By Cynthia Chen, CEO and Founder of Kikoff
What are the primary factors currently driving up the high cost of back-to-school shopping? The biggest driver is simply the impact of inflation on the prices of everyday goods. Clothing, shoes, backpacks and school supplies all cost meaningfully more than they did a few years ago.
On top of that, what counts as a “school supply” has expanded. Electronics are now the single largest spending category, so a laptop or tablet can dwarf the cost of notebooks and pencils. The result is a record season: total U.S. back-to-school spending is on track to hit roughly $147 billion this year, with families of K-12 students planning to spend about $864 on average.
Common Financial “Blind Spots” Parents Encounter
The most common blind spot is treating back-to-school as a single shopping trip. The initial haul (clothes, shoes and supplies) is only the first wave. The costs that catch parents off guard come later: activity and lab fees, sports registration, instrument rentals, field trip costs and club dues.
A second blind spot is clothing and shoes for younger kids, who outgrow everything so quickly that wardrobe costs can continue to add up during the school year, often totaling more than double what parents spend on school supplies.
Other real budget-breakers are the recurring costs tied to the school year, especially childcare and after-school care. And there’s also the social pressure to spend more – about one in five back-to-school shoppers say they feel pressure to keep up with what other parents are spending, and a quarter say most of their shopping will go toward non-necessities their kids request.
Tips for Sticking to a Back-to-School Budget
Start by taking inventory. Before you buy anything new, go through what survived last year – a backpack, calculator or other barely-used items that may have another year in them. Then decide exactly what you actually need to buy new and assign a maximum dollar amount for each item.
Set a total budget based on what you can genuinely afford. If money is tight, lean on used textbooks, hand-me-downs from older siblings or buying secondhand items. For extracurricular items, list them in priority order and buy the most important ones first. The overall goal is to make budget decisions before you’re in the store with your kids asking for name-brand items.
Using Credit Wisely and Avoiding Spending Traps
Be careful when using “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) options for back-to-school shopping, because the installments can add up fast and every merchant has different criteria – some offer four zero-interest payments paid every two weeks, and others charge interest over several months. In addition, if you use BNPL for multiple purchases at different stores, you can end up juggling several payment schedules at once, making it easy to lose track and miss an installment payment. A delinquent BNPL account can get reported to the credit bureaus and ding your score.
With credit cards, decide in advance how much you’re willing to put on the card and, if you’re going to charge it anyway, use a card that earns points or cash back. And be cautious about opening store credit card accounts at checkout – the upfront discount they often offer is tempting, but you would be adding another account to manage and new debt you will need to pay off.
Using Back-to-School Shopping as a Teaching Opportunity for Kids
This season is one of the best real-world classrooms parents have. The core lesson is the difference between needs and wants – a calculator or a pair of shoes that fit are needs; choosing a character-branded backpack over a plain one is a want.
A simple exercise is to give an older child a dollar amount for a specific category, like clothes or supplies, and let them suggest trade-offs. When they realize that splurging on one item means there is less money left for everything else, the concept of budgeting stops being abstract.
And introduce kids to comparison shopping – including checking prices at various stores, waiting for a sale or choosing the store brand. Learning the difference between “needs” versus “wants” early is a skill that will serve them well as they grow into financial independence.