The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Yahoo
The start of a new school year means sharpened pencils, clean, new backpacks, and smiling faces in the first-day photos. But for many families, there’s a familiar shadow looming: the cost of setting their children up with everything they need for the new year, and it just keeps getting more and more expensive.
For many families, back-to-school shopping doesn’t mark a fresh start. Instead, it’s digging a financial hole. The new survey found that 57% of parents are heading into back-to-school season with existing credit card debt, and 45% expect to take on even more to cover this year’s shopping. This is an increase from 2024 data, which came in at 34%.
According to the survey, rising prices on the essentials are only part of the story. While a majority (72%) agree school supplies are noticeably more expensive than ever, 6 in 10 parents say their kids are asking for items not on the teacher-mandated supply list. These include items they’ve seen trending on social media that they simply want to have or think they need. This puts even more emotional pull on parents, with 54% saying they’d rather just put it on the plastic rather than have their child be without what their friends have, and classmates have.
Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Intuit Credit Karma. notes that this year’s findings show that many parents are willing to take on more debt “to give their kids what they need—or what they feel they need—to start the school year on equal footing with their peers.” This may include AirPods, cool backpacks, and new trendy sneakers. The pressure to keep up adds to the financial strain that parents already feel with the staple items.
The takeaway from this survey isn’t just that back-to-school shopping is super expensive, but that parents face significant financial and emotional pressure to give their kids a strong start to the new academic year. Sometimes it comes at the expense of their own financial stability.
To help keep control as you face the back-to-school prep, Alev recommends setting a realistic budget before you begin. Make sure you prioritize the essentials. “Setting expectations early can help families navigate the season without taking on more debt than they can reasonably repay.”
Source: Yahoo
https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/parents-everyday-habit-making-back-130000804.html