Summer winds down, shopping ramps up

LYNN – Adrian Garcia Ramirez will be a Ford School first-grader next month, and his mother can barely keep up with him when it comes to buying school supplies.”He’s tall for his age, and he had a huge growth spurt,” Cindy Morales Ramirez said Thursday as she shopped for deals at Pennyworth’s on Boston Street.The Lynn mother is budgeting $100 to $150 to pay for her 7-year-old’s school clothes, and she shops by starting with the essentials and then branching out. Adrian needs pants, shirts, a good cold weather jacket and sturdy shoes. A couple of sweaters would be a nice addition, Ramirez said.With Adrian dodging around clothes racks and ducking under them, Ramirez browsed through Pennyworth’s selections, zeroing in on a North Face coat for her son to try on.Store manager Barry Galer said the store’s three-week long August “tent sale” features sales on sneakers and boots and many other deals. Pennyworth’s sells brand clothing including Nike, North Face, Ugg, Timberland, Under Armour and Patagonia.”It’s extremely busy. It’s a great time of year to buy name brands,” Galer said.Ramirez grew up in East Boston and loved shopping for school. Her son did not need much in the way of clothing and school supplies when he attended kindergarten last year on Commercial Street, but first grade means an upgrade in school supplies, starting with a new backpack.Adrian sported a Ninja Turtles pack last year and this year picked out an “Olaf” pack in homage to the movie “Frozen.”The Associated Press quoted research firm The Retail Economist in stating that back-to-school spending this year should hit $42.5 billion, up 2.1 percent from the previous year. That’s much lower than the 5 to 6 percent average gains typically seen in a healthy economy.Families with school-age kids, on average, are expected to spend $630.36 this year, according to a survey of 6,500 by the National Retail Federation. That’s down 6 percent from last year and results have registered declines for four out of the past seven years.Ramirez won’t know how much she will spend on school supplies until she goes to Walmart and checks school supply lists posted in the store. A notebook and binder will be her first purchase for Adrian.”I’m going to start him on getting more organized,” she said.Today’s kids recycle more clothes from the previous school year, mixing and matching the old with the new for different looks, according to the Associated Press. They also shop year-round for things they need, so they’re spending less money this time of year.When they do buy, they’re less likely to get anything that’s not on sale. And the number of kids who’ll reuse last year’s items rose to 39 percent from 26 percent between 2011 and 2015, said a Deloitte LLP poll of 1,000 parents.