Parents are struggling amid dizzying inflation and the return to school, which combined with other consumer items, has put even more pressure on their pockets.
Unlike from previous years, American consumers have paid more attention to prices, offers and are buying more generic items. In addition, they are using ingenuity to reuse articles from past school years.
Students who return to classes at different educational levels have different needs to cover: from books, supplies, clothes, new shoes, a computer or other electronic devices to furniture and items to equip the college dorm.
A Deloitte service network back-to-school survey , applied to 1,200 US parents, said that average back-to-school spending per student is expected to increase 8% from 2021 with an approximate $661 dollars per child, when spending before the pandemic was $519 dollars.
Other estimate, taken from the National Retail Federation and market data company Prosper Insights & Analytics says that households will spend on average $864 dollars for the school year in progress, which represents almost 2% more than the $849 dollars spent on 2021.
In general terms, the National Retail Federation expects that the expense for back to school in the schools remains stable at $36,900 million dollars, with a drop of 0.5%, while spending for the case of universities increase 4% to $73,900 millions of dollars.
The combined expense would also experience changes. This could reach $200.7 billion dollars, 2 % more than last year’s record of $100.1 billion dollars, Katherine Cullen, senior director of industry and consumer information for the National Retail Federation, told USA Today.
Parents are keeping an eye out for inflation levels in the country, –which in July stood at 8.5% year-on-year after reaching 9.1% in the previous month–, trigger the prices of school supplies. They estimate to spend 40.6% more than in 2019 for back to school and 35.5% more to return to university.
The signature datawave retail analytics says back-to-school items were priced on average 14% higher than in 2021. Among the articles that rose the most, backpacks stand out, with % increase; notebooks and folders, with 31%; and lunch boxes, with %. These other items also showed significant increases.
A few tips such as buying online, using coupons or buying used items can represent significant savings for consumers. There are also some applications from the cell phone that can bring greater benefits.
It may interest you:
– 5 applications with which you can save money for this return to school
– Discount coupons and extra shifts: This is how families in the US prepare for the cost of going back to school
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