go to the pool for two and a half hours in the afternoon. And when we come home, everybody changes out of their swimsuits gets cozy, gets a snack. We turn on a show in the cool dark basement, and they really like to relax after we have spent so much time swimming.
I also default to free activities for our summer. So we might choose one to two things during the month that is a paid activity. But it's something that we make special and occasional so it feels like a treat. I try not to default to every time we are bored or it's hot or it's raining. That it means we're going to have to go out and pay to enjoy something. The most common things that we enjoy are our pool membership, which is not free, but we do pay for it once at the beginning of the year, and it's a set amount that we know and budget for and then we can use it all throughout the summer. Our library and other local libraries, which I'll talk about that in a minute, and parks. So these are the things that we tend to cycle through with during the week, we might go to two or three parks throughout the week and two different libraries and then swim six or seven times.
I think as adults, we tend to overcomplicate what kids are looking for in the summer. They're looking for being outside, getting a break from the school routine. And just enjoying friends, enjoying siblings and enjoying the freedom to create and have adventures. This can be done by going to the same places over and over. Kids actually get the chance to really dig in and explore and be creative when they're at familiar, comfortable places, time after time after time. So while we, as adults might get bored, going to the same park, two to three times in a week, kids tend to not be that way. So we need to remember that when we're trying to come up with our summer schedule, don't apply how we would feel about going to that park to the way that a three or four year old would feel about going to that park.
Getting so used to packing food from home that I can do it on autopilot without really thinking is another way that we enjoy our summer without breaking the bank. So I've found that having a couple things like a cooler, reliable ice packs, and three compartment meal containers that I can pack a lunch for each kid, easily snap the lids, stack them up and stick them in a cooler allows us to go out on these adventures, have food from home so that everybody's not hungry, and not feel the need to swing through the drive through every single time we're out and about.
Dinners tend to be when I add variety and we try new foods and I really try to give lots of different colors to their food, to get adventurous with vegetables. But when it comes to breakfast and lunch, I have found that with four kids ages two to eight, I just need to keep it consistent and simple. So we will have peanut butter and jelly with veggie straws and apple slices and a cheese stick. And we'll have that multiple times during the week. We'll pack our lunch boxes and we'll eat on the go we'll eat at the picnic tables outside of the pool, we'll eat in the van on the way home from the park, whatever that schedule requires. I have found that during that morning screen time, right before we go on our high energy activity, I can take just five minutes to put together four lunches for the kids and know that we have our food with us. It makes the question, "can we go get fast food?" a lot easier to answer if I say, "Hey, we already have a cooler of food. Here's your lunchbox."
Now let's talk about activities. I prefer to go to the pool pretty much every day that weather allows, but I know not everybody is that way. I grew up going to the pool. It was just what we did with summers. And I knew I wanted to do that with my kids as well, but here are some other things we'd like to do in addition to going to the pool. I mentioned libraries earlier. Do not sleep on your local libraries. The amount of resources they offer that are above and beyond books and movies cannot be overstated. So our local library is amazing at offering programs for children, toddler times, older kids lunch in the garden shows, evening Lego clubs, a summer reading program that has a pool party at the end of the year. The library often also has things you can check out or use while you're there that are not just books: puzzles, toys, coloring pages. If we find ourself with a little bit of downtime or a rainy day, we'll stop by the local library and just play for 20 or 30 minutes to get some energy out, have some activities that look different than the things that are at our house, and it doesn't cost a thing. And when it comes to playing at libraries, remember that you don't have to just go to the library that's closest to your house. Many of us live within driving distance of multiple libraries, and switching it up and seeing what they have and playing with a different set of toys can also be a fantastic way to spend your time.
Now, what do we do when everything is falling apart? The kids are sick of each other. They're sick of their toys, mom wants to get out of the house and we just need to get to dinner time. I don't remember who told it to me first, but this phrase helps me over and over again, especially with those really small children. When anyone is overwhelmed, including mom, get the kids playing with water. I get the kids playing outside, preferably both. So this looks like a water table. This looks like a sprinkler. This looks like filling a Tupperware with water and bubbles and telling them to give all their cars a carwash. Anything with water and outside tends to calm that overwhelm and give them something to do.
