Back to school savings: Part 1
Back to school can put a squeeze on family budgets, especially after Christmas.
Over the next four weeks, we’ll be sharing some our budget and savings tips to take some of the pain out of this time of year.
The big picture
The first step is to think about all the different things that your child may need or you may have to pay for over the upcoming school year. A list could include:
Uniforms and shoes
Stationery and supplies
Lunches and snacks
Technology and devices
Excursions and incursions
Extracurricular activities
School fees and charges
Furniture and equipment
Transport
One way to help prioritise your spending is to split the list into:
the essentials vs the extras
items that your child needs now, such as summer uniforms, and those things you can potentially put off until later in the school year, like winter uniforms
things that need to be paid for in a lump sum and things that can possibly be saved for or paid off.
what you already have and what you need to acquire
Think about how much you want/need to allocate to the back to school budget and ways you can make your money stretch, such as:
buying secondhand
borrowing specific items
asking about discounts or payment plans
accessing vouches (such a the Active Kids and Creative Kids vouchers in New South Wales)
utilising school-based programs
finding out if you’re eligible for financial assistance from Centrelink or through programs such as The Smith Family’s Learning for Life and Brotherhood of St Laurence’s Saver Plus
Planning ahead
As well as planning for the immediate school expenses, it can be really helpful to get ahead by adding an amount into your everyday budget for school costs and putting the money aside for future costs.
One way to do this is to work out how much you spend on school each year and dividing it into a weekly, fortnightly or monthly amount depending on when you receive your income. Another approach is to set an amount and save it regularly. Even $5 saved weekly can quickly add up to $250 over a year.
Some people save this into a separate ‘School Costs’ savings account and set up a direct debit so that the money automatically transfers across from their regular account - a ‘set and forget’ way to save .