How to Determine Your Child's Yearly School Budget

There are many expenses associated with sending your child to school each year, including school supplies, school clothes or uniforms, and school lunches. If you come up with a budget for your child's school expenses, you will be able to plan ahead for the costs that will occur during the school year. This article will show you how to determine your child's yearly school budget.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• List of required school supplies

1. Figure out where your child will attend school for the upcoming year. This will help you determine many of the costs related to the child's schooling throughout the year.

2. Contact the school to ask about the costs for the next school year. You may wish to speak directly to the child's teacher. You can find out the required supply list, as well as other potential expenses such as field trips and school activity cards.

3. Determine what other school supplies the child will need that are not on the required school list. For instance, your child may like to write with mechanical pencils or prefer gel ink pens to standard ballpoint pens.

4. Figure out the daily cost of school lunches. If the child is going to pack her lunch, figure out an average figure of what this will cost you each day. Multiply this times the number of days of school in the year.

5. Determine the cost of replenishing school supplies throughout the school year. For example, you may need to buy more lined paper and pencils once every month, at a cost of $10 each time. You can use previous school years for an estimate of how often you will need to replenish. Or, if you have an older child, recall how often that child needed supplies replenished and the approximate associated costs.

6. Find out the costs for any before- and after-school child care if necessary.

7. Decide how much you will spend on school clothes. You may decide you will buy clothes for the child once in the fall and once again in the spring. Decide how much will be spent each time if this is the case. It may be helpful to visit the stores and find out average clothing costs before determining a budget, so you don't grossly under- or overestimate the amounts to be spent.

8. Figure out any other costs for your child for the school year. For example, if your child plays an instrument, you may have costs of buying or renting the instrument. If your child plays baseball, you may need to purchase cleats and a baseball mitt.

9. Determine any costs unique to your child, such as the costs of tutoring a child with special needs.

10. Make a list of all the items and the costs associated with each one and then add up the amounts. This will give you your child's yearly school budget.

Tips & Warnings

• Some schools post the school supply list that will be required for students for the upcoming school year online or in the newspaper a few weeks before school starts.
• The key to successful budgeting is to stick to the budget and not go over your means.
• You may never be able to anticipate every cost your child will have during the year for school. Consider having a line on the budget for unknown costs, with an estimated guess of how much these costs might be.