Are hoodies for school leavers a worthwhile purchase?
Depending on the local education system setup kids leave a school two or three times, on average, in the UK. Buying a hoodie each time your child leaves a school, with their year group, is an expense worth questioning.
Declaration of interest: The Leavers Hoodies Company has been providing hoodies to school leavers for many years. Thousands of kids have worn (and many are still wearing) hoodies which we have produced.
It would be fair to say that we have an interest in the ongoing success of the leaver’s hoodie. But that doesn’t mean we can’t look at both sides of the story and leave it up to you to make your own decision.
What is the opportunity cost of getting leavers hoodies when your child finishes at each school?
Well, you can do the maths as easily as we can:
Assuming 3 school leavings where a hoodie may be purchased (this doesn’t take any account of kids who leave part way through a year or simply don’t return to the expected school for the next school year) and let’s say the hoodies cost £50 in total – for all three.
[This working total figure is a little higher than the average cost if you look back to kids who left their Upper School this year (2022), Middle School 3 years before that (2019) and Junior School in 2015. But the number is a nice round figure which everyone can handle and make comparisons to.]
So what might £50 spread over a 7-year period, from the time of leaving primary/junior school, equate to? (We will also compare it to the full 13 years of school education that most British kids go through).
We haven’t tried to do any calculations which take into account inflation or other changes caused by the passing of time. This is a fairly simplistic analysis after all.
| Compare To: | Over 7 Years | Over 13 Years |
|---|---|---|
| Sweets & Treats | At July 2022 Prices | At July 2022 Prices |
| Mars Bar: @£1.25 for 4 x 39.4g bars | 2 Mars Bars per month | 1 Mars Bar per month |
| Magnum 4 Classic Ice Creams: @ £3.25 for 4 | 9 Magnums per year | 5 Magnums per year |
| Skittles Fruit Sweets Fun Size Bags: Multipack 10 x 18g @ £1.50 | 1 fun bag per week | 1 fun bag every 2 weeks |
These numbers show that in order to save for the three hoodies your child would have had to forego very few sweets/treats. They probably wouldn’t even have noticed the ‘hardship’.
We had planned to make comparisons to all sorts of things but starting with the three examples shown above it became obvious very quickly that on an economic measure getting school leaver hoodies isn’t a big deal. Obviously, finding the cash to pay for a £16 hoodie is different from finding the money for a chocolate bar once a month. But, if you don’t have the money you can’t spend it on either thing.
It is about more than just the money!
The value/worth of the hoodies isn’t solely about what you could do with the money if you didn’t buy a hoodie or two.
Previously, we have discussed Why people, the kids especially, love leavers hoodies and also some of the reasons Why Primary School Leavers Hoodies are Important.
We hope that our short analysis of whether the purchase of leavers hoodies is worthwhile has been of use to you.
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