The Cost of Back-to-School Shopping Across The U.S.

In a week, my son starts fourth grade, though my Instagram feed has been filled with adorable back-to-school photos for weeks. (It really is my favorite!) But a piece of me has been thinking about back-to-school shopping ever since my friend Erin Donnelly, senior editor at Yahoo Life, reached out to me in late June to see if I wanted to collaborate on a project about this hectic and expensive time of year.

I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I love to work with friends, and I love being nosy about other people’s spending habits. The result—The Bank of Mom and Dad—launched on Yahoo yesterday, and it features the back-to-school receipts of families across the U.S. Erin and I, with the help of her colleague Andrew Romano, also put together a survey asking parents how they feel about back-to-school shopping. No surprise: Most of them feel stressed.

I wish I could say I relate, but here’s a little secret: I don’t have to do any back-to-school shopping—and I never have. My son goes to a public charter school, and all the supplies are provided. He wears a uniform and is very much going through an “I don’t care about fashion!” phase, so I haven’t had to buy any new clothes. And I established very early on that he doesn’t get a new backpack every year.1

I do feel the stress of getting back into the school-year routine. I’m in the middle of trying to figure out his extracurricular schedule, and I’m preparing to fill out 101 school forms. But I am not waiting for a supply list to arrive, and I will not get to either enjoy or stress over schlepping to Staples to buy composition notebooks and three-ring binders.

So as I sat down to write about the results for the Yahoo/YouGov poll, I did the thing I always do when I’m noodling through a topic that I don’t have a lot of experience with—I watched a lot of TikTok videos, and then I texted my mom-friend group chat for confirmation that what I watched on TikTok was in fact real and relatable.

My favorite TikTok video featured a woman shopping for back-to-school supplies at Target with her Italian husband. He can’t believe that they have to buy paper towels, cleaning wipes, and dry-erase markers for the classroom. Their list calls for four glue sticks, but the packages at the store either come with three or six. “America knows!” the husband exclaims. “America knows!”

@thepasinis
He’s so done 🤣
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It reminds me of that scene from Father of the Bride, when George Banks (played by Steve Martin) has a meltdown in the grocery store over the fact that the hot dog package comes with eight dogs and the hot dog buns come in packages of 12. “I end up paying for four buns I do not need,” he tells the poor grocery stock boy.

“You wanna know why?” George continues, his voice rising. “Because some big shot over at the weiner company got together with some big shot over at the bun company and decided to rip off the American public! … Well they’re not ripping off this nitwit anymore!”

(For what it’s worth, I don’t think schools are colluding with big-box stores to make parents overbuy, but it is sort of funny to imagine.)

A New York Times piece on the topic also mentioned that glue sticks are often the source of much “online derision.” And when I asked about back-to-school expenses in The Purse chat, one reader shared she had a similar experience to our Italian dad friend. Her daughter’s pre-K class list called for six glue sticks, and Target was only selling packs of eight. Another mom reported that once she had to buy her child 24 glue sticks. 24!!!

It’s easy to imagine a scene similar to Father of the Bride with a harried mother losing her shit in the aisle of a big-box store, her cart overflowing with school supplies, and her overtired, overstimulated, whining children asking when they can go home. It’s hard not to want to have a public fit when life piles on a thousand tiny slights and annoyances, and then you can’t find the red Post-It notes your daughter insists she needs for geography.

Two photos. On the left, a little girl standing in front of a fireplace. On the right, a boy and girl standing up with their backpacks — On the left, I think it’s my first day of kindergarten. I love that my name is taped to my dress! And on the right, with my brother, I think on the first day of 5th grade.

Many of the parents I interviewed for the Yahoo series feel nostalgic for the back-to-school shopping days of their childhood, but they don’t feel the same magic now that it’s time to shop for their own kids. There’s nothing romantic about being a mom in 2025 who’s trying to budget for all the different school-year expenses. And the reality is, the cost of glue sticks isn’t the thing that’s going to make or break (most of) our budgets.

All of the parents I interviewed have expenses beyond the school supply list. Many are paying hundreds a month for after-school care. And as their kids get older, the cost of activities rises, too. I talked to families in Texas and Pennsylvania whose teenaged kids’ extracurricular activities cost over $10,000 a year.

These additional expenses I can relate to. We’re not spending thousands on activities for Freddy, but piano, parkour, and baseball aren’t cheap. We’re looking to save a bit by skipping the after-school program this year (which costs close to $500 a month if we were to use it five days a week). Maybe “save” isn’t quite the right word—I should say, “redistribute how we spend the money.”

I know a lot of families are doing similar math this fall, figuring out where to prioritize their spending and what is non-negotiable. I’d love to hear how Purse readers are managing it all. What’s stressing you out about back-to-school shopping? What on your supply list made you want to have a George Banks moment.