Smart back to school shopping habits

Thanks Val. Quarter past nine and back in Matt on the money. We're continuing our conversation on the very high cost of heading back to class. It is the reason all of these giveaways go down this time of year. A new survey from the National Retail Federation shows that 46% of shoppers say they are waiting for the best deals to finish their shopping. 23% of people are spreading their budgets out. Managing that budget is key when total back-to-school spending is expected to reach a record 43.3 billion dollars this year. So we're going to bring back in Selene Pastore from Simple Path Retirement to share some practical strategies to kind of keep your spending in check. Selene, thanks for sticking around for a second round of questions. One of the top tips is to make a list before you go back to school shopping. Obviously teachers send the kids and parents out with these, but why is following that list, that simple step, why is that so critical for families looking to save? Well first of all it's going to help you to stay on budget, but I also think about like going to the grocery store when you're hungry. You're going to buy things that you don't need and remember the retailers they want to maximize on this opportunity. They know you're out there and they're going to try to get you to spend money that's not on your budget. We're in the middle of the Florida back-to-school sales tax holiday. Do you find that retailers jump up the prices to sort of combat the to get people maybe spend more? Well I don't know if they can necessarily jump up the prices, but they're definitely coming up with marketing strategies, repositioning things at the counter that they know that your child is going to want but maybe doesn't need. It's really enticing sometimes. You also emphasize the need to stay on budget. Celine, with clothing averaging $250 and shoes averaging $174 per K-12 family, how do parents actually stick to a realistic number? So I would say first go back and make sure that you understand exactly what you do need and of course kids are going to want to have the best and the designers and fit in and all that that's important. So figure out what that budget is of what you will allow them to kind of treat themselves on and then stay within the budget on the basics. I want to come back to that because that brings me to another really good point. Your next tip is to start early. We saw that 54% of the consumers shopped major June sales events like Prime Day specifically for back-to-school purchases. Is it too late in the year in the summer to find those kind of early bird deals? No, I don't think so. I think that a lot of retailers are maximizing. They want you to come to their store. So I would say if you can find a sale, that's even more powerful than the sales tax reduction. One thing I neglected to mention last hour was when you've got these back-to-school sales tax holidays, if you are a college student, a parent of a college student, they have like an EDU email. Say they go to the Mac store or whatever, they can use that EDU email address, that college email address to get more savings. That's absolutely correct. Okay, you recommend that families be resourceful. How can parents navigate that tricky conversation? This is what we were talking about a second ago. Focusing on needs before wants when kids are asking for like an expensive specific brand. I would say make sure that you know exactly what you can afford to spend. Take the basics and kind of tear off some of that list for those and then give them some extra that they can spend. This way they can choose do they want to take that extra $50 and spend it on the backpack or would they prefer to spend it on a designer pair of sneakers? I love that. We can cut here so that we can add there. Exactly. Last question, once the Florida sales tax holiday wraps up on August 20th, what are some of your favorite ways to kind of stretch those dollars for the rest of the school year? Because we know we're going to go back to the store. Yes, well first of all you can stretch out obviously your spending because you don't need to run out and get everything right now. Some things can wait a little bit longer, but one tip that I really love is a lot of times credit cards will have rewards that you can get gift cards. Oh nice. Okay, take advantage of those gift cards and then use those to go back and purchase additional items. That is really really smart and we also know that those school projects pop up at the last minute. Parents love that question. Nine o'clock at night, I have a project due tomorrow, got to go to the store. Where do we find you Celine for people who don't know? SimplePathRetirement.com. Celine Pastore with Simple Path Retirement. We are back with more Good Day after the break. Thank you Celine. Thank you.