Back-to-School Debt Is Up in 2026: Why Nearly Half of Parents Are Borrowing to Buy What Their Kids Ask For

Last updated: August 2026. This article is for general information and is not a substitute for personalised financial advice from a qualified financial planner. See our Editorial Policy.

Quick answer: A new Intuit Credit Karma survey of 1,032 parents (fielded June 30–July 6, 2026) found that 57% are entering this back-to-school season already carrying credit card debt, and 45% plan to take on more debt to cover this year’s shopping — up sharply from 34% in 2024. Six in 10 parents (60%) say their kids are asking for non-essential items seen trending online, most commonly backpack charms and collectibles (53%), trendy sneakers (50%), and trendy water bottles (39%). How much all this actually costs depends entirely on which survey you read: JLL puts it at $489 per child (up 11.7%), PwC says families expect to spend $922 on average, a report from kids’-media firm SuperAwesome (cited by The Everymom) puts it at $524 per kid, and NerdWallet’s Harris Poll survey found spending is actually down to $611 per shopper. The surveys disagree on the dollar figure because they’re measuring different things — per child versus per family, all parents versus only those who say they’ll shop, May versus June versus July. What they agree on: kids have more direct influence over the cart than before, and more of this year’s spending is being financed with debt rather than covered outright.

Why this is the story this week

Credit Karma published its survey on July 14, 2026, and it’s had unusual staying power for a personal-finance commentary piece — local news affiliates across the country (Atlanta’s WSB-TV, Jacksonville’s WOKV, San Antonio’s KONO, Colorado’s K99.1FM, and dozens of others on the Cox Media Group wire) were still running versions of the story as of late August, timed to land as school start dates hit most of the country. That’s the same news cycle pattern driving this site’s back-to-school coverage on kid anxiety and parent guilt this month — except this time the story isn’t emotional, it’s financial, and the headline number (45% planning new debt, up from 34% two years ago) is a bigger year-over-year jump than anything in the spending totals themselves.

What the new numbers actually say

Per Credit Karma’s survey of 1,032 parents with at least one child under 18:

57% are entering back-to-school season already carrying credit card debt, and 63% expect to add to that existing balance to cover this year’s purchases.
45% plan to take on new debt — credit card, buy now/pay later, or a personal loan — specifically for back-to-school shopping, up from 34% in 2024.
48% have opened, or plan to open, a new credit card or increase an existing credit limit just to cover back-to-school costs.
54% say they’d rather charge something to a credit card than tell their child they can’t have what their classmates have.
19% have no money saved for back-to-school expenses at all this year, and 49% expect to sacrifice essentials like groceries or bills to make room in the budget.
Looking back at last school year, 52% of parents spent more than $250 on additional school-related requests after the year had already started, including 29% who spent over $500.

Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Intuit Credit Karma, put it this way: “Parents are facing difficult tradeoffs this back-to-school season. This year’s findings show many parents are entering the season already carrying debt, and many are willing to take on more to give their kids what they need — or what they feel they need — to start the school year on equal footing with their peers.” She added that setting a realistic budget before shopping starts, prioritizing essentials, and setting expectations early can help families avoid taking on more debt than they can reasonably repay.

So how much is back-to-school actually costing? The surveys don’t agree

This is the part worth sitting with before you panic about a specific dollar figure, because four reputable 2026 surveys land in very different places:

JLL surveyed 1,022 parents in May 2026 and found budgets averaging $489 per child, up 11.7% from $437 last year — a number JLL frames around where parents shop (Walmart’s share jumped to nearly 80%) rather than how they’re paying for it.
PwC surveyed 2,080 adults May 20–22, 2026, and found families expect to spend $922 on average this year, with 61% of parents letting their kids (pre-K through high school) add items directly to online shopping carts and 73% using AI somewhere in the shopping process.
SuperAwesome, a kids’-media research firm, put the number at $524 per kid, up about 15% year-over-year, in a report cited by The Everymom’s back-to-school trends coverage (updated August 10, 2026) — with 46% of kids bringing parents specific products they found online.
NerdWallet’s survey, conducted by The Harris Poll among 582 parents of K-12/college students in early June 2026, is the outlier: it found shoppers plan to spend $611 on average — $130 less than last year — with a quarter of shoppers citing the cost of living as the reason they’re deliberately cutting back.

