Parents crowd Mexico City’s Mesones Street for school supplies before classes resume

Mesones Street in Mexico City’s Historic Center filled with parents rushing to complete their school shopping one day before classes resumed. Families searched for notebooks, pens, uniforms, backpacks and other supplies with budgets generally ranging from 1,500 to 2,000 pesos.

Vendors said the season had been slow, but crowds increased sharply on Saturday and Sunday. One seller said daily sales of paper rolls averaged 65 this year, compared with as many as 100 in previous seasons. Weekend sales rose to roughly 80 rolls a day.

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The season was a little slow, but between yesterday and today people gathered, almost like they did a few years ago.

Shoppers came from outside the capital as well. Yuli traveled from Toluca with a list from her sister’s school and a budget of slightly more than 1,000 pesos. She planned to stay within that amount but said she might spend more if the list required additional items.

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I have a budget of a little more than 1,000 pesos and hope not to exceed it, although if something is missing, I will have to buy it.

Jaqueline came with her sister and grandmother and set a 2,000-peso budget. She said Mesones offered better prices than large stationery stores and supermarkets, citing pencils that cost about 40 pesos there compared with around 100 pesos elsewhere. Joaquina traveled from Puebla to buy supplies for her daughter, including notebooks, erasers, pencils, colored pencils, a sharpener, paper, stickers and a pencil case.

The shoppers said they chose the area because they could find a broad selection in one place at lower prices. For families completing school lists at the last minute, the weekend crowds were part of the trade-off for those savings.

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For example, pencils cost about 100 pesos in the big stores, and here they are about 40, more than twice as cheap.