Parents, Start Your Back-To-School Shopping In Your Junk Drawer
Parents head out to the same stores every year to load up on the same school supplies, so you'd think after their kid reaches sixth grade or so they'd have enough leftovers laying around the house to negate the need to stock up.
Blogger Julia Scott, AKA Bargain Babe, incorporates the mentality in a super-stingy back to school advice post, recommending parents do all they can to avoid paying the average $549 per annum school supply bill.
Her first two tips:
1. Pare down any school supply list handed out by teachers. Ask what is truly needed and what can wait until you find it on sale.
2. Round up whatever school supplies you have from around the house. Hand me down ruler? You bet.
Scott also advises against going on school clothing bonanzas. Just buy the kid a couple outfits and save the rest of the clothing budget for later in the year. Which I read as "spend it on yourself rather than the kid," which is always the best policy.
Anyone out there have back-to-school savings tips that can top these?
Back to school on a budget [Bargain Babe]
(Photo: frankieleon)
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You can bet my mom used to do all of these. And more. And we used to have uniforms at school, so we only ever had to buy 2 regular and one 'Friday' pair.
My mom would even find used textbooks if she could (and the textbooks were actually cheap, back there). But that was cool though. Saved me the trouble of keeping them in good shape and they often had notes and stuff in there.
My mom buys notebooks, pens, and pencils on sale and in bulk throughout the year. We (well, I'm out of the house, but my brothers aren't) just raid the supply cabinet before we go shopping. And we knew as kids to not muck up our glue and rulers and whatnot, because we were expected to use them for at least two years.
It's not "spend it on yourself", it's "spend it after the kid's winter growth spurt. Last year, my 10 year old grew out of all the clothes I bought him in August by January. I'm replacing shoes with a half size up every 3-4 months.
Doing big August school shopping only works if your child's size is stable or if you're willing to buy the next size up at the same time.
My annual Back-to-College Supply Stock up usually is about $20 and consists of Looseleaf paper($2), Exam books($4), Scantrons($2), Pens($8) and Pencils ($4).
The Biggest Saving trick for parents i can suggest: Get your kids college ruled paper instead of wide ruled. they'll go through less, meaning you will have more left over.
At the school where I teach, when the kids have to clean out their lockers at the end of the year they throw EVERYTHING away. We've picked out backpacks, folders, new notebooks, new pens and pencils, calculators, new jackets and coats and other clothing, all of which we use to give kids in the fall. The clothing and coats are donated to the community thrift shop. The Custodians go through everything and have ended up with items such as mp3 players. Unbelievable what the kids toss knowing that their parents will buy more next year.
@katstermonster: Oh...and I should mention that we wore uniforms in K-8. So that was a cheap bill. Even once we reached high school, we never did back to school clothes shopping...we shopped whenever we desperately needed clothes, and we got a LOT of hand-me-downs.
I was absolutely amazed at the list we just got for my 7 yer old. We had to get 3 boxes of 24 RoseArt crayons, 3 boxes of 8 crayola markers, socks, t-shirt, kleenex, pencils, erasers, folders, notebooks, pencil box, etc. It wasn't that costly, but they were very specific on which brands, sizes/qtys, etc. If you get the wrong thing, it gets sent back and you have to bring in the exact item they asked for. Do you know how many stores you need to go to to get the complete list? And then, your child doesn't even get to keep anything they just brought in. It is all communal and the teacher keeps it. No fancy binders, folders, silly erasers... nada.
Thrift store shopping for clothes. At least for the younger kids. At the local thrift store you can buy a bag of clothes for way less than buying new. When kids are at the age that they are rapidly outgrowing clothes, I think this makes a lot of sense.
@tgrwillki: You have to buy your own scantrons? We never had to. I assumed there was a massive room full of scantrons and all the professors just grabbed a stack every time there was a quiz.
College rule paper is a double whammy on the awesome front. They have more lines, and all kids who want to be "grown up" want college rule paper because that's what they use in high school and college.
