Back to School Gets More Expensive
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — This year’s back-to-school spending bills for many families will be more expensive than last year.
The price pressure is not coming from stores but from schools, because of budget cuts in many districts.
“We found that teachers are digging into their own pockets to supplement classroom supplies and then they’re funneling some of those requests down to parents,” says Trae Bodge of the shopping website RetailMeNot. “Almost 100 percent of parents that we surveyed anticipate having to spend additionally to supplement their children’s classroom supplies.”
Bodge says parents are “tightening back on the reigns and being much more conservative” about back-to-school spending than they were last year.
Bodge says in her research, “I’m finding that parents are encouraging their kids to re-use certain items.”
Analysts are divided about the retail industry’s second most important shopping season. The National Retail Federation predicts that back-to-school spending will be down this season as families with school-age children cut back following a record high total of $30.3 billion last year.
But market research firm NPD in its retail forecast expects back-to-school spending to rise 5 percent compared with a year ago.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio