by Mama Bee
This is the second year I will have both of my sons in school full time. My oldest will be rockin' second grade and my middle will be showin' up as a first grader. This means we have to buy double the school supplies and backpacks. It means school clothes (because my kids are growing like weeds and don't fit any from last year) and sports fees, $80.00 a month in school lunches and field trip costs.
School. is. expensive.
With my sons' birth mother's flat out refusal to pay child support to help with my growing children, this means it all falls on my husband and me alone. That also means saving and preparing long before school is starting. It means getting creative. I looked at the list with my eyes wide open, passed the list to my husband and we both just decided there was no reason to complain because it wasn't going to change anything.
This past week I went and started shopping for school supplies and I was beyond annoyed at the lists. I had walked out of Walmart and Target, $125.00 poorer, not even getting all of their supplies. THERE WAS STILL MORE! I ran by Ross to check out backpacks which were even cheaper there than they were at both of the other places for non-name brand.
Luckily, my husband and I have been saving for this for a while and should be okay but it made me think of the people that are in a real financial pinch. I'm not going to lie, there are months that I get worried because its so much money to support 2 growing boys with absolutely zero help from someone that should be helping. I thought, if my husband and I who are able to save for this have troubles at times, what are those who are barely making it paycheck to paycheck doing? How in the world are they able to get everything on this list!?
Full time schooling means they aren't paying for childcare costs but when I look at it, is it really that much cheaper? I've never put my children in daycare so I don't know what the charge is these days but I can only imagine. I find that to be a huge blessing that I can keep my babies home (daycare for 3? It wouldn't even be worth it to work) because some people don't have a choice. It breaks my heart. I'm sure they think that once the child goes to school, its going to be less of a financial burden but is that true? By the time we get done with getting their school clothes, supplies, backpacks and lunches for the first month, were going to be over $250.00. That's not chump change!
Such is life as parents though. We have no choice but to get everything required and we will but I was wondering....
What are your thoughts? Do you have children in school? Do you find everything ridiculously adding up and putting a strain on your these days just to get your child(ren) ready for school?
Comments (21)
I don't have kids, but my generic tips:
- Reuse. You don't have to buy a new backpack unless the previous one is beat up into oblivion.
- Shop around. I've found ridiculous deals at Staples and Walgreens in addition to Target. I don't have a Wal-Mart closeby, so I can't comment on their deals. For example, last week Staples had backpacks for free - the price of the backpack would be added to your Staples rewards, which you can use later on.
- Stock up when cheap. Pencils, pen, paper do not go out of style.
I started early. The boys already have new backpacks that I bought at the start of Summer. Two for $7 on clearance at the local Wal-Mart and they're the single-strap ones that the kids love. We shopped five stores for school supplies; Staples with their 1-cent copy paper (after rebate) + their $5 off $20 purchase coupon. Then Target & Walgreens for their sale a few weeks ago. Wal-Mart has, literally, unbeatable prices on glue sticks, crayons, and the binder that C needed. We finished at the Dollar Tree for Kleenex, hand soap and hand sanitizer. We came in around $50 (after the rebates come back) for both kids' supplies. (We are extremely lucky to live in a metro area where all of these stores are located near our home and near each other, as well.)
Best advice: buy a Sunday paper and spread out the ads!
Oh, and we didn't take the kids shopping with us, so there was no begging for the character- or designer- versions of things, which are always more expensive! They have what they NEED.
Now we get to do physicals next Monday ($40 for both boys; $20 each through a local clinic beats out the Minute Clinic's $30 each!). Hair cuts. At least one new outfit each for school and new shoes for M.
@freesia39@xanga - "Stock up when cheap. Pencils, pen, paper do not go out of style." Amen sister! :) We also have a bin on top of our bookcases in the office with loose-leaf paper, pencils, glue sticks, etc. in it that have been bought on sales and with coupons.
I go to wal-mart and stock up when everything is cheap. I have a big box of notebook paper, about a million pens and pencils I bought one backpack (black) that lasted me YEARS.
The only thing I buy continually are binders because mine tend to fall apart a lot.but its okay because binders are like a dollar over here!
luckily our school doesn't a big list of needed supplies.
I got their bookbags for $5 each (Three children) at walmart near the end of last school year
School clothes...our good will has good stuff cheap and yard sales etc
School lunch....my children qualify for free school lunch.
