A typical July includes vacations, travel, shopping, weddings and beaches. Budgets? Not really.

But the year’s halfway point provides a great opportunity to take a close look at your financial health and goals.

Now’s a good time to “check yourself before you wreck yourself,” says Nora Yousif, certified financial planner and vice president at RBC Wealth Management in the Boston area.

Here are three important reasons to check your budget right now — and easy things you can do to ensure you reach your money goals for the rest of the year.

YOU CAN LEARN FROM THE PAST

School’s out, but summer budgeting calls for a grading exercise. Judging your budgeting behavior is a productive way to see where you stand, according to Andrew Almeida, CFP, founder of Almeida Investment Management in New York.

Here’s how to do it: If you haven’t already, separate your monthly budget into categories, such as groceries, rent, entertainment and so forth. Then see if you were over or under budget for each line item. If you have 10 categories, overshot three last month and stayed on budget for seven, you’d be at 70%. So give yourself a C for June.

Almeida recommends doing this each month. With six months of the year behind you, you’re in a good position to evaluate if you’re passing more months than you’re failing. But don’t get discouraged; you shouldn’t expect straight A’s.

“No one’s going to hit it 100% of the time,” Almeida says. “Life is fluid.”

One easy and effective way to monitor how you’re doing is by logging in to your financial accounts, according to Brandon Renfro, an assistant professor of finance at East Texas Baptist University.

“You can kind of see where your money went, and that will start to give you a better idea of problem areas or focus areas,” says Renfro, who is also a financial planner.

Lean on your credit card and bank account apps to help you track your cash flow. Some of these apps may even categorize the transactions for you.

YOU CAN PREPARE FOR THE HOLIDAYS AND TAXES

Once you’ve looked back, take a moment to think ahead. After all, the holiday season is only a few months away. And whether you like it or not, tax season will come shortly after that. Get ready now for these potential costly times of the year.

Start by setting a holiday season budget. “A lot of people don’t consider that, but it’s a big year-end expense, which I think you should account for,” Almeida says. “And if you haven’t by midyear, I think you should.”

If you’re not sure where to start, use the amount you spent last year on holiday gifts and festivities as a baseline.

Next, focus on taxes. That means reviewing your income, advises Helen Ngo, CFP, CEO of Capital Benchmark Partners in Georgia.

“When we do midyear budgeting, we don’t necessarily look at your spending,” Ngo says. “The first thing we look at is what money is coming in.”

She says to pay attention to things like your pay stubs and discretionary income. For example, are you withholding enough in taxes to break even in April? Did you pay off a debt in the first half of the year and now have more income you can contribute to your 401(k)? Make adjustments where necessary.

YOU CAN CORRECT YOUR COURSE

By the time you finish these steps, you’ll likely have identified areas where your budget has room for improvement.

“If you’re way off your projected saving or spending goals, you can modify your habits for the rest of the year before it’s too late,” Yousif, of RBC Wealth Management, said in an email.

That may include eliminating small things from your budget, such as a subscription or membership you no longer need. And when you do remove something, redirect that money somewhere it can be more useful.

“For instance, maybe instead of just canceling the gym membership and letting the $20 fall wherever it goes, go ahead and direct that to savings,” Renfro says. That can help build your holiday fund, for example.

But what if you don’t even have a budget to check up on? It’s not too late. The midpoint of the year can give you a much-needed nudge to create one.

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This column was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet. Courtney Jespersen is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @courtneynerd.

RELATED LINK:

NerdWallet: Budgeting 101: How to create a budget https://bit.ly/nerdwallet-how-to-budget

I love to grill, and barbecue, and I have devoted my career to outdoor cooking for more than two decades. In that time, I’ve seen a lot of mistakes and people tend to make them over and over. So I put together a list of the biggest grilling don’ts and how to avoid them. Print this list and refer it the next time you get ready to grill!

NEVER OIL THE GRILL

any people oil the cooking grates — big blunder! Follow my mantra: “Oil the food, not the grates!” If you brush oil on hot cooking grates (and a lit grill), you run the risk of a big flare-up. The oil that you have brushed on will instantly burn leaving a sticky residue that will “glue” your food to the grates, making it stick, break apart and dry out_like dehydrating food. If you oil the food, it will stay juicy, promote caramelization_those great grill marks! And help to prevent “stickage.”

DON’T PUT FOOD ON A COLD GRILL

Always preheat a gas grill with all burners on high or wait until charcoal briquettes are covered with a white-gray ash. Preheating also burns off residue and makes it easier to clean the grill. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t ever need to cook on a grill that is hotter than 550 F. The hotter the grill, the more likely you will burn the outside of the food before the inside is cooked.

CLEAN THAT DIRTY GRILL

An outdoor grill is like a cast-iron skillet. It gets better and better the more you use it, but you do need to clean it every time you use it. Clean the grill grates twice every cook-out with a stiff metal bristle grill cleaning brush_before and after you cook. If you do this, it will never be a big job to clean your grill. If you don’t have a grill cleaning brush, crumble a ball of heavy-duty aluminum foil and hold it in a pair of 12-inch locking chef tongs to use to clean the grill.

