Target's back-to-school aisle went up in early July this year, which means by the time most families actually need the supplies, the displays have been picked over for weeks and the "deals" have quietly reverted to full price. The National Retail Federation's annual survey pegs average per-family K-12 back-to-school spending at $874.68 for the 2025-2026 season, up from $857 the year before — and that number doesn't include the class trip fee that shows up in September or the winter coat your kid will have outgrown by November. If you haven't budgeted for this specific spending category before, August is the month it stops being optional.
Where the Money Actually Goes
Break the NRF's average down and three categories eat most of it: clothing and accessories (roughly $260), electronics like a laptop or calculator (roughly $295 for families needing a new device), and school supplies plus shoes (the remaining chunk, spread across binders, backpacks, and the inevitable pair of sneakers that "everyone else has"). Electronics skew the average hard — if you're not replacing a laptop this year, your real number is closer to $450-$550 for clothing and supplies combined.
Fees are the category families consistently underestimate. Between activity fees, technology fees, PTA "suggested donations," and the $15-$40 per class that covers art supplies or lab materials the district budget doesn't stretch to cover, a public school kid can generate $150-$300 in fees before a single pencil gets bought. Private and charter schools often front-load these into tuition, but public school families get hit with them piecemeal across September and October, usually with a due date and a form that shows up in a backpack with no warning.
Building the Actual Budget
Start with the supply list, not the store aisle. Districts typically post grade-specific lists on the school website by late July, and buying against a list — rather than wandering Target's seasonal section — is the single biggest lever for cutting the bill. A generic "back to school" cart runs high because it's optimized for impulse add-ons: the matching pencil case, the extra folder in a trending color, the water bottle with the school mascot on it that costs $22 instead of the $6 plain version that does the same job.
- Supplies against the list: budget $40-$70 per elementary-age kid, $60-$100 for middle and high schoolers who need graphing calculators or specific binders
- Clothing: 5-7 outfits is plenty for the first month — kids grow, trends shift, and buying a full fall wardrobe in August means rebuying half of it by Halloween
- Shoes: one pair of sneakers that can handle gym class, budget $40-$65 depending on whether you're buying at Payless-successor stores, Kohl's, or a name brand
- Fees: call the front office and ask directly what's coming — most schools will tell you the number if you ask before the first week, and knowing it in July beats a surprise form in September
Old Navy and Kohl's both run reliable back-to-school clothing promotions in the last two weeks of July — Old Navy typically discounts kids' basics 30-40% site-wide, and Kohl's stacks its Kohl's Cash program on top of clearance racks in a way that can push effective discounts past 50%. Staples and Five Below cover the supply side; Five Below in particular is worth the trip for anything under $5, since a lot of supply-list items (composition notebooks, glue sticks, colored pencils) don't need to cost more than that anywhere.
The Sales Tax Holiday Window
Seventeen states run a sales tax holiday specifically timed around back-to-school shopping, and the dates matter more than most families realize. Texas runs its exemption the first weekend of August, applying to clothing and shoes under $100 per item plus most school supplies under $100. Florida's runs longer — typically two full weeks in late July and early August — and covers clothing under $100, supplies under $50, and even personal computers under $1,500. If you live in one of these states and you're going to spend the money anyway, timing the purchase inside the exemption window is free money: on a $600 back-to-school bill, an 8% sales tax exemption is close to $50 back in your pocket for doing nothing but checking a calendar.
Skip the tax holiday entirely if you don't live in one of the qualifying states — driving across a state line to save 6-8% sales tax rarely clears the cost of gas, and some families do exactly this math wrong every August.
The Sinking Fund Isn't Enough Here
If you've already got a sinking fund running for irregular expenses, back-to-school season is a good test of whether it's sized correctly — but a generic miscellaneous fund tends to underestimate this specific category because it hits all at once, across multiple kids, inside a three-week window with almost no flexibility on timing. Build a dedicated back-to-school line with its own number, refilled monthly starting in January, rather than folding it into a catch-all pot that also has to cover car repairs and vet bills.
Here's the uncomfortable part most budgeting advice glosses over: even a well-funded sinking fund doesn't protect you from the social pressure that drives overspending in this category specifically. A 2024 survey from Deloitte found parents cite "wanting my child to fit in" as a direct driver of back-to-school overspending nearly as often as the supply list itself. Budgeting the number is the easy half of this. Holding the line when your kid says three other classmates already have the $85 backpack is the part that actually determines whether you hit your number.
Buy Once, Not Twice
The cheapest backpack isn't always the cheapest choice. A $25 backpack that splits at the zipper by October means buying a second one in the middle of the semester at full price with no sale to soften it — while a $55 JanSport or L.L.Bean bag with a lifetime warranty (both brands still honor theirs, no receipt required in most cases) often outlasts the entire elementary school career of one kid and gets handed down to a sibling. This is one of the few places in a back-to-school budget where spending more up front is the financially disciplined choice, not the indulgent one.
The same logic doesn't extend to clothing. Kids outgrow clothes faster than they wear them out, so the premium-durability argument that works for a backpack falls apart for a pair of jeans a nine-year-old will be too tall for by January. Buy clothing cheap and replace it on schedule; buy the backpack, the lunch box, and the calculator built to last.
What to Do With the Receipts
Keep them past the return window you'd normally track. School supply returns get messy specifically because half the items get used within the first week, and if a teacher changes the supply list in the first month — which happens more often than districts advertise — you want proof of purchase to swap out an unused item rather than eating the cost twice. A folder in your phone's camera roll labeled by kid and by year takes thirty seconds to set up and saves an argument with customer service in September.
Back-to-school spending isn't going away, and it isn't really optional the way a vacation or a subscription is. Treat it like the recurring, predictable line item it actually is — because it comes back every August whether or not you planned for it.