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" \n What&amp;#039;s better than summer\u2014the beach, the cocktails, the hookups! But between five out-of-town weddings, your romantic long weekend on the Cape and impromptu al fresco drinks four nights a week because you had to, there&amp;#039;s a great chance summer is rendering you broke. &amp;quot;Summer and the holidays are the two obvious times that people are traveling\u2014and likely overspending,&amp;quot; Cosmopolitan columnist and LearnVest CEO Alexa von Tobel says. But your summer of fun doesn&amp;#039;t have to drag you into debt up to your eyeballs. Alexa has savvy tips on how to afford your sparkling summer social life. Plan ahead\u2014way ahead. Like the genius financial wiz that she is, Alexa sets a calendar alert for March 15, at which time she forces herself and her now-husband to map out their summer plans. She asks herself: &amp;quot;What weddings do we have? Which are we going to go to? And are we on track to have an extraordinarily expensive summer?&amp;quot; Set up price alerts on airline tickets three months pre-summer\u2014Alexa likes Bing&amp;#039;s tracker and Kayak&amp;#039;s hacker\u2014for scoring the most inexpensive flights possible. Friendly note: It&amp;#039;s cheapest to fly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. strong&amp;gt;Saving is sexy. &amp;quot;A survey by American Express found that the average person spends about $1200 on summer vacation\u2014so you really need to be realistic and start saving money for your summer ahead of time,&amp;quot; Alexa notes. It&amp;#039;s one thing to take on debt for student loans or a mortgage, but Alexa&amp;#039;s hard-and-fast-rule is: &amp;quot;It is never appropriate to put a summer trip on a credit card. You&amp;#039;re not allowed to go into debt for fun.&amp;quot; To make extra cash to afford your summer luxuries, look into taking on some extra freelance work via elance.com, taskrabbit.com or sitters.com.  Learn the power of &amp;quot;no.&amp;quot; You can&amp;#039;t help it that you&amp;#039;re so popular\u2014your favorite co-worker is getting hitched in Florida, your hilarious sorority sister&amp;#039;s bachelorette is in Napa, and your friends from high school are doing a share house in the Hamptons. But as much as you want to go to say &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; to every trip and every wedding, Alexa says: &amp;quot;You have to remember the power of saying, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m so sorry, I just can&amp;#039;t make it happen.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; If you&amp;#039;re understandably bummed to miss out on an out-of-town wedding, it&amp;#039;s okay to tell your friend, &amp;quot;I love you, but can we celebrate locally?&amp;quot;  Shop your closet. Being in\u2014or even simply attending\u2014a summer wedding really adds up: the flights, the hotels, the gifts, the drinks at the bar before the bus picks you up for the reception. So, cut costs where you can\u2014namely, in the dress department. Of course you want to wear something new to everyone&amp;#039;s soiree, but shop your closet, and those of your friends. &amp;quot;I just borrowed a friend&amp;#039;s dress for a black tie wedding, I dry cleaned it for $15, and we were both thrilled,&amp;quot; Alexa recalled.  Don&amp;#039;t bust your budget. This may come as a shock, but just because it&amp;#039;s gorgeous out doesn&amp;#039;t mean you&amp;#039;re allowed to go out for $12 margaritas and fish tacos every single night. Don&amp;#039;t let summer break your usual Learnvest-approved 50/20/30 budget\u201450-percent or less of your paycheck should go to essentials like rent, utilities, transportation and groceries, 20-percent to your future, like retirement and loans, and 30-percent is your &amp;quot;fun bucket&amp;quot;\u2014concerts, weddings, and, yes, tequila! &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s so much easier to say, &amp;#039;Let&amp;#039;s grab a bottle of wine and gossip on someone&amp;#039;s rooftop than charge a bunch of drinks you really can&amp;#039;t afford,&amp;quot; Alexa advises. Cheers to that! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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