None of these numbers are wrong — they’re measuring different populations (all parents vs. only self-identified back-to-school shoppers), different units (per child vs. per family vs. per “shopper”), and different months (May through July), so a single “the” back-to-school budget for 2026 doesn’t really exist. What’s consistent across all four is the shape of the story: kids are more directly involved in choosing what lands in the cart than in past years, and — per Credit Karma and NerdWallet both — a meaningful share of parents are financing some of it with debt rather than simply spending more outright. NerdWallet’s own survey found 43% of parents would go into debt for a purchase that helps their child fit in socially, and 45% would do the same for extracurriculars their kids want.

What kids are actually asking for

The specific items parents report their kids requesting line up across sources. Per Credit Karma, the top three are backpack charms, collectibles, and blind-box toys (53%), trend-driven sneakers like Adidas Samba Janes or Puma Speedcats (50%), and trendy water bottles or bottle charms (39%). The Everymom’s 2026 back-to-school trend roundup independently documents the same categories: a “charm craze” on backpacks and lunch boxes (Jellycat plush charms, Labubus), a continuing “water bottle wars” trend (Stanley’s new Flip Straw Tumbler, Owala’s FreeSip line), and a 90s-nostalgia wave among younger elementary kids (JanSport backpacks, screen-free digital cameras, Tamagotchis) alongside heavy Minecraft-branded gear. None of this is manufactured hype for the sake of a listicle — it’s the same handful of categories showing up independently in a financial-behavior survey and a shopping-trends roundup, which is exactly why it’s landing as pressure on family budgets rather than a one-off ask.

A budget conversation that works before the money talk turns into a fight

For parents of preschoolers and early-elementary kids specifically, most of this pressure hasn’t fully arrived yet — younger kids are less exposed to peer and social-media influence than the tweens driving the sneaker and charm trends above — which makes this the easier year to set the pattern. A few things the survey data itself suggests actually help:

Set the number before you shop, not after. In Credit Karma’s survey, 58% of parents set a firm budget before shopping begins; NerdWallet found 36% of shoppers plan to do the same.
Talk about needs versus wants out loud, once, before you’re standing in an aisle. 34% of parents in the Credit Karma survey say back-to-school shopping prompted this exact conversation with their kids — and doing it before the store, rather than mid-meltdown in one, changes the dynamic.
Decide in advance which one “want” item gets a yes. This isn’t in either survey directly, but it follows from both: kids asking for backpack charms or a specific water bottle aren’t usually asking for everything at once. Picking one splurge item ahead of time and holding the line elsewhere avoids relitigating the budget at every aisle.
Budget for the costs that show up after day one. 52% of parents in the Credit Karma survey spent over $250 on requests that came up after the school year started last year — field trips, book fair, spirit-week costumes. Leaving a small buffer in the plan avoids that second round becoming its own debt trigger.
If you use AI shopping tools, know what parents are actually using them for. Per Credit Karma, parents are using AI mostly to find deals (36%) and compare prices (33%) — genuinely useful — rather than to decide what to buy in the first place.

Smart, budget-safe picks instead of chasing every viral item

The three most-requested categories above (charms/collectibles, trend sneakers, trend water bottles) are also, not coincidentally, the three easiest to overspend on by replacing an item that still works. A few lower-cost swaps that hold up for preschool and early-elementary kids: a single well-made insulated water bottle in a color your kid picks (rather than chasing this year’s specific Stanley or Owala drop), a plain durable backpack with room for one add-on charm instead of buying a “themed” backpack that ages out with the trend cycle, and a hard-sided lunch box that survives more than one school year. None of that requires saying no to the idea behind the trend — kids can still have a bag charm or a water bottle they picked — it just means choosing the version that doesn’t need replacing every August.

The bottom line

The headline number that matters most from this year’s back-to-school data isn’t a spending total — it’s that 45% of parents plan to take on new debt for it, up from 34% two years ago, and 57% are starting the season already carrying a balance. The dollar figures you’ll see quoted (anywhere from $489 to $922, depending on the survey) disagree because they’re measuring different things, and that range itself is a useful reminder not to anchor on a single “average family spends X” headline. What’s worth acting on regardless of which number you believe: set a budget before you shop, have the needs-versus-wants conversation with your kid before you’re in the store, and leave room for the requests that show up after the first day of school — because for a lot of families, per Credit Karma’s own numbers, that second round is where the real budget-buster shows up.

Sources

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