Every year, back to school is synonymous with expenses, especially for children’s clothes. But it’s a ritual for most parents, who flock to the shops just before D-Day, like at the Atlantis shopping center in Saint-Herblain.
The back-to-school shopping ritual
In the car, Valérie places a shopping bag filled with clothes. Her son Iyed, 4, proudly shows off his new shoes. “I have shoes to score goals!”, exclaims the little boy. Having pretty clothes for the start of the school year is important for Louise, who is going to CM1 and has already chosen her outfit : “If the weather is nice I’ll wear shorts, if not, trousers with a belt and a long-sleeved t-shirt”.
Laura is mother of two young childrenAnna and Gabriel, she is attached to the ritual of back-to-school races: “Having a new outfit for the start of the school year, I find it nice and it’s a pleasant moment with the children, to make them want to go back to school”.
For Claire, it is rather an opportunity to please her two children, Sarah and Antoine. “They care about it, they don’t buy just anything. I pay attention to the price, they to the clothes more than anything else”, smiled the mother of the family.
Minimize the cost
Of course, back-to-school races have a cost. Claire spent nearly 100 euros for her two children. So to avoid seeing expenses soar, you have to aim for the cheapest brands and sometimes make concessions. “Already, we are sorting out what is going well and what is not, what they really need. We are not making a surplus, it is useless”, she explains. According to the association Families of France, this year, the cost of the return to school for a child increased by an average of 4%.