From having to pay for child care and activities to keep everyone busy, to higher utility bills and maybe vacation splurges, summer can be the most expensive time of year.
"Terrible. We're terrible at saving," said Desiree Radford, an Economic Development Corps Financial Literacy member.
But if you start slowly, you can save during this time of year when it's so easy to spend.
Experts say try to cut back on eating and drinking out.
- One $5 specialty coffee every day = $1,875 a year
- A $9 large big mac combo once a week = $468 annually
Impulse buying by the numbers:
- 84% of Americans admit to impulse buying
- On average, we impulse buy 156 times a year
- Total of $5,400 every year
- $324,000 over the course of your lifetime!
"If we're more conscious shoppers, even couponing can help us to save where we can put a little money into the bank," said Radford.
Financial experts recommend putting money into a separate savings account, or investing it. She adds one should make sure to build credit smartly by making small purchases on a limited number of credit cards and paying the balance on time every month.
"It is very important to establish credit, get credit and get a strong score. If I don't have a strong score, it will affect me accordingly and so I might have to pay either interest rates if I get that purchase or I might just be turned down," said Joe Winter, a Niagara University accounting assistant professor.
They also recommend keeping a close eye on your credit through a service like TransUnion.
"They send me reports. I know I can go electronically and see my credit score. So I do that once a month just to make sure there's nothing that's been tampered with or has been hit, especially in light of how much identity theft there has been," said Winter.