I'm all for saving money, but new, fresh crayons were the only things that kept me from running away from home each fall. I think that's well worth it and it keeps the kid from having nothing but burnt sienna to color with each year.
One thing I used to do is buy the kind of notebooks with the perforated sheets, and when the year was over, I'd go through the notebook and take out the sheets that were blank. It's a good way of saving the notebook paper for the summer or next school year.
@dragonfire81: But have you seen school supply lists these days? So many schools are cutting back on basic classroom supplies, and they're asking the parents to provide them - tissues, tape, staplers and staples, thumbtacks, construction paper, textbooks, etc. When I was a kid we didn't have to provide that stuff, but now each kid brings a box of tacks and the class uses them all year.
I'll agree with the article though regarding back to school clothes shopping - most retailers treat BTS as their second Christmas, and clothes get a markup from July 5 through mid-August. As soon as BTS ends those clothes are marked down heavily to make room for the "real" fall and holiday lines. Get the kids a couple of new outfits and then buy the bulk of what they need beginning Sept 1. Just waiting a few extra weeks means the difference between full price and 50-75% off, and the kids get the bonus of more new clothes right when they're getting sick of the stuff they got for BTS.
@tgrwillki: I had teachers in elementary school that would not take assignments handed in on college ruled paper. They told us that we could not write well enough on wide ruled paper, so we should not be using the college ruled paper.
A lot of people I work with "shop at the office" for back to school supplies for their kids. They started locking the supply cabinet.
1. Steal pens from bank tellers and cashiers.
2. Eat out with your child often for the free crayons given out by restaurants.
3. Steal sugar packets from Starbucks - makes great desserts in the lunchbox.
4. Raid the trash cans by the copiers at Fedex/Kinko's for paper.
@osiris73: I know that's crazy. I went to Chicago public schools so the only thing we had to bring in that was communal was tissue and paper towels.
My cousin and my brother-in-law went to suburban schools and they had that nonsense you're talking about. I'd be irate if I had bought a reasonable equivalent to an item and it got sent back to me or if the left over items I'd purchased weren't returned.
@pecan 3.14159265: We do this also. Our kid uses the old notebooks for doodling, scrap paper for homework, or score keeping for games he is playing. They come in handy. I can use them for a grocery list in a pinch, or to leave a note for the repairman, etc.
@osiris73: One of my friends has a ten-year-old daughter. They are both fed up with buying supplies that go into a packed closet to be given out to other people or not even used. This year, the mom sent the daughter to school with her school supplies stored in a box with a combination lock.
@osiris73: I had a teacher explain to me that it's because Rose Art is least expensive, and kids who bring the cheap ones are made fun of, so they just require that everyone bring the cheap ones...I see where they're coming from, but that just strikes me missing a learning opportunity to teach courtesy and respect. And, as mentioned above, nothing colors like a Crayola.
@pecan 3.14159265: I did that, too! Still do - it's nice to have the blank paper on hand for exam days when some yahoo forgets their blue book.
@brandihendrix: I'm 23 and the wife of a software engineer and I buy my clothes at thrift stores and off deeply discounted clearance racks. I've found some pretty neat stuff that way, all for under $5 per item for the most part.
I bribe my kids. I tell them that if they agree to use whatever items we have in the house (yup, half used notebooks, folders, erasers, etc.) then I will gladly hand them a $20. They are thrilled. I am thrilled because we have tons of that stuff laying around from years prior. I have never participated in "school clothes shopping". Did the kids really grow that much through the summer? I haven't ever bought any clothes for my family that weren't on sale. We just don't do it!
@elwoodxrl: One year we found a fur coat in a locker. The mom worked for the school and when she saw it she was LIVID. Had her daughter's name in it, so we knew who it belonged to.
@pecan 3.14159265: Yes, I have to buy my own scantrons, but it can be a good thing.
