3 simple tips that could help your employees save money this summer
With summer in full swing, it’s common for people to be busier than usual, with holidays, day trips, and evenings in pub gardens filling up the social calendar. Fun as these activities are, the extra cost can quickly add up.
Here are three tips to help your employees stay on top of their summer spending.
1. Promote the benefits of a summer budget
According to our Retirement Voice 2024 research, 24% of people are finding their financial situation difficult. Throw in the additional costs of summer spending, and it’s not hard to imagine that this number could rise during the warmer months.
The best way for your employees to stay on track with their spending and saving is to make a budget. They may have one already, but it’s a good idea for them to review and adjust their budget over the summer to accommodate any extra spending.
To help, you could consider creating a communications campaign that promotes the benefits of setting a summer budget. This could include signposting employees to budgeting tools that help them get a clear view of their monthly incomings and outgoings.
MoneyHelper, for example, has a range of budgeting tools that can help employees categorise their spending and add extras such as holidays, festivals, and days out.
If your employees are with Standard Life for their workplace pension scheme, they can also use our Money Mindset platform to help them budget. Using open finance technology, it gives employees a real-time view of their finances – including bank accounts, credit cards, mortgages/rent, and pensions – making it easier for them to see exactly what’s coming in and going out.
2. Encourage family-wide conversations about money
For some of your employees, the summer months equals school holidays – and extra financial planning and childcare costs. Whether it’s a family trip away, days out, or preparing older children for university or their first job, there’s often a lot for employees to navigate during this time.
Having regular conversations about money at home can be a good place for employees to start. In fact, research by the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) shows that people who talk about money help their children form good lifetime money habits.
You could help by pointing employees towards support that aims to normalise conversations about money, such as MoneyHelper’s dedicated Family & Care resources.
Standard Life workplace pension scheme members can also use our Family Finance Hub, an all-in-one coaching platform that helps families talk about and manage their money together.
3. Help employees spot savings opportunities
There are opportunities for extra savings during the busier and warmer summer months too.
For instance, your employees may find that their household bills are lower at this time of year because they’re not using as much heating or electricity. Instead of leaving any extra money sitting in their bank account, they could think about adding it to their savings to cover their summer spending.
In addition, with more time spent outside, your employees may find they’re not getting as much use out of their monthly TV or entertainment subscriptions as they would in colder months, when people tend to stay in. So it could be worth your employees pausing any unused subscriptions for a few months.
That said, checking for savings opportunities may not be at the top of your employees’ priority list in the midst of summer plans and holidays. To help bring it into focus, you could create a communications campaign to boost awareness across your workforce – and help more employees save money this summer.
For more insights on financial wellbeing, including resources on how you can help support your employees, visit our Financial Wellbeing hub and read our articles.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Standard Life
Standard Life are part of Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business. We both share an aligned ambition to help every customer enjoy a life full of possibilities.