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIRECT AND INDIRECT HEAT

The most frequent mistake is to choose the wrong cooking method. To be a good griller, you must know the difference between direct, indirect or combo grilling and when to use them. Direct grilling means that the food is set directly over the heat source — similar to broiling in your oven. Indirect grilling means that the heat is on either side of the food and the burners are turned off under the food — similar to roasting and baking in your oven. Combo grilling means that you sear the food over direct heat (i.e., to sear a tenderloin, or large steak) before moving it to indirect heat to finish the cooking process. Remember this general rule of thumb: If the food takes less than 20 minutes to cook, use the DIRECT METHOD. If the food takes more than 20 minutes to cook, use the INDIRECT METHOD.

THE RIGHT WAY TO DEAL WITH FLARE-UPS

Never use a water bottle to extinguish a flare-up. Spraying water on a hot fire can produce steam vapors which may cause severe burns. The water can also crack the porcelain-enamel finish, resulting in damage to your grill. Fire loves oxygen, so cook with the lid down and don’t peek. Repeatedly lifting the lid to “peek” and check the food while it’s cooking lengthens cooking time. If you have a full-on fire, turn all the burners off, remove the food and extinguish the flames with kosher salt or baking soda. In a worst-case scenario, use a fire extinguisher but know that it will ruin your grill.

AVOID FREQUENT FLIPPING

If you are cooking food by the direct method (hamburgers, hot dogs, boneless chicken breasts, small steaks, vegetables, etc), flip only once halfway through the cooking time. All protein will stick to the grates as soon as it makes contact with the hot grill grates. As it cooks, it will naturally release itself, and that is when you can turn it over with a pair of tongs. Just remember to oil the food, not the grates!

DODGE CROSS-CONTAMINATION

One of the most common mistakes backyard cooks make is using the same tongs for raw and cooked foods. This creates cross-contamination and can result in food-borne illness. It’s easy to fix this problem. I have been color-coding my 12-inch locking chef tongs with red and green duct tape for as long as I have been grilling. The different colors help me to remember which pair of tongs I used for raw food (red), like chicken, and which are safe to use for the cooked food (green). And remember to use a separate clean platter for your cooked food, too.

DON’T SAUCE TOO SOON

If I had a dime for every time I saw someone pour thick sweet barbecue sauce on bone-in-chicken pieces or a whole rack of ribs while they were raw, I would be a very wealthy griller! All barbecue sauces have a lot of sugar in them and sugar burns very quickly. Almost always burning the outside of the food before the inside cooks. Generally I only brush food with sauce during the final 10-15 minutes of cooking time. With ribs that cook 2-3 hours, I will brush with a diluted sauce (1/2 beer and 1/2 sauce) for the final 30 minutes of cooking time.

RESIST TESTING FOR DONENESS BY CUTTING.

Cutting your food to test for doneness is another common way people bungle their food. When you cut any protein, you are letting the precious juices escape and if the food is under-cooked, the area where it was cut will be over-cooked when you put it back on the grill. Use an instant-read meat thermometer to test for doneness, and always let your food rest for at least 5 minutes before cutting into it.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Elizabeth Karmel is grilling, barbecue and southern foods expert, a media personality and the author of four cookbooks, including the newly released ”Steak and Cake .”

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter is reporting surprisingly strong user numbers and revenue even as it eliminates robotic and fake accounts on its platform.

On that front, the company said instances of suspicious behavior and spam dropped by 18% during the second quarter when it posted financial results for the second quarter Friday.

But Twitter’s push to cut down on fake accounts costs money, and its adjusted profit fell 36% to about $37 million, or 5 cents per share. At the same time, revenue surged 18 percent, to $841 million, far better than the $829 million that Wall Street was looking for, according to a survey by FactSet.

Twitter’s daily user base rose 14% to 139 million. Analysts were expecting 134.7 million daily users.

DENVER (AP) — Colorado police say a driver tried to replace a broken tail light with a red sports drink.

Denver news station KMGH-TV reported that Longmont police stopped a driver Monday who placed a red-colored bottled drink where his car’s rear light should have been.

Authorities say the driver was on his way to get the tail light fixed when officers stopped him in Longmont, 38 miles (61 kilometers) north of Denver.

Officials say officers didn’t ticket the driver, who was seen repairing his car later that day.

Police say tail lights prevent crashes and “while we appreciate the ingenuity of this taillight, this is not a permanent solution.”

Authorities say vehicles must have a red tail light that can be seen at least 100 feet (30 meters) away during the day.

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — Court logs show a Louisiana district court judge ordered a man’s mouth be taped shut for repeatedly interrupting proceedings.

The Acadiana Advocate reports Michael C. Duhon was being sentenced July 18 for theft and money laundering.

Court minutes show Duhon objected when Judge Marilyn Castle asked him to stop submitting motions on his own behalf instead of through his attorney. After repeatedly requesting for Duhon to be quiet, Castle ordered the bailiff to tape Duhon’s mouth shut.

The tape was removed after an objection from Duhon’s public defense attorney, Aaron Adams, who requested the judge remove his client from the courtroom instead.

Castle sentenced Duhon to 11 years in prison and recommended he be transferred to a facility with mental health treatment options.

Another public defender in the courtroom faces contempt charges for recording the incident.