Another tip I have for making it through those days, that just feel more draining than the others is to do ordinary activities at odd times of the day. This is one of my favorite go-tos. If everything is falling apart, I can't bring myself to get them out of the house. I will do a 10:00 AM bath time. I'll say, you know what? Just for fun, let's take a bath. It's 10 in the morning, but we're going to play with your toys. We're going to fill up the bubble bath. Maybe have some glow sticks in the tub. Maybe give them a Popsicle to eat in the tub, doing ordinary things at odd times of the day can just shake up the routine and get anybody who's in a funk out of it.
Now, when it comes to the budget, I don't think we can get away with spending absolutely nothing all summer long. So, one thing I like to do is just put an extra $20 per pay period, which is twice a month for me, into the budget and call it fun, summer fun. You can name it, whatever you'd like it to be. But this allows me to every once in a while, every other week, let's say. I be out driving with the kids. We have to get groceries. They might be hot and sweaty and tired and not want to be helping me with my errands. And I can just say, "Hey, let's stop and get some ice cream cones."
Doing things infrequently is more fun than always doing them or never doing them. If we constantly stop and get ice cream cones, it becomes something normal and not special. And it becomes expected, which takes away some of the magic and the fun. Never doing something is also not fun. If we absolutely never stopped and got ice cream cones in the summer, that also would not be fun. Occasionally stopping and especially doing it in a way that surprises them and grabbing some ice cream cones adds to the fun of the summer without costing an arm and a leg.
And this last one might feel obvious, but sometimes the obvious just escapes us. Get together with friends, time passes so much more quickly for me when I am with other friends, even if we're doing exactly the same things that I would have been doing alone. So even if it's going to the park or even if it's playing in our backyard, inviting another parent and their kids over to play passes the time more quickly. Gives our kids, the chance to socialize and gives me the chance to spend that same time I would have been at the park or at the pool with another adult connecting and remembering that while motherhood might be lonely, I'm not alone.
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Now for the second half of these quick tips for enjoying the summer with your kids. Let's talk about being on the road, being away from home while enjoying your summer and not finding yourself completely spending all extra money you thought you would have in your bank account.
I've learned recently that this is a Midwest thing, but we road trip. We drive pretty much anywhere. We'll fly if it's all the way across the country, but with the kids, we've done that one time. So where are the type of people that load up the minivan, stick a topper on top Christmas Vacation style and hit the road for 14 hours. We have done this so many times I've lost count. And along the way as we have traveled with newborns and elementary kids, as we've traveled with one kid or four, with extended family without extended family in the winter, in the summer, I've gained a lot of experience and I've found things to do and not do. I'm going to talk about where I choose to stay. What I pack in the van and what we do while we're in the car.
When it comes to choosing a place to say, I always opt for having a kitchen available. The additional nightly charged that we might incur by staying somewhere with a kitchen, as opposed to a small hotel is always cheaper than eating all of our food out. So if I have a kitchen that I can base out of and throw together easy breakfast, easy lunches, and then eat out for our dinners or vice versa, this saves us so much money. So when I'm looking for a place to stay, I'm looking for a full kitchen.
Same goes for laundry. I don't want to have to pack seven pairs of underwear and seven shirts and seven shorts for each person in our family. So I'm looking for a place that has access to laundry that I can easily run loads of laundry. Also, when you're traveling with kids, it's inevitable that someone is going to have a major mess or a major accident, and we don't want to have it be midnight and we're in a small hotel room with no access to a washer and dryer. So I look for places that have in unit laundry. For example, we're going away in July for two weeks. I'll only be packing probably four or five outfits per person with two swimsuits and three or four pairs of pajamas. This cuts down on how much stuff is in our van. As a family of six with a van that seats eight, any extra space in the van is prime real estate when we're going on a road trip. Being able to pack less clothes helps us out.
