With students heading back to school in the coming weeks parents are looking at the costs of new school supplies and how that will affect their wallet.
Inflation has caused a number of items to rise in price over the last few years with school supplies also being affected.
Paul Martin, a business commentator, says that back-to-school costs may not be much higher than most other inflationary prices.
"I don't think inflation hits back to school supplies any harder than anything else, but it's just the timing. Inflation is taking a pinch out of everybody's budget right across the piece, whether that's groceries or clothing or travel, all of that sort of stuff."
Martin says the one big problem with school supply spending is so much money going into supplies all at once.
"You use supplies for the whole year, it would be nice to be able to spread it out and make it a monthly payment, but it comes as one big hit at the end of the summer and after the summer we've had summer holidays and probably some childcare expenses and that kind of stuff because of the unusual summer schedule, and then you add this last one on top of it so it pinches the pennies and pinches the budget a little bit harder."
Martin says that as a whole inflation is easing
"It's going down actually and inflation in Saskatchewan is the lowest in the country. We just had the July numbers come out actually and Saskatchewan came out lower than any other province in the country. So while you do feel an inflationary pinch, the fact is we're better off than everybody else in the rest of the country."
"So small consolation, because it is still going up. But what we're seeing now is while prices are increasing, the rate of increase is slowing and we're now down into what they would consider to be the target range by the Bank of Canada. So we've almost got inflation tamed now it's back to what would be a more manageable level."
Shrinkflation is also a factor during inflationary periods, where companies charge the same amount of money for products that are smaller.
Martin feels that school supplies are one area that won't be impacted.
"Shrinkflation is a reality, you probably don't see it on school supplies. They don't sell you 16 crayons and only put fourteen in the box. It's more about packaging sizes. Tends to be more on the food side that when you buy potato chips or something it used to be a 380 gram bag, now 320 grams or something like that, but the price hasn't changed."