{"id":267871,"date":"2026-02-04T21:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T21:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267871\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T21:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T21:50:08","slug":"everyday-living-is-just-so-hard-families-going-into-debt-to-pay-for-school-uniforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267871\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everyday living is just so hard\u2019: Families going into debt to pay for school uniforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Her grandchildren wore blazers, shirts and ties as part of their school uniform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s around $700 for one child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otago University research showed secondary school uniforms could cost anywhere from $250 to about $1000.<\/p>\n

Charities and politicians are calling on school boards to keep the price of uniforms in check.<\/p>\n

Last year, more than 38,000 hardship payments were granted to help parents with school expenses, including uniforms<\/a>, totalling $11 million.<\/p>\n

Marks said it was hard to keep up \u2013 she needed a grant from Work and Income (Winz)<\/a> to pay off debt owed to the children\u2019s previous school.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year I ended up, with the school trips, the uniforms and everything for the whole year, I ended up still owing the school around $500 at the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debt parents and guardians owe schools was unknown \u2013 both the Ministry of Education and School Boards Association<\/a> said they did not keep such data.<\/p>\n

Marks receives an invalid\u2019s benefit and two unsupported child benefits which, after household expenses, left $160 a week for food.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryday living is just so hard and my grandson is coming up 15 in April, I mean, he eats like a horse so it\u2019s just constant in the cupboard. He can have dinner then he\u2019s back in the cupboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TrophiesTrophies at Marks’ home. Photo \/ RNZ, Marika Khabazi<\/p>\n

Her granddaughter was at high school and said her Nan did an amazing job providing for them.<\/p>\n

She also worried about the cost of school uniforms.<\/p>\n

She did not have the exact uniform required for Monday \u2013 and did not end up going to school.<\/p>\n

Variety sponsors Marks\u2019 two grandchildren and chief executive Susan Glasgow said moving to a new area could put huge pressure on families.<\/p>\n

The charity recently helped a father to pay for his children\u2019s third school uniform after he moved the family out of transitional housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were moved to a third transitional house, they were moved to a third school requiring yet another uniform and they couldn\u2019t borrow any more money from Winz so they came to us,\u201d Glasgow said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in tears at our door asking for our help so we provided the funding for him to get a school uniform for his children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VarietyVariety chief executive Susan Glasgow. Photo \/ RNZ, Marika Khabazi<\/p>\n

She said some families were forced to move if they were in temporary housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the reality of the situation, families are being moved so they require more than one school uniform. It\u2019s really hard for many members of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, Variety had recorded a 16% increase in requests for help to pay for school uniforms and fees.<\/p>\n

Glasgow said it would help if schools allowed generic school uniform basics to be bought anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that schools might consider is this notion that they have in Britain of the uniform uniform, where a family or a child is only expected to have a maximum of three branded items.\u201d<\/p>\n

Variety sponsored more than 7000 children and there were 3000 on its waitlist.<\/p>\n

\"FionaFiona Marks. Photo \/ RNZ, Marika Khabazi<\/p>\n

Now in her 60s, Marks had looked after grandchildren off and on since she was in her 40s and has had custody of two for over a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am enjoing life with my grandchildren but I should be able to be sitting in my home just relaxing, doing what I want to do without responsibilities of grandchildren, but I wouldn\u2019t give them up for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, she would like the Government to do more to support grandparents looking after their mokopuna.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Her grandchildren wore blazers, shirts and ties as part of their school uniform. \u201cIt\u2019s around $700 for one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5399,45062,5988,2082,22220,6098,296,185,5511,4188,111,43,139,69,2744,4062,17509,61,152351,13971],"class_list":["post-267871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-debt","tag-everyday","tag-families","tag-for","tag-going","tag-hard","tag-into","tag-is","tag-just","tag-living","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pay","tag-school","tag-so","tag-to","tag-uniforms","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}