As another school year starts, there’s no escaping the fact that children are seriously expensive! The cost of raising a child in the UK to the age of 18 is now officially quoted as just short of £148,000, according to the Child Poverty Action Group. And as parents know, the rate of spending gets ever higher during the school years.
School kids grow fast, and parents feel like they are constantly buying new clothes and shoes for their not so little darlings. But it is possible to for parents to make savings, and for retailers to support them in the attempt. As our article on this page reports, Araldite is calling on all its stockists to help parents avoid unnecessarily replacing school equipment as one way of minimising outlay. Items such as trainers, sports boots, satchels and bags can all be effectively repaired. Splicing and bonding leather or fabric strips, for example, will produce a robust, long-lasting repair. A good range of Araldite adhesives offers parents a full repair alternative to costly new purchases.
Whatever the UK economy might be doing, and however our wonderful climate is behaving, parents shopping for their school age children continue to represent a massive opportunity for supermarkets, Co-ops and convenience store chains, especially if mum and dad are both working and are pushed for time.
The start of term is a nightmare, especially for those people who want to do things the old fashioned way, going to different shops for everything children need – buying clothes from here, shoes from there, stationery from somewhere else, and on and on.
The reality is, going to the high street to get everything for the new school year might have been fine a generation ago, especially when we still had high streets with all manner of different shops, but now, even if they have a local high street on their doorstep everyone is so pushed for time that the local superstore is first choice every time.
When the high street shops are closed, parents can still hit the superstore. With their long opening hours and massive stock ranges, the well-stocked supermarket offers shoppers everything from clothing to stationery and computing essentials for classroom and home, and offers convenience at a price. And after hours there’s always shopping on line.
But the biggest spend on school kids, which goes on week in week out long after term has started, is on food and drink and snacks for lunchboxes. As parents who have been through it know well, school kids’ lunchboxes need to be filled five days a week and anything will be appreciated that makes it easier for mums, in the main, but these days dads and grandparents as well, to get those lunchboxes filled every morning. Happy new school year!
Comments are closed.