Now this next lesson I've learned about kids really depends on your age of kids, the stage of life you're in, the number of kids you have, and just what your traveling preferences are. But I look for a place that we really wouldn't have to leave once we're there. If we find a place that's out in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't really have a lot of activities around it, we're going to find ourselves paying to get into other activities while we're on the vacation. But if we look for a place that's really a one-stop shop that might have a pool and access to the beach, or if it's in the mountains, it has a hot tub and hiking trails. If we don't have to get up and out of the cabin or the condo every single day, we're going to save money. So I'll pay more for access to a pool or for an extra bedroom so that we can have the place we're staying as our home base and then occasionally go out for activities if we want to, but not feel like we have to in order to survive the trip. The beach is my preference. Other people like the mountains or the hiking or the outdoors, but these things are all free and open and available for everyone to enjoy.
Now let's talk about what goes in the van. What do we bring along when six people are about to be in the car for 14 hours and four of them are under the age of nine? I am all about having different kits. What I do is I use those cube storage bins that go in the cube organizers that you can get at Walmart or Target, and I have a different kit for each different purpose. Here are the kits I pack: a snack kit. And in that kit, it's not just a bunch of granola bars. It has plastic bowls, cups, plates, silverware, and then yes, snacks and drinks. I'll rip all the tops off of the cardboard boxes for the snacks so we can easily reach in and grab them. But I don't pack a ton of individually wrapped snacks because those can get expensive. I also pack the large containers of goldfish or a big bag of Chex Mix, and then I use the plastic cups and bowls to divvy out small portions to the kids while we're on the road. Another thing I'll do is once I open those boxes and containers of individually packaged snacks is I'll pull a snacks out and put them all in a bag and stick it in the trunk so that we pace ourselves. And we don't plow through all the snacks we have in the first three hours of the journey and have a day and a half left to go where I then have to stop at Walmart and grab more snacks.
The second kit is a cleanup kit. I'll put a roll of paper towels, I'll stuff the middle of the roll of paper towels full of plastic grocery bags, and then I'll have disinfectant wipes, baby wipes, hand sanitizer, extra diapers, things to clean up and pretty much assume that at some point there's going to be something minor or major that needs to be cleaned up.
The next one is a supplies kit. So this is a bag of over the counter medicine and bandaids and thermometers, tape, batteries, the DVDs for the van just the supplies that we might need while we're driving. And I put it all together within reach.
The next one is not the snack kit. It's the PB and J kit. I have found that our kids get sick of eating takeout while we're on the road for a couple of days. And they also tend to eat less at unfamiliar places or while they're out of routine. So a lot of times, if I can make peanut butter and jelly, cut up an apple, add some veggie straws, and put it into one of those divided containers and hand that to them as a lunch, it feels more like a meal they'd have at home and they're more willing to eat a lot of it. And those serving sizes are pennies compared to even the cheapest, fast food kids meal. Another perk of this is that mom and dad can choose a place to eat that they don't have to keep in mind. Will the kids eat this food? So in my peanut butter jelly kit is a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, a butter knife, and some apples. This is all food that does not have to be refrigerated and that I can put together while we're on the road.
My last tip when it comes to packing is to pack according to purpose, not according to person. So, what I mean by this is that I will take all the swimming gear and put it in one bag. Then, if we're stopping halfway and we're going to do an overnight at a hotel on our way to our ultimate destination, I'll also pack a bag that has everything I need just for being in the hotel. So it will have pajamas for everyone and an outfit for everyone. That way when we get somewhere and our van is full of luggage and gear, I can grab this one overnight bag, go into the hotel and come back out. I do not have to unload the entire van to sleep in a hotel for nine hours. So pack, according to purpose, not according to person, especially if your children are very small and the parents will be doing the laundry and organizing the outfits. Pack things in the way that makes the most sense and is most accessible to you instead of each child having their own separate suitcase, who is a baby or a two year old or a four year old, which means that mom's going to be going in or dad's going to be going in and grabbing the pajamas anyways.
And the final section of tips I have for traveling and enjoying the summer with kids on the road is to talk about what we do while we're driving. So often when we go on long road trips, I get messages like "I am too afraid to drive that many hours with my small children." So I want to give you some encouragement. First of all, it does not go well. Like anything in parenting, the lower we set our expectations, the better off we are. So if I set my expectations on no one crying on no one throwing up, on food staying off of the floor, it's just not going to be a good time. But if I set my expectations very low and I know that the end goal is the beach, or the mountains, or the grandparents, then I can tough out even a rough couple hours.
