Education expenses don’t end with back-to-school sales.
Even our most budget-conscious clients at CapWealth find that school costs have a way of sneaking up on them when they’re looking the other way. Clothing and uniforms are usually the first line item that comes to mind, and they are worth planning for beyond August. Beyond normal wear and tear, children will inevitably grow out of their clothes, and the changing seasons all take a toll.
Look at what you spent last year rather than what you hoped to spend. Use that total as your baseline, and then break the year into a few known checkpoints, such as the winter uniform swap or a spring growth spurt. This way, the expenses are less likely to catch you off guard.
Activity fees are often the bigger
surprise. Sports teams, theater programs and clubs frequently come with participation fees, plus the cost of gear, uniforms, travel or competition entries. A recent Backpack Index survey from Huntington National Bank and Communities in Schools found families with children in high school are now paying an average of more than $1,100 per student for activities, compared to roughly $460 for elementary-age kids.
Ask about the full cost, including gear and travel, before your child commits to a team or program. It is much easier to have that conversation up front than to explain midseason why a schedule needs to change.
It also doesn't hurt to ask whether the school offers a sliding-scale fee or a waiver for families who need it. Many districts have one, though they rarely advertise it, and volunteering time in exchange for a reduced fee is common enough that it's worth raising directly with a coach or administrator.
Lunch is another area that grows into a real expense fast. As the parent of a pre-teen boy, I can say from experience that a growing appetite paired with daily cafeteria purchases adds up faster than you expect. If your child buys lunch every day, set a monthly budget for it. If they are old enough, walk them through what that budget looks like in dollars, and let them see how bringing lunch from home a couple of days a week will change the total.
The common thread across all of this is tracking. Keep a running, realistic view of what school-related costs actually total across a semester, since the real number is often higher than the one you had in mind. Set a spending limit before the year gets going, before the credit card statement forces the conversation.
Where it makes sense, bring your kids into the conversation. You don’t want them to be anxious about money decisions when their thoughts should be on their studies and friends. The point of these conversations is to give them a practical demonstration of how money intersects with their real lives. They’ll understand why budgets exist.
And, we hope, they will build better financial habits of their own. Older kids, in particular, benefit from seeing the real numbers behind their activities and understanding the tradeoffs involved in choosing one commitment over another.
None of this requires cutting out the things that make the school year meaningful, the team your child loves, the play they want to be in, the lunch they look forward to. It just means going into the year with a plan instead of reacting fee by fee. A little structure now tends to prevent a lot of stress later, especially heading into the winter and spring months when new activities and expenses tend to appear.
We regularly talk with clients about building these kinds of everyday budgeting habits into their broader financial picture. I’ve done this long enough to know that families will carry the discipline (or lack of it) around school costs into bigger financial decisions down the road.
Hillary Stalker, CFP, is an executive vice president and financial adviser at CapWealth. For more information, visit capwealthgroup.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Financial strategies for managing school-year expenses
