Isn’t amazing how little kids can keep going and going and going in the summer heat like the Energizer Bunny? They don’t seem to ever be phased at all. Unfortunately for us, by the time you hit college, you feel the heat, and it burns.
Beya Likhari, rising junior at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, knows this heat quite possibly better than anybody else. She is spending a few weeks in India for an internship where the weather is both hot and humid. Wearing light clothes is key because you don’t have to spend any extra money to stay cooler, explains Likhari. “Yes, this is the time to bust out your tank tops, shorts and cute sandals.”
Jennifer Lowe, rising junior at the University of Delaware, is spending the summer on campus to work as a tour guide. She and her fellow Blue Hen Ambassadors got together for their own Olympic games. Called “Hometown Heroes,” Lowe explains that they all dressed up to represent their hometowns. “We played a bunch of games like wiffle ball, water balloon toss and all of those silly relays we did as kids!” She enjoyed this way of staying cool because they all “learned some new games from other countries, learned more about where [they] all come from and spent the entire evening rolling on the ground laughing. Besides buying water balloons, it was completely free,” she says, an added bonus.
Unfortunately for Alex Cooper, a portfolio manager at Deutsche Bank, water balloons are a thing of the past. However, he has found plenty of ways to stay cool for little to no cost nonetheless!
Cooper recommends taking advantage of public pools, but more interestingly, he says that many people do not take full advantage of the pools that accompany their gym memberships. “Wherever you are for the summer, look around for trial memberships because they might be at discounted prices,” says Cooper.
If you want to cool down from the inside out, Cooper suggests thinking about grabbing some ice cream, Italian ice or a slushee. You can also make your own if you can find a good recipe (think rolling the coffee can down the hallway in elementary school to make ice cream!).Lastly, Cooper suggests looking around for special promotions or coupons for nearby water parks. “You can often find an all-day pass for only $10-20,” he says.
If you have some spare time after you’ve tried all of these tips to stay cool on a budget, you can always take an extra long grocery shopping trip and make sure to stick to the refrigerator isles. See which one of your friends can last the longest before shivering!
