Between back to school clothes and back to school fees, it is enough to give a parent back to school blues.
On top of everything else, you are required to purchase a seemingly unending list of notebooks, paper, glue, and scissors. By the time you get the actual list, all of the good stuff is gone from the stores. To make matters worse, school supplies are very expensive! A zip up binder can cost $14.00, a standard five subject notebook can cost $7.00, and crayons and markers have gone up considerably in price over the years.
To make you life bit easier and to save a few dollars, here are some tips you can use when buying back to school supplies.
1. Go through last year’s notebooks and school supplies. Calculators, rulers, hole punches, notebook paper, binders, scissors, back packs and more can be salvaged from your children’s rooms and old book bags. (As expensive as binders and backpacks are, I make it clear to my kids that each one needs to last two to three years before I will purchase a new one. The same goes for other supplies.)
2. Stock up in advance. It may be a little late for this piece of advice, but you should keep it in mind for the future. If you swing by clearance racks at the local drug store looking for paper, notebooks, pens, crayons, and binders. I saw notebooks today listed for $8.00 each that I got for $2.50 months ago and put on a shelf for a time such as this.
3. Go to the dollar store first. Protractors, pencil sharpeners, hole punches, boxes of pencils, Kleenex, glue sticks and the like can be purchased at the dollar store when they typically cost $2.50 to $3.00 at the local department store.
Andrea Hermitt writes for parenting (specifically teens), the home blog, and also the frugal blog, and homeschooling at families.com.
Also read
Frugalista Fashions: Buying Clothes on Ebay
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