It’s less than a month before the start of the 2026-2027 school year in New York City and families are sussing out last year’s usable clothes and supplies, spying on sales and spending their hard earned cash on back to school supplies and styles before the first bell of the fall semester.

Parents said they’ve saved up for months and carefully planned to visit shopping spots with great deals to keep their back to school shopping affordable and convenient.

Back to school shopping is expected to reach record highs this year. Families with K-12 students are expected to spend more than $850 dollars on average outfitting their little learners to head back to class, according to the National Retail Federation. With affordability at the center of city politics, New York City parents told amNewYork that planning to save money is baked into the back to school hustle.

Mother-of-two, Sha-Neen Lewis was shopping Tuesday with her two children in preparation to send her 11-year old son to high school and her three-year-old son to pre-K in September. Lewis told amNewYork that she expected to spend around $1,000 between her two children with clothing and school supplies.

“ Whatever money I make during the summer, I save for back to school,” Lewis said.

When asked if the family reused many of the clothes they bought the prior year, Lewis said that it wasn’t a matter of the clothes being old or out of style, they just didn’t fit anymore.

 ”They grow so quick,” she said. “Boys grow so quick.”

As for affordability, Lewis said she might prefer if her sons went to a school with uniforms, which she said would save her more money.

But mother-of-two, Jennifer, who declined to give her last name, also said that she anticipated spending around $500 dollars each for her two children, totalling around $1,000 on school supplies, despite them wearing uniforms to school. Still Jennifer said that she liked school uniforms for her children because it minimized any time wasted on decision making in the morning.

“ I prefer the uniform [rather] than getting up every morning looking for an outfit to put on them,” Jennifer said.

Jennifer, whose son will begin kindergarten and daughter will begin seventh grade in the fall, told amNewYork that she’s spending around the same amount this year as last year. She’s shopping smart, and spending her money in places where she feels it will have the greatest value.

Gehanne Toure, a Brooklyn mom, was shopping with her 10 year old daughter in Brooklyn Tuesday. She was picking out some dresses and skirts in the class uniform for her daughter to try for the upcoming year in her fifth grade class.

“ She’s a growing girl, and she wants to try a little bit more of the dresses and skirts this season,” Toure said. 

Initially, Toure said that she wasn’t a fan of uniforms in her daughter’s school, but eventually she said she came around.

“Now that I need to get out the door and I have another child, it’s a lot easier for us to have the uniforms lined up, and we don’t have to worry about missing pieces of clothing,” she said. “It just makes it a little bit easier to get out the door in the mornings when you’re rushing out the door.”

Toure told amNewYork that she’d started doing her back to school shopping in person rather than on websites and had found it to be cheaper.

 ”Actually, before, I was trying to do shopping online, but now that I’m in the store, I’m starting to see a little bit better prices than what I was seeing online, and I can feel the garments, which is better for me,” Toure said.