A mum-of-six has lifted the lid on the high cost of school uniforms - saying she's had to cut back on buying food to pay for clothes.
Chloe Adomaitis, 27, has already spent around £200 on clothes for her children to wear to school, but faces even more expense with four of them set to move to secondary school in the next two years.
The frustrated parent, from Grimsby, told Grimsby Live that she's had to cut back on other essentials after having to break the bank.
She said: "It affects everything, holidays, buying healthy food. It is so expensive but I do the best I can for my kids."
Chloe's plight comes amid growing concern about the financial burden of sending children to school with the right uniform.
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According to a national study by the Department for Education, parents spend an average of £230 on uniform per child – excluding PE kits, which are often branded with school logos.
These can add up to £70 onto a parent's uniform bill at primary school age, and a whopping £140 for secondary school kits.
While slightly cheaper for primary school uniforms, the average spend is still well over £210 per pupil.
With secondary schools often requiring branded clothing that can only be purchased through select providers and not cheaper supermarket chains, the cost is putting a strain on families in the region.
The prices have left a severe stress on Chloe’s finances with her having to buy so much over the summer.
“I’ve got six of them so it’s not the easiest thing when you have one but when you have six it’s a lot more difficult,” she said.
“We’ve got two going into secondary and they have to have the emblems. It’s going to be a nightmare when we have four kids going into secondary school together in the space of two years. It’s going to absolutely break the bank.
“When you have to buy the ones that are labelled when they get to secondary school and they have to be exactly right, you can’t have certain shoes and the blazers run out so quickly, that’s tough.
“When you have six of them one might break a pair of shoes or another might come in with felt tip on one shirt and the next day their shirt is dirty.
“You end up meeting yourself coming backwards and robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Chloe says that with the expense of having to buy a number of uniforms to get her kids through a week, let alone a term, she has to make tough sacrifices on a daily basis. That can often mean skipping healthy meals just to get by.
“You’re looking at least £200-£300 worth of school gear and that’s one or two pairs each. You have to plan it out and make sure you don’t spend it all in one go,” she added.
“You have to look in all the shops for the bargains and who has got the longest-lasting shirt.
“When it comes to things like holidays they’ll be few and far between. It affects what you cook for food so you cut back accordingly.
“It could be that they can’t have whatever they’d ask for that they normally would. You can’t buy your expensive meats, you can’t buy fruit because it’s too expensive, you can’t buy the healthy stuff. It’s ridiculous.”
While primary schools are often more lenient when it comes to branded uniform – at least 10 in North East Lincolnshire say wearing such clothing isn’t compulsory – it can still be a huge financial burden for families.
A single mum from Grimsby says if she didn’t scrimp and save earlier in the year then she would be in a whole spot of bother come the summer holidays.
“I think overall I’ve probably spent around £200 but then I’ve got two pairs of shoes and three coats to get, so that’s easily an extra £100,” she said.
“I would definitely be struggling if Aldi and Lidl hadn’t put their uniform on sale. It would probably have cost me another £200 on top otherwise. That’s not a joke.
“We’ve never had a holiday abroad, we’ve never been out the country. I know there’s so much more I need to pay for because I’m on my own and it’s even worse.”
