Kids

School Hacks: Back-to-School Budgeting For The SY 2025-2026

by Kevyn Gohu
June 23, 2025

As the school year begins, here are some back-to-school budgeting hacks to make expenses in school a lot easier to manage

Education is an investment we’re all okay with. It’s the smaller transactions hidden beneath it that we’re not too fond of. These little purchases include some books that weren’t included in the course outline, food from the canteen to supplement the baon we send with them, medicines when they get sick because they picked up the school bug, and more! So, here are some back-to-school budgeting hacks to make those out-of-nowhere purchases a little less annoying to deal with:

Photocopy or download the PDFs of the books

Books are heavy, and they can be a tad annoying to bring around. Most college students — what they do is they either photocopy only the required pages or download the PDF of the book. Even if the textbook is an older version, the text rarely has major differences and changes. The only thing that may be problematic is the page numbering, but that’s not important for the tests anyway.

Borrow a senior’s notes

There are two kinds of students: those who just listen and memorize, and those who meticulously take down notes in technicolor. The first one is fun to have as a tutor, but the other is the one who has all the tea. They don’t just copy things on the board; they also get some of the anecdotes and analogies that the teacher has said. Sometimes, they even have their own analogies that make the lesson easier to understand!

The best part is, these don’t cost money unless we’re planning to photocopy them, of course!

For food: 60-40 in terms of protein and fiber, and carbs

We give our kids a lot of rice for baon because we know it’s an energy food from the classic “Go, Grow, Glow” food pyramid. But when classes last for eight hours, carbs burn fast, and the kids get hungry and tired. Here’s a little trick from someone who would make her own lunches in college: divide the meal into two parts — 60% and 40%. 60% will be protein and fiber, which can easily be solved with some steamed veggies (e.g. bok choy, taiwan pechay, etc.) in the rice cooker and canned meat. 40% can be rice.

But every kid has a different metabolism. Some kids are hungrier than others, especially if they’re athletes. And if that’s the case, always have a meal in the car. Nobody wants to deal with a hangry kid who’s had a long day at school.

Stick to a weekly allowance

Peer pressure to go to coffee shops or hang out in restaurants will always be there, which is where most of the expenses go. Our kids will see us as a bit of a killjoy, but giving them a weekly allowance to help them cover sudden expenses and food will make them more aware of how much they spend. And unless there’s a school memo, we’re not paying for that sudden expense. They need to learn early on that money doesn’t grow on trees.

Check if the school offers remedial classes or tutorials

Some schools do offer after-school classes, especially for subjects like Math and Filipino, due to how many kids actually struggle with said subjects. While it’s okay to find a third-party tutor (especially if our kids already like the tutor), it helps to check because at least the school has the exact material that the students need to study for.

Some expenses are really unavoidable

As a ten-month affair, school will always have some sudden expenses. While we can’t dodge all the expenses, we can at least minimize them so we can reallocate the money into other things like therapy, medicines, and the like that help our kids cope better in traditional school setups. Besides, involving our kids in applying these back-to-school budgeting hacks also serves as a foundation for how they’ll manage their own money as they grow older. They’ll learn the difference between investing and just plain spending.