Amex Survey Finds Back To School Spending On The Rise

Parents’ wallets will feel lighter than ever this fall.

Families with kids heading back to school this fall are spending more than last year, according to the American Express Spending & Saving Tracker. The annual Amex report found that folks would spend an average of $1,642 per family on back to school shopping this year, which is up from $1,239 last year.

The increase in spending was chalked up to longer supply lists, and also to parents’ readiness to buy more this year. “While looking at trending data on this topic from the past five years, 2016 is showing the largest year-over-year increase for back-to-school shopping,” said American Express vice president of consumer lending, Jed Scala. “This may be attributed to an ever-evolving back-to-school shopping list, and perhaps, parents’ ability and willingness to spend more when it comes to education and extracurricular activities.

Top expenditures include musical instruments and mobile devices, with clothing and traditional supplies like notebooks, rulers, and pens also accounting for a significant chunk of change. Technology is fully integrated into the classroom experience these days, and parents said they’d spend an average of $505 on electrical gadgets for their kids this year. Ninety-two percent of parents said their kids use tech toys in the classroom, compared with 82 percent in 2015. Six in ten parents said they’d be purchasing some sort of electronic device for their child’s upcoming school year.

Budgeting comes into play

Parents aren’t just spending without a plan. Sixty-four percent of parents said they have a budget in place for back to school clothing – up from 59 percent in 2015. Still, 23 percent of folks said they’d consider bending the rules to spend a little more on clothes or tech toys if it would help their child do well in school. Another reason to spend more, said parents, is to keep their child happy and prevent arguments. Last year only three percent of parents said that was a compelling reason to spend more, while this year nineteen percent were afraid of upsetting their children by saying no.

To afford these back to school expenses, some parents are cutting back on their own needs and desires. Seventy-eight percent said they’d spend less on themselves in order to spend more on their child, cutting corners on things like plays, movies, sports events, concerts, and travel.