Back to School How to Avoid a Financial Crisis

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Hope you all enjoy this guest post from Alban - he's a pretty budget savvy finance writer with a great deal of experience under his belt.

We’d all like to be able to save more money, but unfortunately life gets in the way. There always seems to be a birthday, a holiday, a festive season or an emergency which comes along to drain our finances and back to school time is often no exception.  
A news poll released in August 2010 by Chase Card Services has revealed that you are likely not alone in your struggle to keep up with the back to school expenses. Of the families polled 41% have cut back their budgets compared to 2009 and 34% are curbing their costs by only buying the necessities. Families are planning to save on back to school expenses by shopping at discount stores, while 36% will reuse school supplies and 24% will clip coupons to make back to school more affordable.

While these are all great strategies to avoid a financial crisis in your home, and avoiding a family crisis, there are plenty more ways you can make significant and lasting changes to your family finances so you can be as excited about back to school time as your children are to be seeing their friends again.

When you shop for back to school items:

• Shop your home  With tough financial times around the world, you may have become accustomed to ‘shopping your closet’ when you can’t afford a new outfit and you can do the same at back to school time. Before you replace old school items with new ones, see whether there is more wear in them. School shoes may not have another full year, but even a few months more wear can stretch your budget further. Or do some cupboard cleanouts and you may find notepads, backpacks, pens, pencils or rulers which can help you cut down your shopping list.


• Shop your friends and family Second hand does not always mean second best and if you have friends or family with children at the same school, ask about old uniforms with life left in them or text books which are in good condition and still a part of the curriculum.

• Have a budget Not just for your own record keeping purposes to track your spending from year to year, planning how much you can afford to spend will help you avoid the after effects of impulse buys and pester power. The key here is to create a realistic budget which allows you to buy everything you need, without overspending. To create your budget shop around and look at catalogues and specials before you start shopping to compare prices and find the stores with the best product range and the best prices – there is no point in shopping around to buy the cheapest products when you spend your weekly fuel budget in a weekend of school supply shopping.

• Shop with a list This will also help you avoid multiple school supply shopping trips for forgotten items, as well as helping you stick to your budget and buy only the things you’re sure you need.

• Don’t shop at the last minute. The back to school specials you see everywhere are not always genuine or significant savings as the discounted items are those the stores can afford to make a loss on, while the majority of your purchases will still be full price. Therefore, if you are organised and shop early you can avoid the crowds, get everything you need in one stop and avoid prices which have been increased in anticipation of the demand.

Also think about how you can save money throughout the school year and start looking for recipe ideas which can be packed into lunchboxes. Planning lunches for the week can save you time and save you money as you’re not wasting food or paying for expensive pre-packaged foods or canteen lunches too often.

 Avoiding a Family Crisis at Back to School Time

 While these money saving ideas probably make perfect sense to you, your kids may be less than impressed at wearing an older sibling’s uniform or using discount store notebooks. Therefore, to avoid a family crisis as well as a financial crisis, consider:

•Allowing one extra purchase for your child which is not on the list.

•Having your child pay the difference between the affordable school item and the one they really, really want.

•Taking the opportunity to teach your children about budgets and money management and if they can’t afford to pay for the items they want, they will have to save up or go without.

•Personalising school supplies from boring discount store items to individual expressions of your child with stickers, drawings or left over wrapping paper you have at home.

Alban is a personal finance writer. He helps people to  compare home loans online.