Every August, we as parents trek to the store, with a list in hand, to purchase all the supplies our children needs for their grade level. And every year it’s the same old thing. We fight aisles of people who are doing the same. We have trouble finding things on the list. We wonder why they need certain items, and we spend more than we need to.
This year I had my children reuse many of their supplies.
Last year I purchased each of my children an Eastman backpack. By the end of the year, when everyone’s $10.00 character backpacks were falling apart, both of my children’s backpacks were in tact, albeit a bit dirty.
I threw them in the washing machine, and they were good as new.
In addition to the reusable backpacks, we had plenty of scissors lying around, plenty of calculators, clipboards, pencils, erasers and more.
My advice to parents who are standing there with that list in hand. Go home first. Go check out your house for some of those supplies. Why does your child need a new pair of scissors every year? And why does your child need a new lunch box each year? Don’t you have plenty of them laying around? We do. In fact, in our home we wouldn’t have to purchase a lunch box until our kids graduated from high school; yes, that’s how many we have.
Hand me downs work great too. Have them swap out with siblings, cousins or friends. Check around your house for bottles of glue. Pour them all into one bottle and you just might have enough to send to school that first day.
School supplies are expensive, but when you practice reusing what you have, and you make sure you keep track of what you’ve bought, and in addition you find other ways to save, you will be saving money before you know it!
Nicole Humphrey writes articles for the Scrapbooking Blog and for the Frugal Blog. She also guest blogs on a variety of topics. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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