Back to school can be an exciting time for parents ready to get back in the regular rhythm of life and for nerdy kids who enjoy classes. Back to school shopping, however, can put a serious dent in your wallet if you don’t plan ahead, adding parents protesting along with kids who don’t want summer to end. Below, we cover some tips for back to school shopping on a budget so you don’t break the bank. Since we don’t have kids, we reached out to members in our Budget Brigade Facebook group for their advice and suggestions.

Plan your back to school shopping early!
Waiting until the last minute, like the day before school or even after school starts, can cause you to panic purchase in a rush to get it done. Impulse buys are almost never good ones and can end up costing you a lot in missed opportunities (AKA sales).
The earlier you can get a game plan in place, the more time you’ll have to explore options and get the best deal possible. This also allows you time to save up to help cover the costs.
Start with a budget
Back to school shopping isn’t just about what your kids need for school—it’s about what you can afford to get them. These can align, but it isn’t always a given, and there are different approaches on how to achieve the same end goal. For example, you can purchase new or second hand clothes, or even ask friends and family for hand me downs. The cost of the same t-shirt, pair of jeans, etc. in each of these three scenarios can vary, and knowing your budget can help you focus on which route to focus on.
Before you start creating your back to school shopping list, look at your bank account and your budget. What can you afford to get? That’s your starting point. And by bank account, we’re talking checking account. We aren’t talking your emergency funds or credit card balances. If you need help making a budget, especially if you’ve never done one before, we have free resources to help! Start with our budgeting 101 guide to creating a budget, and then explore all our free budgeting tips and FAQs.
Not having a spiral notebook or #2 pencil for the first day of school does not constitute as an emergency for your rainy day fund. In a worst case scenario, let your kid learn a valuable life lesson in begging or bartering (but please don’t let them steal) to scrape by while you put together a plan, quick. I had one kid in my classes in middle school who never had supplies for anything. He’d always ask the kids next to him if he could borrow some from them. Classmates were more than willing to help, at least at first. After a while, they were like, “Dude, why do you never have a pencil for class?” to which he replied, “Because of the potato famine in Ireland.” And I mean, what middle schooler has a comeback for that?
If it’s a season in life where you need to get creative, don’t worry! That’s life for so many of us, and we’ve got suggestions below that can help stretch your budget further without blaming my Irish kin.
Save up a back-to-school fund
This is where early planning can pay off. If you have a lot of kids and are dreading the back to school shopping season, consider setting up a sinking fund ahead of time. Saving a little each month or from each paycheck can be a lot easier than scrambling to find the entire amount in August. Just remember, if money is tight, the thriftier you can get, the more money you’ll have leftover for your other goals. Not that you don’t love your kids, but if it comes down to Air Jordans or retirement, take the retirement! There’s no guarantee they’ll make it to the NBA and let you live with them when you’re older, when you can’t make it on whatever Social Security benefits are left as the government continually scales them back because they truly suck at doing a zero-based budget.
Learn more about what sinking funds are and how to use them.
Brush your shoulders off from any guilt or FOMO
If you’re looking at your budget and it’s kinda depressing, take a deep breath. It is was it is, and we’re going to work with what you’ve got, even if we have to get a little creative.
If your kids moan and groan because they just have to have the monogrammed glow-in-the-dark Pacman backpack from Pottery Barn because all the other kids will have one and you don’t want them to be the only one who doesn’t, promise them a Jansport won’t kill them. It didn’t kill me or my brother or anyone else in the late 1990s, and it’s not like the manufacturer switched to super toxic chemicals.
What your kids want isn’t what they necessarily need. Hold this truth to be self-evident, even when they try to tell you otherwise. Write it on a Post-it and stick it to your bathroom mirror if you have to. There is zero guilt if your kid isn’t rocking the latest fashion. They’re going to school to learn, not to star in a Britney Spears music video.
If you save some money backpacks and clothes so that you can afford groceries to keep them from going hungry at school, call it a victory and silence any noise.
Make a list (and stick to it!)
Most schools provide back-to-school shopping lists. This is a great place to start. Even in college, professors provide the required reading and whatever technology students need in order to attend classes and complete assignments. Even if it isn’t organized in a nice, bullet-point list, listen during orientation and ask your kid’s teacher or teachers so that you can make sure you’re buying the right supplies and not buying things that will sit in the closet for the next 11 months just for the hope of getting used next year.
Shop at home first before heading online or to the store
Once you have a list of required supplies, take inventory of what your kids already have from last year and what else you have in the house. A new school year doesn’t automatically require a new wardrobe, especially if your kid didn’t shoot up like a beanstalk over the summer.
