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Kristin Diehl walked into Target on a Sunday in early July and stopped in her tracks: colored pencils, binders, and backpacks, stacked and ready, while school had barely been out a few weeks. She is not alone in her surprise. Target, Walmart, Amazon, and other big retailers rolled out back-to-school displays in June this year, and families are shopping earlier than ever. The reason has less to do with excitement for fall and more to do with something a lot of parents feel right now: money anxiety.
Why Shopping Started So Early This Year
By early July, a record 67 percent of back-to-school shoppers had already started buying, according to the National Retail Federation, an increase of 55 percent over the year before and the highest figure the group has tracked from the year it started measuring in 2018. Families expect to spend an average of 922 dollars on school supplies this year, according to PwC. Retailers first pushed early back-to-school sales in pandemic-era supply chain problems, when shoppers seemed happy to buy ahead. That habit never fully went away, and it locked in for good once tariffs entered the mix. Analysts say the tariff-driven price increases of the past couple years trained shoppers to buy early to beat the next price jump, and now one seasonal sale simply blends into the next: Halloween before Labor Day, Christmas before Thanksgiving, and now school supplies before summer is even half over.
Kristina Durante, a marketing professor at Rutgers University, points to inflation, which is running at its highest level in three years, as the real driver behind the early rush. Parents cannot control prices, but they can control when they buy, and that sense of control counts for a lot when everything else feels uncertain. Brittany Steiger, a retail analyst at Mintel, describes it as an always-on shopping mentality: there is always another event to prepare for, and always a reason to buy now rather than wait.
How This Compares to Past Years
Back-to-school shopping used to follow a predictable rhythm: a few sales in late July, a bigger push over the first two weeks of August, and a final scramble the weekend before classes started. That rhythm started breaking down in the pandemic, when broken supply chains meant popular items sold out weeks ahead of schedule and shoppers learned to buy early or risk missing out entirely. Retailers noticed and adjusted their own calendars to match, moving displays and promotions earlier each year after that. What began as a supply chain workaround has become the new normal, and 2026 is the earliest start yet on record.
What Experts Say Is Really Going On
Durante’s research on stress and spending found that people respond to financial anxiety in two very different ways. Some lock in tightly, sticking to a strict budget or even holding back spending altogether. Others go the opposite direction, making impulse purchases on things that feel like they offer some sense of control, like new clothes or extra supplies, even when a tight budget would say otherwise. Durante points out that the part of the brain driving stress-shopping is closely related to the part that drives stress-eating: both offer a quick hit of control when everything else feels unmanageable.
For K-12 families specifically, the anxiety runs deeper than money alone. Recent industry surveys found that 88 percent of K-12 parents say health considerations weigh more heavily on their back-to-school buying than in past years, and half now prioritize healthier products over affordability when picking out supplies and lunch gear. That is a notable shift from a decade ago, when back-to-school shopping was mostly about price and basic function.
What This Means for Your Family’s Budget
A few practical moves help families buy early without overspending:
- Make a list before you shop, room by room and subject by subject, so early sales do not turn into impulse buys of things your child already has.
- Track prices across two or three retailers before committing. Early sales are real, but so are later ones, and the same backpack can drop further by August.
- Reuse what still works. A backpack or lunch box from last year in decent shape saves real money, and most kids do not mind reusing gear that still looks good.
- Set a total budget before you start, not after. Durante’s research suggests that having a number in mind ahead of time helps prevent the stress-driven impulse purchases that blow past what a family actually planned to spend.
- If early shopping is actually helping you feel more in control and stay on budget, there is nothing wrong with buying ahead. The problem is not early shopping itself. It is spending driven by anxiety rather than a plan.
Talking to Kids About Back-to-School Spending
Older kids and teens pick up on financial stress even when parents try to hide it, and back-to-school shopping is often the first place that stress becomes visible to a child. A short, honest conversation about the family budget, without turning it into a heavy talk, helps kids understand why this year’s list might look a little different from last year’s. Letting a child pick between two options within a set budget, rather than an open-ended wish list, gives them a sense of input without opening the door to overspending. For younger kids, a simple rule like “one new backpack, everything else we already own or find on sale” keeps expectations realistic without making the whole conversation about money.
The Bigger Pattern Behind the Early Sales
What is happening with school supplies mirrors a wider shift already visible with holiday shopping, where Christmas promotions now show up before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving sales start before Halloween candy is off the shelves. Retailers keep pushing earlier, and it works. Shoppers keep responding, as uncertainty about prices and the economy makes buying now feel safer than waiting. For many parents, seeing backpacks in July is less about being ready for fall and more about a quiet, ongoing effort to stay one step ahead of costs that keep climbing. Recognizing that pattern, rather than getting swept along with the display at the front of the store, is often the difference between an early sale that saves money and one that just moves the spending up on the calendar.
Do Not Overlook Tax-Free Weekends
Most states with a sales tax offer at least one back-to-school tax holiday, usually a weekend in late July or early August, when clothing, school supplies, and sometimes computers are exempt from state sales tax up to a set dollar amount. These holidays typically run after the earliest round of retailer sales, so a family that split its shopping, buying supplies early and saving clothing purchases for the tax-free weekend, can capture both the early-sale discount and the tax savings in the same season. Check your state revenue department’s website in July for the exact dates and the list of eligible items. Rules on what qualifies vary quite a bit by state.
A Simple Way to Decide If Early Shopping Makes Sense for You
Not every family needs to shop in July, and not every family should wait until August either. A useful test: pull up last year’s back-to-school receipts if you kept them, or estimate roughly what you spent. Compare that number to what a similar list costs right now at your usual store. If prices are already climbing on items you know you will need, buying now locks in savings. If prices look about the same as last year, there is no real cost to waiting, aside from peace of mind for parents who would rather have the list checked off early.
Families juggling multiple kids at different schools often find a hybrid approach works best: buy the basics that will not change, like notebooks, pencils, and folders, early while they are cheap and plentiful, and hold off on clothing and shoes until closer to the start of the school year. Kids can grow noticeably over the summer, and an early purchase might not fit by August. That approach captures the savings from early sales without locking in sizes or styles too soon.
It also helps to loop in kids old enough to have preferences, asking what they actually need rather than guessing based on last year’s list. A quick inventory check, going through backpacks, pencil cases, and desk drawers before shopping, often turns up more usable supplies than parents expect, cutting the real shopping list down by a third or more before a single purchase gets made.