My children will be attending a new charter school in our area and thank God they are supplying the supplies because even though they were in a school last year where they had to wear uniforms this school has totally different uniforms. So I have already bought their shirts through the new school it was 92.00 and I got them each 6 polo shirts and 2 sweat shirts. Now they need pants and shoes. I have all new underclothes and a backpack and lunch box for each of them in layaway that was another 80.00. I'm hoping to find all black tennis shoes in the 50.00 range for each and their pants will be the most expensive at 10-15 each, they have to have navy blue uniform pants. Since I am a single mom I have to save up for things like this and plan ahead. After this year though it will be better because my oldest can hand down uniforms to my youngest.
I reuse. but what sucks is that our school makes you buy the agendas. it's not an option. the agendas are included in the school fee.. or whatever that it.. it's around $32-ish? but I really don't need those agendas. I've better agenda's and cheaper.. >v<
Walgreens, Walgreens, Walgreens. They have AMAZING back to school sales going on right now. There school supply sales start with items at .09 cents... Its crazy awesome. Otherwise, bargain hunt.
Our district has a school supply event where kids in the district (all of them, not just the poor kids) can get free school supplies. I think that comes of it being a district with a very poor makeup. Everyone also gets free breakfast for this reason.
Aside from that, yes, I think the school supply lists have gotten way out of hand. One of my friend's children had to have 9 folders for 5th grade. 9! He doesn't heven have that many subjects and 5th graders don't change classes!!! My own child will be in kindergarden and is required to have 6 brad folders. What exactly are they doing with 6 brad folders (oh, and to make matters worse, they have to be a specific color). There are even Expo markers on his list! I'm sorry but that's a teacher supply that the school should be buying, not a child supply and I'm not providing them. To make matters worse, they want to put everything into a pool of supplies for everyone to use. For things like construction paper, I get that. But for things like scissors I'm not sharing. His supplies will be labelled and he'd better be able to keep them to himself. I teach in this district and I see how the kids treat communal objects. I'm not spending my money so some other child can destroy his things.
The best I can say is what others are saying. Watch the ads for Target, Walmart, grocery stores, Walgreens and even Office Depot for sales. Stock up on things as needed. If needed, contact the district to see if they can be of any assistance.
And encourage your kids to grab usable school supplies from friends at the end of the year that are still usable. As a teacher, I have over 30 spirals at least half full (some with only 2 or 3 pages used) that serve as a ready source of paper for my students from only one year of supplies the kids left behind or were going to throw away! The waste of binders is even worse and a lot of that waste comes from the teachers as well as the students.
@UQuest@xanga - We supply one agenda for the kids for free and then it's $5 to replace if they lose it. However, our last principal would let kids work off the cost of the agenda with a little bit of work around the school - usually light cleaning of indoor windows or moving cafeteria chairs or something.
Like a lot of other people are saying: reuse and look for ads. When I was in elementary/middle/high school my mom set a budge of $20 for school supplies at the beginning of the year. Even with pages-long supply lists we were able to make it work. Kids don't NEED folders and notebooks with Dora or Transformers on it. The paper folders work great (especially if you cover them with contact paper, they're nearly indestructible) and 10 cent notebooks work just as well as Five-Star brand. Also, if you want to splurge, you can opt for the plastic folders which last for ages (1 set lasted 4 years of high school and 2 semesters of college for me). It gets better once they make it to late middle school/high school because you no longer need to buy things like crayons, markers, glue, etc... and you can definitely reuse pens and mechanical pencils.
The bottom line is that kids just don't NEED brand new backpacks and name brand supplies (or even clothes for that matter). I've found that the best time to stock up for the next year is to get supplies in the beginning of January because stores tend to put out really good sales for college kids going back for Spring semester. Ask the school for a copy of the supply list for the next grade, usually they'll oblige.
I think the $20 rule is a good one (although $30 might be a little more realistic nowadays and in bigger cities where stuff is more expensive). I just finished my school shopping and got everything I needed for 2 semesters worth of classes for under $10, not including clothes, obviously.
Kids don't necessarily need to go with you (it makes it easier to leave them at home, I suppose), but setting a budget and having them get all the supplies on their list while staying within that budget is a great way to teach them about the importance of shopping around and setting boundaries (plus they get reinforcement that money doesn't grow on trees).
Reuse and stock up. There is a certain time of year when notebook paper and such is CHEAP. We stocked up 3 years ago and just NOW ran out stuff.
@Morningstarrising@xanga - I with you! I still have spiral notebooks from about 3 years ago!
