Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Personal Finances and Consumer Concerns, essays, stories, examples and how to articles with a distinctly Canadian Point of View
August 18th, 2009

Back to Skule Dude…

Given the late date of Labour day this year, school (aka Skule) starts a little earlier than usual (on September the 1st) and thus it means back to school sales are in full swing (in fact they are almost over, I can find a lot of Halloween Candy right now, but we can talk about that later).

Back to school is a huge drain on most families funds (any family with kids from age 5 to 21, at least), and the things that “need” to be bought keeps expanding and adding up.

What kind of expenses, you ask?

  • Paper,pens, pencils,  OK we needed paper when I was a kid, so that isn’t too bad.
  • Student Fee $20
  • Yearbook $35
  • Lab fees for science courses
  • Athletic fees
  • Gym fees
  • New clothes ($100-$300 per child)
  • New athletic shoes
  • Binders, yes, we used those too.
  • Ink for your computer’s printer, OK now we are in a new world. ($50 for sure)
  • A new printer, because last year’s printers jets are clogged. ($50 at least)
  • Bus passes, yes, I have to pay for my kids busing to school (that’s about $130 a month)
  • A new computer because the kids’ computer is really crappy (OK that is optional but if your child is going off to University you are going to be paying this for sure)
  • Furniture if your child is moving into a house at University (that is not furnished)
  • Cost of dropping your child off at school (that ain’t cheap if you have a run of over 500 kms)
  • Meal plan costs, lunch costs, etc.,
  • Book costs for University students
  • Cell phone costs

You kind of get the picture, this explains why September is actually the biggest spending month of my fiscal year.

More rants will follow about this subject, but please feel free to add more expenses I may have missed as comments too!

Related Articles

  1. University Costs (some more)...
  2. University Costs (again)...
  3. Teach Your Kids to Be Frugal at Back to School Time...
  4. Students: Banks’ new Markets...
  5. Personal Computer Hand Me Downs...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Leave a Reply

www.financialwebring.com