Preparations for the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year are in the last hundreds, and parents are making efforts to provide children with the minimum conditions for starting school. According to a survey conducted by CEC Bank in partnership with the comparator bank FinZoom.ro, Romanians spent an average of 540 lei per child on school preparation.

According to the data obtained during the survey, the majority of respondents (33.23%) allocated budgets from 300 to 500 lei, 31.2% allocated from 500 to 1000 lei, and, on the contrary, only 8.11% stated that they allocated more 1000 lei.

When asked whether the school procurement budget would increase or decrease, 47.74% of respondents said the budget would increase by about 30%, and only 12.17% said it would be the same as last year.

The current month’s salary is the main source of financing for 47.1% of Romanians. Only 24.5% collect money in advance, and more than 11% will buy what they need to start school on credit (from friends/credit card). Meditations are another important category of expenses. 1 out of 3 Romanians state that they use this system, and most often they use meditations on mathematics (42.2%) and the Romanian language (28.05%).

The main types of expenses are expenses with supplies. Most respondents allocate 300 to 500 lei for supplies. In second place – clothes and shoes – 34.82% of the allocated budget, in second place – textbooks and special notebooks (21.79%).

Only 1 in 3 parents will send their children to school with new clothes and shoes. And 1 out of 2 children will not have a new portfolio at the beginning of the school year. At the opposite pole, only 3.6% of children buy several new school bags during the year, seeing them as a fashion accessory.

Shopping centers and supermarkets are still the best places for shopping – they were named by 43.1% of Romanians, followed by specialty stores (22%) and bookstores (21%). Only 14% of respondents prefer the online option for school shopping.

Almost all respondents say their children use technology at school. In this sense, screens become indispensable in the educational process. Romanians say that smartphones are in first place (34.67%), followed by tablets (29.7%), laptops (25.5%) and only 10% – desktop computers, which, as a rule, become a very little used tool.

Until September 30, CTC Bank is running a promotion that encourages payment by card: customers who buy school supplies and pay for them with VISA cards are automatically entered into a drawing and can win various prizes: tablets, iPad Pro or Dalles courses.

The survey on preparation for the beginning of the academic year was conducted by the online financial comparator FinZoom on behalf of CEC Bank with a representative sample of almost 1,100 respondents from all over the country, representing Internet users. 61.8% of respondents are employees, 32.21% are 25-40 years old, 35.86% have a higher education.