It's time to head back-to-school, do you have your family's school supplies ready? Back-to-School shopping season is a good time to start looking at your budget. Additionally, it's a great opportunity to teach your kids about budgeting and prioritizing needs vs. wants. To help, we're sharing some back-to-school budgeting tips so you can steer your child towards healthy financial habits.
Back-to-School Budgeting Tips
Set Rules and Guidelines
Help your child create a budget for back-to-school shopping. By determining how much you've spent on back-to-school shopping in the past, you can make a reasonable estimate to help create a manageable shopping budget. Along with figuring out how much they can spend, set rules and guidelines by prioritizing what items are needed and whether your child will have flexibility on their purchases or whether they'll need your approval while shopping.
Establish A Spending Limit
Sharing the shopping budget with your child will help them understand what they can and can't spend as well as the importance of not spending more than what's given to them. A good way to establish spending limits and instill smart spending habits while shopping for back-to-school is by having them pay in cash. This gives your child the opportunity to see the funds physically decrease as they spend.
Determine What is Needed
While you're helping your child determine their back-to-school shopping budget, sit down with them and go over all the required school supplies. After going over the school's shopping list, look at what items you may already have on hand and go through supplies from the previous year(s) to see what can be reused. This can help you get a better picture of what you need to buy and can help you save money. In addition to supply list provided by your child's school or teacher, determine what other items are needed. For example, does your child need new shoes, clothes, or a backpack? Be sure to include these to create an updated shopping list.
Develop a Shopping List
After determining what they need, have your child write down what they need to buy. Explain how following a shopping list can help them to stay on budget. Have you child write down what they need and go through paper ads or browse at stores online to comparison shop. Also, practice checking for coupons while shopping to look for the best prices. If your child wants to purchase something that's not on the list, let them know that they will have to cut an item from their list or have a good reason to purchase it.
Provided below is a Back-to-School budgeting worksheet that you can use to write down your shopping budget, items needed, compare prices, and tally what you spent.
Organize Your Shopping List
Take steps to organize your shopping list by determining where you need to go for which items. Do you need to go to multiple stores or can you find everything you need at one place? If you need to go to multiple stores go get better pricing, do the savings justify driving around? Discuss with your child how several trips or longer distances can impact fuel costs which can impact your overall budget.
Get Ready to Shop
Assure your child that you'll be there to help them as they shop, but encourage them to make their own decisions so that they can learn from the choices that they make. If you know they're making a poor decision, talk openly with them about why you think they should make another choice and ask them to explain their purchase. Emphasize the importance of following the shopping list and have them cross off items as they purchase them. Also, while shopping for back-to-school items take advantage of tax-free sales. This can help to get the most you and your child's back-to-school shopping budget.
Checkout
Before you checkout, walk with your child through their decisions. Ask them to go over their purchases with you. Keep it visual by having them pay in cash so that they can get used to counting money and also see the impact of their decisions on the budget.
Take Time to Review
After all the items from your shopping list have been purchased, take time to review and talk about your purchases. Gauge what your child has learned about making spending and budgeting decisions by asking them questions.
- What was the hardest part about creating a budget?
- What was their most expensive purchase?
- Was the cost of a particular item surprising?
- Now that the money has been spent, would they make different choices?
If there is money left over, talk to your child about what they can do with it. Encourage them to put the money in savings, or if you need the change back, let them know why every penny counts to keep a balanced budget that allows you to save and spend smart.
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