Back-to-school shopping stressing you out? How to avoid breaking the bank

More than a third of Canadians plan to shop for back-to-school supplies this year, according to a survey done by the Retail Council of Canada.

With the new school year starting in a few weeks, Canadian parents are feeling “stressed out” about shopping for their kids and looking for ways to cut back their spending, recent surveys show.

More than a third (34 per cent) of Canadians plan to shop for back-to-school supplies this year, according to a survey done by the Retail Council of Canada (RCC) last month.

While more than half (56 per cent) expect that they will spend about the same on school shopping, fewer parents compared with last year are willing to spend more, the results published on Aug. 6 showed. The survey included 8,737 Canadian adults out of which 3,482 were planning to shop for school products.

The results “highlight a cautious yet consistent approach to back-to-school shopping amidst evolving economic conditions,” the RCC said in its report.

In a Leger survey commissioned by Capital One, also from July and including 1,005 Canadian parents, nearly half (47 per cent) of respondents said they “feel stressed out” thinking about spending on back-to-school shopping.

Another poll by NerdWallet of 296 Canadian parents of children in kindergarten up to college showed that nearly one in five (18 per cent) feel they will likely go into debt from back-to-school shopping.

Even though overall inflation has slowed in recent months, prices of school textbooks and supplies were up by 3.7 per cent year over year in June, according to Statistics Canada’s latest inflation report.

Stationery prices also increased by 4.7 per cent, but the cost of children’s clothes and shoes went down, decreasing seven per cent and two per cent, respectively, compared with last year.