My Financial Implosion: Back to School in a Bad Economy
‘œThe difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.’ ‘“ Tom Bodett
This Friday, our teen daughter goes back to school. In years past, this has resulted in a flurry of shopping and spending lots of money. Many years have seemed like a virtual shopping orgy, with multiple trips for clothing and school supplies.
This year, because my wife has been without steady work for several months, we aren’t in a position to spend a huge amount of money on clothing and school supplies. We’ve taken a really good hard look at our daughter’s wants versus her needs, and we’ve been addressing the needs only.
In years past, we’ve been given an extensive list of school supplies that were required for each student on the first day of class. The very first year our daughter was placed with us, we bought everything on the list as requested. We soon learned that only a few items from the list were needed immediately, and about half the items were never used at all.
If we’d waited to buy stuff until the teacher assigned work that required the extra supplies, we could have saved ourselves quite a bit of money.
Our daughter’s current school doesn’t send home a shopping list each year, so we’ve decided to confine our shopping to the basics ‘“ some pencils and a large package of notebook paper. Our daughter’s binder from last year is still in excellent condition, and she doesn’t need a new backpack, since she has at least three others she’s received in the past year as gifts.
As for back-to-school clothing, we’ve taken a very careful look at our daughter’s wardrobe. At almost 14 years old, she’s no longer growing quickly, so most of the clothing we’ve purchased over the last year still fits. Although we might buy her a couple of new things, she definitely doesn’t need an entire new wardrobe right now.
Our daughter has a birthday coming up in October, and the December holidays are just a few months away, so we’ll probably use those gift-giving opportunities to add to her wardrobe. She also enjoys spending her allowance on clothing, so she may end up buying a few things herself.
In a nutshell, here’s our plan for our school shopping this year:
- Buy only the things our daughter absolutely needs now.
- Defer purchases on non-essential items.
- Re-use last year’s school supplies if possible.
Although this year’s plan might not be as fun as a shopping orgy, it certainly means that we’ll be able to stay well within our budget.
Next in series: Emergency Food Supplies
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I think the best thing do is try waiting until the day before she goes back to school to get her stuff. That is usually when the best deals are. Walmart has really good deals on school supplies this year. Well good luck.
I think the best thing to do is wait until the day before she goes back to school to get some of her supplies. That is usually when stores have the best deals. Well good luck.
You could hit up the thrift stores. When I was your daughter’s age, I was totally thrift store chic. It helped that this was the early 90’s and grunge was in, but you can get clothing that’s in great shape if you’re willing to look. And if your daughter goes with her friends instead of her parents, then she’ll probably have more fun.
The hard core basics are at their cheapest now. Places like Staples and Office Max have their one cent and 10 cent sales every Sunday to draw crowds for back to school supplies. A 250 pack of paper was 10 cents at one of these places on Sunday- a 12 pack of pencils was a penny; 100 page spiral notebooks were a penny; 24 pack of crayons at a dime. You can’t beat it. THIS is the time of year we stock up. Caveat- go alone. Bring no children with you– they will get lured by the other school stuff.
What makes me saddest about the back to school lists are teachers requesting things like boxes of kleenex for the class; basic supplies for childcare. Has it really come to this? We usually buy a big (8 boxes) pack from the warehouse membership we have for each kid. Hubby is also really good at recycling toys and books to schools or daycare providers. Things you think are basic for the classroms to have are not considered such by many school districts.
If you have a Platos Closet nearby it would help with clothes….and Wal-Mart has some great deals on supplies…I was in there today and things like colored pencils for art were all of 75 cents for a pack of 12.
I wonder if its still easier to shop for boys than girls or have they all become somewhat fussy/status conscious.
My 10 year old daughter is starting to get in to the targeted marketing of one particular store. They send her a sassy catalog and every once in a while send gobs of coupons, etc to lure us into the store. We usually edit these from her but one catalog- the back to school one- made its way to her mitts. She immediately began harping on how she needed these cheesy ersatz school uniform looking dresses (they looked so cheap and tacky!), vests to wear over tee shirts, and styles exactly as the catalog has it. And then 2 days later 40% off coupons showed up– so she really got wound about how we would “save” if we bought these items she HAD to have. We stalled, she went to camp for 2 weeks- we thought it was over.
Wrong. She came back from camp and the catalog emerged from the recesses under her bed. And then another mailer came with coupons. Mind you, these coupons are ridiculous to me- they are shaped like credit cards and pink and shiny. Overspend just like Mommy!
I got it in my head to take her out and show her exactly how silly some of the “sales” were. In the “Frugal Gazette” books, Amy Dacyszn encounters similar trials- so I wanted to mirror her experiment. First, we went to the thrift shop. We found jeans in her size (perfect, new, still with original store tags) for $5, two pairs of shoes she liked for $4 each, and some shirts for $2 each (it happened to be a green tag day- the shirts luckily had green tags). She found a silver sequined hobo bag purse for $4 she wanted- I bought it even though it was clearly a “want.” Oh- and we found some vests that were exactly like the ones in the girl catalog. All said and done- I spent $30 on her there and had two big bags of clothes, shoes and her “dream purse.”
We then proceeded to the mall- and the dreaded teeny bopper store. They had her same “dream purse” for $25- but smaller and not as well made. That surely opened her eyes. She tried on the “school uniform” type dresses (at about $40)- and immediately commented on how strange the fabric felt. I pointed out she could achieve the same effect with one of her new vests from the thrift shop, a blouse she already had, and that we could make a skirt and matching tie from my fabric supply. She agreed and put it back. Similarly, other items were rejected. Ultimately, she ended up wanting nothing from the store when she finally “got it” that one item from there is equal to 10 items carefully chosen from the thrift store. She is still thinking about a $10 (!) headband that was silver sequined (and it did look cute on her with her pageboy ‘do) but I will likely instead teach her to make a headband to match her outfit anouther way.