A recent study shows parents may spend, on average, $661 for back-to-school supplies this year, up 8% from last year.
Right now, Florida is in the midst of its two-week tax-free shopping holiday. Many of the items your kids will need this year won't be taxed, which will save you a few bucks.
Florida's 2022 Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday: Everything you need to know
We reached out to an expert at NerdWallet to find the best ways to save more on your purchases.
"Leveraging sales tax holidays is a really great way to stretch your budget. And you can actually stack all of these strategies on top of each other to get even bigger savings," Kimberly Palmer, Personal Finance Expert at NerdWallet, said.
"So shopping the sales, applying coupon codes, making sure you're using all available promotions, that can really help you add up the savings because that way, say you're getting the sales tax holiday, you're also using coupons. It adds up quickly."
Pair that with the best time to shop for these supplies, and you're likely to save some cash.
"Well, the most important thing with back-to-school shopping is really timing, we will see a lot of discounts starting, especially in August. So basically, you want to get your list of items that you need from your school district or from your teacher. And then you can start planning. You don't want to buy everything that you see when you go to the store. It's really tempting to make a lot of unnecessary purchases," Palmer said.
"Making a list is the first step, and then start tracking prices of the items on your list. It's really hard right now because of inflation to know when you're actually getting a good deal or not, even if sales are being advertised. So you want to track prices, you don't have to do it manually; there are a lot of tools that can help you do that. The Honey browser extension, for example, or the Amazon assistant browser extension, you want to pick a browser extension that is working for you to help you find those really good deals," continued Palmer.
Honey, Capital One, Amazon Assistant and Rakuten are all reputable extensions or apps that can help save you some cash this year, especially if you plan on shopping online.