Yes, it’s time to start preparing for back-to-school. My kids are in denial that they’re going back soon. I’m in denial that I have to spend a lot of money on school supplies. Of all the challenges a year of no retail shopping posed on our lives, school supplies was the most difficult and time consuming. (You can read about this: Back to school [day 58] and School supply update [day 83]) I think the difficulty is because of the specific list of “must buys” from the school district. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to providing school supplies for my kids, I just don’t understand why they require brand names and why they don’t let the teachers make their own specific lists. We have the technology now to do that.
Back to school for us means going through all of last years’ stuff. On the last day of school, my kids ran in the house, threw all of their school stuff in the back of the closet and it hasn’t seen the light of day since. I pulled it all out. My 1st find was a lunch bag… with a partially eaten sandwich.
Lesson #1: Go through this stuff before it goes into the closet.
On to the backpacks and reusable shopping bags that are filled with who knows what. Yikes! Could they really have used this much paper??!? All of this went into the recycling bin. Can’t these workbooks be designed to be used more than once? Is there a way to use less paper? I’m not a teacher so I’m not even going to pretend that I could suggest a better way. I think teachers are a huge blessing to our kids.
Lesson #2: Get backpacks with wheels to avoid future doctor visits for back problems.
Next I needed to see if they would be able to use their backpacks from last year. Let me just say, my kids are good about this. We don’t do back-to-school shopping for clothing or miscellaneous non-school supply items like this. The backpacks from last year are in great condition. The camo one is going on year 3 and it was purchased for a few dollars at a thrift store. The lime green one with wheels was mine when I was taking photography classes 5 years ago. It’s also in great shape. This one was purchased at the CCCCD bookstore. It cost a lot but it’s made well and is lasting a very long time.
Lesson #3: Value is the key word here. Whether it was $3 or $30, get all the life out of it that you can.
Now for the school supplies. Just like last year, I tried to reuse as much as possible. This year I will purchase some things new if needed, but not without exhausting my other avenues first. Here’s the 5th grade list we’re working from. I’ve highlighted and color-coded the supplies and where they’ve come from. We salvaged a lot from last year, almost half. The few things I’ve bought new I have found on sale at the grocery store.
Lesson #4: Start this process early.
By starting this early, I avoided crowds, saved a lot of money by not be pressured to buy one of the three expensive things left on the shelf and I’m working these purchases into my normal shopping trips. No extra planned trips to shop for school supplies.
Do you have any back-to-school shopping tips to share? If so, please comment here and let’s add to the list… our own list. ;)