What Financial Lessons Can Back-to-School Shopping Teach Us?
How to teach your kids about budgeting basics with school supply shopping
By Melissa Jackson
Students going back to school means back-to-school spending and expenses, but it also means getting back into learning. Shopping for back-to-school supplies is a great time to start the school year off with a lesson in financial literacy. Apply these budgeting tips and shopping tricks to your back-to-school shopping and help teach the young student in your life about budgeting, spending, and saving. Here are some tips to get your started.
Tips to Teach Your Kids About Smart Money Management
Always Start With a List – No Matter What You’re Shopping For
Whether it’s school supplies, groceries, or clothes for the new season, no matter what you’re shopping for, always start with a list. If you have an older child or teen, encourage them to make a list of the school supplies they think they’ll need. If your kids are not able to do that on their own yet, sit with them and make a list of supplies together. Doing this ahead of time is a great way to help avoid stress and unnecessary spending. It also encourages a healthy financial habit – for you and your kids.
Take Away Lesson: No matter what you’re shopping for, a list is crucial. It helps you plan ahead for what you can afford, stay on track with your budget while shopping, and can help you avoid impulsive or spur of the moment purchases. When shopping with your kids in tow, a list can help avoid arguments; if it’s not on the list, it doesn’t go into the cart.
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Set the Back-to-School Budget Together
During this busy time of year, to get this particular task over with quickly, it’s understandable if you want to give your kids a finished back-to-school budget or even just the money for their school supplies. However, this could mean missing out on a valuable learning experience.
Discussing the budget with your child and letting them take the lead or express opinions on the purchases, is a great opportunity to make them feel included in the process. Talk to them about why it’s important to stick to the budget – with these purchases and others. In addition to financial literacy skills, this also helps teach them the benefits of planning and prioritizing ahead of time.
Take Away Lesson: Getting your kids involved in planning their spending for their school supplies within a budget is a real-life and relevant way to teach them financial literacy skills that they will use throughout their lives.
‘Shop’ at Home Before Going to the Store
Once you have your list of school supplies ready, try to shop at home before going to the store or ordering online. Shopping at home might sound more like something to do with clothing than it does school supplies. However, just like you might have overlooked some treasures in your closet, you likely already have a lot of the general school supplies your child needs at home. Reusing these supplies from previous years can help you save that much more.
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Consider reaching out to family and friends with school-age children to see if they’d like to try a school supply swap. You might have an overabundance of some items that someone needs, and they might have a lot of something that you were going to purchase. It’s a cost-effective, social, and sustainable way to get the excitement of ‘something new to you’ without busting your budget.
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Take Away Lesson: We get it, it can be fun to shop for all ‘brand new’ school supplies, but it’s seldom a practical or sustainable choice and can cause a lot of financial and environmental waste. Go through your home with your child and look for items that can be used at school. Supplies like glue sticks, rulers, heavy-duty binders, and similar items often survive the school year unscathed or even unused. Including these in your school supplies can help boost your budget and avoid waste.
Use Back to School to Teach Strategic Shopping
Back-to-school shopping is a great time to teach your child about strategic shopping. Planning ahead, writing a list, building a budget, and the timing of your back-to-school shopping, are all steps that make it easier to take advantage of sales, discounts, and promotions to reduce costs; while using coupons and cashback offers can further boost your budget. Another smart savings strategy to teach your kids is purchasing generic or store brand items instead of pricier name-brands. Often there is little to no difference between them—except that one costs significantly more!
Take Away Lesson: Focusing on brands and often wanting the pricier ones, is a phase many young people go through. Help them find ways to balance their wants (e.g. the trendiest name brand runners) and their needs (e.g. quality runners but not a top name brand). Strategic shopping is a good way to demonstrate planned spending and saving. It might mean learning about the minimal differences between most everyday brands or buying the top name brand runners but then saving on other clothing and supplies by not buying the trendiest brands.
Use the Timing of Your Back-to-School Shopping to Save Even More
While you may feel pressured to purchase back-to-school supplies and other related items right away, doing so can cause a lot of stress to you and your budget, and it may not always be necessary.
Delaying your back-to-school shopping can boost your budget in a couple of ways. The first is that since not a lot of schoolwork happens in those first couple of weeks — as students get sorted into classrooms and adjust to a new school year, you can get by with just the basic supplies during this time. This is especially true for primary or elementary school students. So, if it’s a struggle to buy everything at once, those extra couple of weeks can give you some time and space to save up a bit before school really gets going.
Another benefit to your budget is that waiting to shop can help you avoid spending money on unnecessary purchases. The teacher will let students know which supplies they will and will not need. Waiting an extra week or two to do your big back-to-school shopping trip, helps avoid buying items that aren’t needed or won’t get used.
Take Away Lesson: Buying everything at once may feel more efficient, but it’s not always necessary and it can put excess stress on you and your budget. Adjusting the timing of your shop to avoid that initial back-to-school shopping frenzy is a strategic way to boost your budget with end-of-the season savings and discounts. Waiting an extra week or two helps avoid needless purchases and waste.
Use Student Discounts and Programs to Save on School Supplies and More
Depending on the province you live in, there are student discounts and programs that can help you save on a variety of products and services. There are several ways to get a student discount in Canada and it can help older students save on everything from electronics, food, and clothing to subscriptions and travel. Make sure your young person is familiar with the rules and limitations that come with utilizing the discounts.
Take Away Lesson: Being aware of and utilizing the discounts available to you – at every age – is a great way to make the most of your money whether you’re 16 or 60. Taking a bit of time to research which ones are applicable to you can lead to savings in the long-term.
Want Tips to Teach Kids About Money? Check Out This Free Webinar
When it comes to teaching kids about money, it can be hard to know where to start. We have a whole webinar on the subject, Raising Financially Fit Kids. It provides tips, tools, and resources to help you understand the best ways to teach your kids about finance. You can register for the upcoming session here. See the schedule for upcoming webinars here.
If you prefer to learn at your own pace, visit our Learning Hub for quick, on-the-go lessons about a variety of financial topics. You’ll improve your own skills and confidence around money!
Want More Help With Your Back-to-School Budget? Reach Out to Us!
Building a back-to-school budget at the start of a busy season can feel overwhelming. You don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to us for more information or to book a free appointment with one of our counsellors. We’ll be happy to help you.
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