3 Budget-Friendly Ways to Cool Down in the Hot Summer Sun

From Everything Finance

3 Budget-Friendly Ways to Cool Down in the Hot Summer Sun is a post originally published on: Everything Finance – Everything Finance – Its all about Money!

With everything that has been going on this year due to COVID-19, this summer looks a bit different. This is primarily due to the fact that most of us aren’t traveling as much as we usually do. Which can be great for our family budget, but not so great for our state of mind. Plus, it means we have to come up with other ways to beat the summer heat and still have a good time. Luckily, there are some pretty fantastic budget-friendly ways to cool down in the hot summer sun!

1. Water Fun

One of my favorite things to do when it is really hot outside is to have fun with water. And the kids usually really love this idea also. After all, what kids don’t love to have a great time outside playing with water?

The easiest, and cheapest way, to have a good time with water is by using your existing hose. Even if you have nothing else to work with, you can still chase each other around with that. Plus, if you have a good garden spray nozzle that has multiple settings, you can get creative with your water attack.

The other option to use with your hose is a mist stand that attaches to the hose. These are great to set up around shaded sitting area’s to keep you cool while you visit with family and friends.

Or, if you really want to get crazy and have some fun you can set up a great sprinkler splash pad to the end of your hose instead. This can keep kids, and adults, entertained and cooled off for hours!

And if that isn’t enough fun for you and your kids, or if you want to spice things up, water guns are a great way to go. We just purchased a 4 pack of water guns to play with this year and have been having a great time with them. My spouse and I get the bigger blaster guns and the kids get the two smaller guns.

No matter which way you go with the water fun, you can’t help but cool off and have a lot of laughs at the same time.

2. Cool Treats

Another great way to keep cool this summer is by incorporating some delicious cool summer snacks. I don’t know about you, but our kids LOVE popsicles. And the great thing about popsicles is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money on the store bought kind. Instead, you can make your own healthier, and more budget-friendly versions.

The best way to do this is to use a fun popsicle mold and whatever fruit and juices you have on hand. That way, you never get the same thing twice and you get to incorporate some creativity too.

Another great option is to make flavored ice cubes instead. You can put small pieces of fruit and/or herbs into an ice cube mold. Once they are frozen, pop them out into a glass with lemonade, or naturally flavored seltzer, and you have a fun and beautiful drink.

The other option is to create a pitcher of delicious “mixed” drinks for the whole family. My daughter loves to come up with new and adventurous flavor profile creations in this category. On hot summer days, she regularly asks us if she can make drinks for the family. When she comes back with a pitcher of her cool summer concoctions, we are always interested to see what she has come up with.

She typically uses a combination of the following ingredients when making these family-friendly mixed drink pitchers:

• Flavored seltzer water
• Sparkling Italian soda
• Lemonade
• Limeade
• Bitters

Just as with the popsicles and ice cubes, a pitcher of family-friendly mixed drinks can be just the ticket to cool you down and excite your creativity.

3. Movie Day

And last, but not least, another of our favorite ways to cool down in the hot summer sun is to have a family movie day. Since it storms so regularly here in North Carolina, we try to do these on days that it is thunder storming like crazy.

We usually have the younger kids work on picking a movie, since we have to make sure it is age appropriate for everyone. This can be the trickiest part because we have kids ranging between 8 – 15 years old right now.

While the kids are working on narrowing down the movie choices, my spouse and I work on the summer treats. What we choose to have as snacks during the movie all depends upon what we happen to have at the time. But, if we have made popsicles, we go with those usually. They help cool all of us down during the hot summer days.

Some other snack options for our family movie days include:

• Popcorn made with the air popper
• Homemade peanut butter cookies
• Ice cream sundaes
• Frozen chocolate covered bananas
• Family friendly “mixed” drinks

And to increase our comfort even more, we prefer to sit downstairs during our movie days. This helps out tremendously since it is always cooler on the bottom floor. And if that still isn’t enough, we can turn on the ceiling fan also.

No matter which snack or movie we choose, we always have a good time with these family movie days. It helps to cool us down and enjoy some good snacks and family time together.

Here are 3 awesome ways to cool down in the hot summer sun with your family!
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Overall, there are many ways you can choose to cool down in the hot summer sun and not kill your budget. And they will be different depending upon where you live, what resources you have available to you and the ages of your children.

But, some of our favorite go-to’s are always:

1. Water fun for the whole family
2. Making cool treats
3. Having a movie day

And even though we aren’t getting to travel this summer, as we usually do, we are still making the best of it. In fact, staying home and spending more time with the family is an even better way to spend the summer. We get to save money we would have otherwise been spending and enjoy more time with the kids. It’s a win-win!

What are some of the best ways you have found to cool down in the hot summer sun?

3 Budget-Friendly Ways to Cool Down in the Hot Summer Sun is a post originally published on: Everything Finance – Everything Finance – Its all about Money!

This post was published on Everything Finance