Here's one of the biggest things I've learned in the last couple years, when you stop on a road trip, what do kids not need more of? Sitting still in one place being told what to do. So why would we stop and then get out and go to a restaurant and immediately sit back down and stay setting while we're on this stop? We have learned to not use stops for more sitting, but instead use them for running, for playing, for getting energy out. So even when we're stopping to eat on a long road trip, we will grab drive through food, and then I will go into Google maps and just type the word playground. You can see pictures and reviews. You can check if it has a bathroom, if it has picnic tables and we'll find a playground close to where we are and go eat our food at the playground where the kids can get up and run, jump, play, do hide and seek and get that energy out before we get back in the car.
Just like I talked about with our routines at home in the summer, I also try to implement the screens and no screens rhythm into our road trips. So if we watch a movie on the DVD player, when the movie ends we'll specifically find something for the kids to do, or just have 30 minutes where we say do your own thing. So we alternate between the screens on and the screens off to give them that rhythm to give their eyes a break. To give them a chance to do something different. So this looks like bringing along little bags of Legos with a lap desk. Or checking out a bunch of high interest books in the library and not showing it to them until we get in the car. Or coloring pages or games that can be played in the car, like UNO.
How it often works is that we stop roughly every two to three hours. So when we start driving, we might do 20 to 30 minutes of looking at books or talking or listening to music, and then we'll turn a movie on. And if a movie is an hour and a half, that means that when the movie ends, we might have 20 to 30 more minutes before our stop. That way we can build predictable rhythms into the drive, even for kids who can't tell time and don't really have a good sense of what it means for we'll stop in a half hour. So we might say when this episode of Bluey is done, then we'll be at lunch. Breaking a really long drive into smaller and smaller chunks of time where you're like, "Yay! We got through that movie. Now we're going to do 30 minutes of reading. Okay. We accomplished that. Now we're going to stop and get dinner. Now we're going to watch a movie. Now we're going to read." Having that predictable rhythm and giving them little benchmarks that they can visualize and expect helps them to sit in the car for long periods of time.
Now let's talk about the hardest age to take on a road trip. In my experience that is 18 months to three years old. Their attention span is approximately 20 seconds. So every minute or so it feels like you're needing to hand them something new. Calm down their frustration or answer their questions. Variety is the name of the game with this age. So I like to grab a bag of random things around the house that I know a two year old loves to play with. And the less, it looks like a toy. The more they're going to enjoy it. So bring a roll of tape and let them pull the tape out and feel it sticking to their fingers. Bring those garage sales stickers that are the neon colored circles and let them pull them off and stick them to the window or their car seat. Bring a plastic noodle strainer, and a bag of pipe cleaners and teach them to thread the pipe cleaners through the strainer. Think of those random household items that you find them playing with day after day that are not toys and stick them in a little bag and bring them along. You can even keep them hidden until you really need it and it's a desperate moment and you can hand them something that they weren't expecting you to have.
Because of the age span of our kids currently ranging from two to eight years old. A lot of times the movie we put in the DVD player is of no interest to our two-year-old. So I will strategically you as the one iPad, our family owns to download high interest apps or videos that she likes to watch. Then we'll use headphones and let her hold the iPad and watch a show that she enjoys while the DVD player might have a movie like Star Wars that her brothers are enjoying. This is the trickiest age to travel with. And you probably will have at least one or two little stretches of time that involve screaming or throwing, or just being frustrated, or mom needing to put noise, canceling headphones on. So expect these hiccups. And also remember that just like a meltdown at home, it's not going to last forever. Having variety, having options, and having low expectations can help everybody survive the trip.
And lastly, here's what we've learned to do when it comes to splitting up a drive over multiple days. I tend to choose to take our time getting somewhere. And then at the very end of the trip. B-line ourselves back home because we're tired and ready for our own bed.
