The Now Bakersfield is helping monitor the spending trends in 2018 for parents who are planning out their back to school shopping approach, now that students will be heading back to school soon.
Many moms in Kern County also shared some of their helpful tips for back to school shopping with The Now Bakersfield reporter Tori Cooper.
Even though shopping for students can be pricey, moms like Tiffany Leclair are making the job look easy,"We actually start budgeting right as soon as school starts and I budget about $400 for my class room and about $200 for each child," School Teacher and Kern County mother Tiffany Leclair said.
According to a national survey conducted by Deloitte, parents like Leclair will spend an average of $510 on their children’s school supplies this back to school season. Since Leclair is also a school teacher she is not only relying on big store market retailers, "We shop on Amazon and several school supply places like Carson Dellosa, Michaels, we go to the store, we're all over the place," Leclair said.
Back to school shopping is expected to ring in over 27 billion dollars this 2018 and 49% of the people included in the Deloitte survey are planning on using their desktop laptop for their digital spending. Shoppers like Leclair start looking for great deals as soon as they can, "Early summer late July," Kern County mother Amy Stairs said.
The survey shows that during the last two weeks of July U.S. shoppers spend $8.1 billion dollars in back to school shopping and in early August that number reaches over 9 billion dollars. Shoppers told The Now that one of the great tips to remember is to start your shopping earlier because then supplies are not picked over yet.
Shoppers who start earlier in Kern County are anticipating what supplies teachers will recommend on the list sent home with students. However, that may still lead shoppers back to the store and mothers like Leclair know a lot about the last minute struggle that comes along with that, "We're going back out and battling the crowds but online helps," Leclair said.
Another useful tip mothers share is to keep your coupons as much as you can to help you save, "Whenever I get a chance, whenever I get a coupon, I use them," Stairs said.
44% of the people who participated in the survey collect discounts; coupons and sale information to lighten the financial load on the families this back to school season.
You can also find price sensitive retail options for your students here.