I actually took advantage of this in my public speaking final exam, when they wouldn't let me exempt the final despite having a 100 average, and the final exam being worth only 10% of the grade. Department policy says that after the first exam is handed in nobody else can receive a copy of the exam, so prior to the exam, I filled out my scantron with all of my answers marked as "A" and sat in the front, being the third person to receive my exam. I immediately handed in my exam, and watched the chaos. As a result, the communication studies had to deal with well over 100 academic grievances, and they are now offering exemptions.
@speedwell, avatar of snark: How does the teacher deal with that? I get that it's annoying to be forced to pay for the people who are too cheap, but in public education, you go there regardless of your income so some people really can't afford it.
@burnedout: Well, why not have all the kids bring their supplies (without their names on the bags) and the teacher can sort through them afterward and no one's the wiser when it comes time to break out the Rose Art crayons? I guess the kid who brought them in may feel bad, but he may also reap the benefits of someone else buying him Crayola.
At trade shows you can get lots of free pencils, pens, rulers, etc.
@MaelstromRider: Exactly. I'm staggering my son's new clothes because he is in the middle of a summer-long growth spurt. He got new shoes because he really needed them (and even then the grandparents went overboard), but I'm holding off on major clothes spending until October.
If your school has uniforms or a strict dress code, work with other parents to do a clothing swap. My son's school does one at the beginning and end of every school year, along with a coat swap at the beginning of winter and it works quite well.
@katstermonster: Your mom sounds a lot like my mom. Except she wouldnt bulk-buy, unless you think a pack of 10 is 'bulk'. And I would be expected to make it last through the school year - 1 for each month with 2 months vacation. Kinda like government run healthcare, where my moms death panel (which I am beginning to suspect was driven by PMS) would decide whether or not I could get a new green crayon, or I would have to mix the blue and yellow together.
@futuresuperbowlMVPJayCutler: Yeah, burnt sienna gets kind of awkward to use around Christmas. Halloween and Thanksgiving are both fine for a rusty brown color, but Santa's not supposed to wear a burlap sack.
@katstermonster: I remember I lost my scissors in first grade. My mom bought me a new pair, but wrote my last name over multiple times over every single inch of the handle and in big letters on the blade. I was so embarrassed that I hid those scissors in the back of the desk under the pencil box. Never lost them again!
@alexburrito: 5. Recognize that you're the cheapest person in the world and that your child will be made fun of for the rest of his/her life.
God forbid you ask your kids to cover their textbooks in brown paper bag! When I was a kid, it was an extravagance to buy pre-printed covers for $0.25. Now they must have "book socks" for $3 a pop! Spoiled, I tells ya!
@dragonfire81: I think they might be including clothes in that number. Regardless, I never got that much money spent on me. My parents didn't budget for BTS clothes shopping because they never saved money, so I got the "we'll do that in a couple months" excuse and as a result didn't get a ton of cool new clothes.
I guess that caused me psychological problems because now I have more clothes than will fit in my closet lol.
When I was in high school, I didn't go clothes shopping until the weekend after school started. That way, I could see what the other kids were wearing. Pretty superficial, I know. What do you want I was in high school?
@pecan 3.14159265: Where I go to grad school, students are responsible for scantron sheets, but the school I went to for undergrad supplied them. It was kind of a culture shock for me when I moved up, especially dealing with annoying freshmen who, with weeks' advance notice about the exam, would forget a scantron and start freaking out at me.
@solareclipse2: Your statement is contradictory. I'm confused as to which was bad and which was good. Wide ruled and college ruled are the 2 different types. They are not 2 names for the same thing.
@tgrwillki: I don't see why they wouldn't let you skip the final. Is it any test they won't let you skip, or just the final? Either way, it's not like you were asking for credit. Sillies.
@speedwell, avatar of snark: Was her daughter embarrassed? I understand Mom's point, but 10 year olds are mean and probably made fun of her somehow.
$549 per year for back to school expenses?? God I think I got through most of elementary school on that amount of money.
All I ever got pretty much for school supplies were pencils, an eraser, some lined paper, a couple of notebooks, a couple of binders and perhaps one of those little math set thingies with the triangle and protractor in them and a calculator.