The longest road trip we've ever done in one day is 14 hours of driving time. So this usually involves going from Central Illinois down to the panhandle of Florida or Gulf Shores. That's about 13 and a half hours of road time. When we're going there, we split it up, and we'll spend one night in a hotel about halfway. But then when we're coming home, we do tend to get up really early in the morning and drive all the way home. This is less time on the road, which means less meals out, not paying for a hotel. And like I said, we're all just ready to get home.
But when it comes to getting somewhere, I do like to take our time so that we're not exhausted and regretting the trip by the time we get there. So for our beach vacation this summer, which is about 13 and a half hours away, we're going to do about eight hours of road time on the first day, which means if we leave around 7:00 AM our time. With two or three stops, we'll get to our hotel about six o'clock at night. Which is before bedtime. It allows us to get some dinner. It allows us to maybe swim at the hotel. If the kids need to get energy out. And everyone get to bed on time. Get as good of a night's sleep as we can in a hotel. But then the next day, instead of having a really long day, we'll have five and a half hours of drive time, which means I won't feel pressured to get up crazy early and hit the road. And we'll be able to take our time getting a full breakfast and getting back in the van on our schedule. The place we're checking into, doesn't even allow check-in until 4:00 PM, so we will not be rushed on that second day. And here's the other thing I don't like to do: if we're going to drive all the way there to our destination on the first night of our trip, that means I have to pay for a beach front condo that I'm not even going to get to until 11:00 PM or maybe midnight. By splitting up the trip. It allows us to get most of the way there on the first day, stay in some small hotel and then get there right at check-in time and make the most of that first night that we're actually paying for to be oceanside. What, we often do is get there, toss all of our stuff into the condo and immediately hit the ocean because we're ready to see it.
This type of scheduling allows us to not feel exhausted, and like I said, not regret the trip by the time we get there, because we overextended ourselves right out the gate. So it means that we weren't traveling through the night, we weren't traveling super early in the morning, we got the kids to bed on time, and we were able to have a shorter day of driving on the second day. Now, I know some people thrive by waking up super, super, super early in the morning and driving or by driving at night. So if you, or your spouse or an adult you're driving with can handle driving through the night time and you think your kids will sleep, that's a great way to do it because the kids will wake up and basically be there. Kyle and I can not drive at night to save our lives. I am a night person. I'm a night owl. I love to stay up late, but if everyone is asleep in the van and I'm just staring at the open road, I can not stay awake. So over time as we have had trial and error and yes, error where we made mistakes, we drove at times that did not work well for us. We have figured out what works for us. We have figured out that we do most of the driving on the first day, but we don't overextend ourselves either super early in the morning or super late at night. We get a full night and sleep and then we can get to our destination on time.
Then at the very end of our trip. We usually are ready to get home and we don't find much of a difference between waking up early in the morning to check out or waiting till a 10 or 11:00 AM checkout time. So we will get up super early, hit the road right away, maybe even have one or two of the kids fall back asleep. Never all of them, one or two of the kids fall back asleep to get a couple hours under our belt before everyone is awake and then make it home really late at night that final day.
So I know I didn't touch on what we actually do while we're on our vacation. But for this episode, I wanted to focus on enjoying the summer at home with the kids. And then if you're doing a road trip or thinking about doing a road trip, or you have sworn off to never do a road trip, but I could maybe convince you to do one. How do we prepare? How do we pack our van and how do we choose a place to stay?
In the show notes, I've given a link to a small Amazon, less that I put together specifically for enjoying summers with your kids. So there's a mixed bag of things that we use at home and things we use on the road to make our summers about having fun and making memories, and not bogged down with disorganization or overpacking Or getting bored while we're home together. If any of these tips and tricks sounded like something you might try, check out the Amazon list to see the small list of things that I have found myself coming back to summer after summer to help me enjoy my summers with my kids.
(*Credits) Thanks for listening to the Debt Free Mom Podcast. If you want to join me as a guest on the show, go to dfmpodcast.com. The Debt Free Mom Podcast is hosted by me, Carly Hill, and is produced, edited, and mixed by Kyle Hill. Music for this episode was written by Kyle Hill. Hit subscribe wherever you're listening to join in with every new episode as we grow our confidence and contentment in our personal finances.
