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Grandmother and pensioner Raeleen Csallo cares for three of her grandchildren and says every cent counts — especially at the start of a school year.
Key points:
- A Toowoomba mum says buying second-hand uniforms can help to keep costs down
- A health coach says nutritious lunches can be cheaper than less healthy ones
- Parents are advised to plan before they shop and search for in-season produce
"It's getting really overwhelming — I've already put five children of my own through school and it's dearer now," she said.
"It's about $400 for a uniform.
"You'd think it's a private school, but it's not — it's a state school."
Ms Csallo was one of 10,000 families that relied on assistance from the Smith Family with return-to-school costs.
She said she also manages to save on lunch box costs by shopping around and going to farmers' markets on Sundays for fresh produce.
In a survey, nine out of 10 families told the organisation they were worried about the cost of kitting their children out for school this year.
Smith Family Queensland general manager Alan Le May said the research was "very, very clear" that not having essential equipment isolated children socially.
"Those families or students don't feel like they fit in because they don't have all the things that their better off peers have," he said.
"They don't do as well at school."
What can parents do?
Toowoomba mother Leeanne Andrews started a buy, swap and sell page on social media to help parents save money after she saw sky-high prices for school uniforms in her region.
"We don't always need brand new stuff and it also helps offload unwanted uniforms," she said.
"I always recommend looking for second-hand before we look new, because I would easily pay out anywhere from $200 to $500 a year in uniforms."
Ms Andrews said there had been "a lot of movement" on the page this year.
"It's more targeted, this year, of people looking for where they can save money … putting in requests for uniforms versus just looking at what's already on there."
For those looking to save on groceries for lunch boxes, Toowoomba health coach Victoria Byrne said savvy shopping and meal preparation could provide substantial savings.
"We do the three Ps — planning, preparation and packing — so writing out a shopping list and making sure you are not picking extra stuff and buying things you don't need."
She said purchasing in-season products helped.
"Shopping around, look at the big supermarket catalogues and going to see what cheaper fruit and vegetables you can rotate in the lunch box," she said.
"Tomatoes come down at the moment so I got a punnet of cherry tomatoes for 99 cents, watermelon is $10 a kilo, so shop seasonally for that."
She said cheaper lunches did not need to be unhealthy .
"I did a survey of the average lunch box over 50 schools in our local area and the average lunch box has 12.2 additives, 1.2 pieces of fruit and 5.2 teaspoons of sugar," she said.
Ms Byrne said the average cost of those lunches was $3.25.
"I did a price comparison for something full of seasonal fruit, and making your own bliss balls and homemade sausage rolls … it came to less than $3," she said.
"So it's actually cheaper to do a healthy lunch box than one with packets off the shelf."