For most, this is the last weekend before school starts, which means last minute shopping for clothes, supplies and textbooks.

Here’s a roundup of stats and sites for back-to-school.

First the stats, which as usual, vary greatly depending on the survey.
A PayPal survey cracked me up. Its findings?

Parents plan to spend $250 on back-to-school shopping, whereas, students anticipate a budget of $350. Additionally, over two-thirds of high school teens admitted to convincing their parents to buy them items/clothing that their parents didn’t totally approve of!

Parents, better have the budget talk before hitting the mall. Or tell your kid to crack open that piggy bank and find a Ben Franklin. I’d love to hear what parents have purchased for kids that they really didn’t approve of. Who’s in charge here?

A Capital One survey had the majority of teens figuring that Mom and Dad will spend less than $100 on back to school shopping. Such teens must not be holding out for the designer jeans.

The National Retail Federation’s annual back-to-school survey figures on average parents will spend about $563.49.

Now the sites:

BookRenter.com is an interesting concept. Why buy textbooks when you can rent them instead? I’m not sure about their selection, but it’s a great idea, especially with many textbooks priced at more than $100.

Now here are some tips from the Financial Resource Center.

And don’t forget education tax benefits. IRS Publication 970 has everything you need to know about the various breaks.

My tip: No panic shopping. A kid can’t wear more than one outfit to school in a day (unless participating in Back-to-school Amazing Race Edition– contestants often pile on clothes when worried about losing their possessions). There are certain to even better sales there currently are throughout September. Who buys anything full price anymore?

As for pencils, get yourself to the State Fair for lots of freebies. And don’t forget to visit me at the Star Tribune booth from 3:30 to 4:30 on Friday. Yes, this is my last fair reference. I promise!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 4:35 pm and is filed under spending. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.