Everyone already said it....HIT THE SALES!!!! And hand down clothes when you can and when you can't Goodwill and clearance racks!
You can do it cheaper! Oh and yes....backpacks are not necessary until they are falling apart! I held my son's together this year with safety pins when it started falling apart at the end of the year. Also, really you should buy a really good backpack at LL Bean. They last forever and if anything goes wrong with them, you ship them back and they will fix it or replace it! NO Kidding! You can get one and it will last all the way through the 12 th grade!
Throw in the cost of private school and send your kid to one where they have to buy all their own books AND uniforms and costs can really add up.
My parents weren't rich AT ALL but they sent me and my sister to private schools our whole lives. I have no idea how they managed it.
My parents bought me and my sister new of everything pretty much every year for school too. The only things we reused were like scissors, protractors, backpacks and lunchboxes, (when they weren't ripped) rulers, etc. But we really didn't need all those new supplies every year. Between the two of us, we had this HUGE bucket of crayons that had accumulated from the 'leftovers' of many boxes bought over the years. Many of them were still full sized and perfectly good. We probably could have each scavenged a full box of 64 crayola crayons including the color "macaroni and cheese" out of that bin. I know that by college i also ended up with a small tub of only slightly used erasers, two overflowing pencil holders filled with assorted pens and pencils, a HUGE stack of unused assorted loose leaf paper, etc. My parents probably could have saved money by making us go through our rooms before school and finding what we could reuse in there. I certainly didn't have to buy a new set of no. 2 pencils or large pink erasers every year, that's for sure. We probably would have complained that we didn't want to use all those old supplies but they could have taught us a lesson in wastefulness by making us use everything before buying us more. I do have to say though...there was always something awesome and inspiring about starting the school year with brand new school supplies. Like everything was a brand new start.Â
I don't have a supply list from school (I'm in college). But I've been going to places like Walmart, Fred Meyer and Walgreens to hit the sales and get my stuff. As it is, I just arranged my "supply drawer" to see if I have what I think I need. Right now, I have almost everything I can think of for the upcoming school year. (Lots of wooden pencils, black/blue pens, lots of notebooks, a good-quality cloth binder, etc.)
Either way, I try to hit the sales and go to the cheaper stores. I also try to get the high quality stuff for cheap, so I won't have to spend money later to replace the item. My biggest problem with school supplies is the handheld pencil sharpeners. I have had to replace several of them so far.
I buy everything on clearance the year prior, especially clothing! I bought all my kids fall clothes this spring in sizes that I thought would be too big but guess what - fits perfect. And the few pairs of jeans that are too long look adorable rolled up, so it's fine. For shoes we go to TJMaxx or Marshalls because then they are still good quality but cheap. For school supplies we search the ads and space stuff out. There's no reason to drop $200 at one time. As stuff has gone on sale or clearance through the year, we snap it up and store it. Since my husband and I are college students and we have one in school, we make sure we have lots of supplies. For backpacks, we snatched up some high brand backpacks from Marshalls last spring for like $15 a piece.
I think if you're careful, buy it when it's on clearance and realize that seriously, kids don't need new everything for school. That backpack from last year is just fine. It's fine. You just have to make it work.
I am in college, and well, over the past two years, I have become very familiar with the dollar store and Walmart. I know I found a dollar store where you could easily find 100 pens or pencils for like, fifty cents, or several packs of paper for a dollar. I bet if you look, there are deals like that somewhere.
I also do a lot of shopping at places such as Sam's Club. I buy a lot of food there, such as snacks, cereals, peanuts, bread, lunch meat, ect. Maybe you could buy food in bulk and pack their lunches...I know college is a bit different, but found out that grocery shopping there is a lot cheaper than eating in a dining hall.
My mother always bought in bulk, hunted for sales, and frequented dollar stores.
DUDE, ITS CALLED THE DOLLAR STORE! They have everything...
Maybe you could use a little extra money coming in. As soon as you leave the house theses days, it cost you money.
Enter the $50 drawing. Be creative in finding ways to either make more or cut down somewhere. Stock up when there is a sale.
this is alittle embarrasing to say but my mom helps out with school supplies and clothes for her grandkids at which point me and my hubby are extremely grateful. I have two and the list just keeps getting worse every year.
this year, I took advantage of the tax free weekend. while I didn't like waiting until LAST minute to get their things, I still like saving a few dollars when that is so hard to do now-a-days.