Common items kids can use year after year or that siblings or friends can hand down include:
- School supplies: Backpacks, lunchboxes, water bottles, binders & notebooks, pencil cases, (mechanical) pencils & pens, markers & crayons, rulers, protractors, scissors, tissues, and glue sticks
- Clothing & accessories: Uniforms, shoes, coats, jackets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, and gym clothes
- Tech & electronics: Calculators, laptops, tablets, and earbuds or headphones
Shopping at home can especially pay dividends if you have a warehouse club membership and shop in bulk. Since back to school lists are typically similar year to year, you may have some leftover supplies from what you purchased last summer as well. Dig through your storage and see what you might have bought a few months (or year) ago that you’ve already forgotten about. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sent my husband to the store and then found a duplicate a day or two after he bought what I thought we were out of.
Detour into if memberships to warehouse clubs are worth it.
If you’ve got a bit of clutter happening at your house, back to school prep is the perfect excuse to set aside a weekend morning and get the kids to purge. Maybe even turn it into something fun, like a scavenger hunt. Whoever finds the most items for their back to school list from what they already have can get dropped off at the curb so you don’t embarrass them in front of their friends.
See if your state has a tax-free weekend for back-to-school shopping
Many states have a weekend before school starts where you don’t have to pay sales tax on school-related purchases. This can help you save a pretty penny on new purchases, especially if you live in an area with a high sales tax rate like we do.
Hunt for deals and coupons as well
Shopping on tax-free weekends can help you potentially save 5%-10%+ depending on where you live, but it isn’t the only savings you might find. Many stores run sales on common back-to-school shopping list items a few weeks before school starts. For our followers in the Southeast, Publix often runs BOGOs on items like markers, glue sticks, wipes, tissues, hand sanitizers, and Lysol wipes. Don’t buy more than you’ll need, especially if they’re items that can dry out over time and will have to get thrown away and repurchased, but this can be a great way to save as you replenish items your kids use throughout the year.
If you miss the deals before school starts, wait a few weeks on items your kids can live without and wait for the second wave of sales. One friend commented they saw the same lunchbox they got for their kindergartner 50% off at Sam’s Club a month after they bought it.
Price compare (even with deals) before you buy
Just because something is on sale doesn’t automatically make it the best deal. I used to have a bit of a Black Friday addiction back when you could buy physical entertainment like CDs and DVDs (fun game: show your kids a picture of a VCR and see if they can tell you what it is). I’d shop the deals and often realize that the blowout “sale” was sometimes only $0.10 or $1 cheaper than the normal price. And Walmart, Target, and Best Buy often had the same item at different prices each. So I checked the sales flyers and made a spreadsheet of costs across stores, then highlighted what I would buy where to save the most.
I’m not saying you have to Beautiful Mind an epic Excel spreadsheet, but shop around before you purchase anything to see how much you can save. Also check less commonly advertised options, like the Dollar Store. Just don’t assume everything in the Dollar Store is a dollar like I did, because that’s a misnomer.
Even if you aren’t a spreadsheet person, don’t ignore prices. I can’t stress this enough.
Consider cloth swaps and buy nothing groups
If you’re on a tight budget, or are trying to raise frugal kids, see what you can get for free. Our community organizes a clothes swap a few times a year where all the families clean out what no longer fit their kids and set them out for everyone to shop for free. Whatever doesn’t get claimed by a new home by the end of the event gets donated to charity.
If there isn’t a similar event in your neighborhood or community, consider starting one! It can take a little time and space to organize, but can save a ton and is a great way to help reduce waste.
Getting consumables like markers and pens might be a little tricky for free, but you might also be able to score some other free swag such as backpacks and lunchboxes through local buy nothing groups.
Shop secondhand thrift stores and consignment shops
If you strike out for free options, there are still secondhand options to consider before heading online or to the big box store for new clothes and supplies. There are several chains of secondhand stores, such as Once Upon a Child, Goodwill, and Salvation Army. Some stores, such as Once Upon a Child, may even offer trade-in value for clothes your kids have outgrown. It doesn’t hurt to check out options there.
We’ve covered selling items on Facebook Marketplace, and this can be an option to help clear out what your kids don’t need anymore to help purchase replacements. It can also be a good place to find some of the items for your list.
The final word
We hope this gives you ideas on how to save big as you prepare for the next school year, regardless of your budget. As you put together your shopping plan, get your kids involved! I knew from a young age how to spot the clearance racks at stores. While I didn’t have a full understanding of my parents’ financial situation, I knew that we weren’t the most affluent family in the neighborhood or school. Even though my parents worked as hard, if not harder, than my friends’ parents, we couldn’t always afford the same things they could. As I got older, this helped me appreciate the true cost of items, which helped curb what I asked for, and later, what I was willing to spend once I had a job.
We can’t change the money habits or education we had growing up, but we can help educate the next generation to the best of our ability, which can set them up for a better future (and hopefully cut down the guilt trips when they realize you’d get them the Air Jordans if you could afford it, but it’s not happening this year unless they want to go mow lawns to buy them).
A special thanks to our friends and Budget Brigade members who helped us with talking points for this topic. Feel free to join in on the conversation in our free budgeting and personal finance group.