Summer Spending

As another summer winds its way toward its conclusion, you may have found yourself spending more money than you had expected to. An American Express poll of parents around the country has found that our kids cost us a lot more money in the summer of 2013 than they had in 2012.

The biggest culprit was camp. The average American parent who sent their children to sleepaway camp in the summer of 2013 spent $329, up from $252 in the summer of 2012. Parents spent an average of $314 on day camps, but that increase for 2013 was even wider, up from an average of $219 last year.

But only 26 percent of all parents sent their kids to day camp this year, and only 23 percent sent them to sleepaway camp. Perhaps the biggest source of parents’ summer funds was sports teams: 44 percent of us with kids under 18 spent money on those, at an average of $228 per child.