2. Sales usually start on Sundays so go early in the week as loss leaders may sell out. If the store is out of a loss leader at the front, check the year-around office supply
location.
3. Use coupons. There are great Back-to-School coupons in Parenting Magazine, the Sunday paper, in stores and in weekly ads and online. To find the best online coupons, click on the Krazy Koupon Lady logo to learn about opportunities for Back to School Savings.
5. Consider acquiring an app for saving money on back-to-school shopping. Click on graphic to access an article in Gazelle.com called, "9 Apps to Help with Back-to-School Shopping
I hope these 5 ideas help you to save money during this Back-to-School season! Where do you like to go to shop for school supplies? How do you save school supply dollars? Feel free to comment. I'd love to hear your ideas.
An Unexpected Finding
I used these 5 ideas when shopping for my granddaughter's school supplies and achieved 50% savings over what I would've have spent! But that fact didn't surprise as much as the following:
When my granddaughter dropped by my house later, I suggested we inventory the purchased supplies to make sure nothing was forgotten. So, armed with the list, my "soon-to-be a big 4th grader" granddaughter began checking off what I purchased against her school supply list.
Soon she said, "we need more glue sticks BB."
"How many do we have?" I asked.
"None,"
"Show me," I said. The list required 4 2-ct packs of glue sticks. After looking through the sacks, I found the package of glue sticks - normally a pack of 6 glue sticks but this package awarded 2 free glue sticks for a total of 8. We had a lively discussion about how 4 2-ct packs of glue sticks is the same as 1 8-ct pack of glue sticks. (For some reason, my granddaughter doesn't just take my word for it, insisting on understanding in order to agree but I wouldn't have it any other way).
The most exciting part of our inventory was when we got to the pencils.
The list required 96 pencils. I had purchased 7 packs of 15. My granddaughter calculated how many groups of 15 we would need to make a total of 96 When she had counted 6 packs, she reported that she had 90 pencils.
"Is 90 enough?" I asked her.
"No, I need 96," she said.
"What should we do?"
"If I add another 15, it will be more than 96".
"How much will it be?'
"105."
"So do we add another package? or do we take 6 packages that make a total of 90?
She thought about this for awhile, and finally decided she would take the additional package of 15 and as a result will be taking more than she needs but if it was a question of taking more or not enough, she wanted to take more.
Inventorying her school supplies was an authentic experience for my granddaughter and gave her the opportunity to experience performing the math that you need to live rather than math used to reinforce or remediate a concept.
In my humble opinion, the best math is math you do to live - measuring, converting, counting, evaluating, analyzing, quantifying. It's a mathematical world. Our math skills are our path to success. This experience inspired me to think about the math I do daily and invite my granddaughter to help me do the math necessary to live in the world successfully so she can make connections between what she is doing in school and what she is doing or will need to do in her life.
Thank you so much for reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know - I'd love to hear from you!
When my granddaughter dropped by my house later, I suggested we inventory the purchased supplies to make sure nothing was forgotten. So, armed with the list, my "soon-to-be a big 4th grader" granddaughter began checking off what I purchased against her school supply list.
Soon she said, "we need more glue sticks BB."
"How many do we have?" I asked.
"None,"
"Show me," I said. The list required 4 2-ct packs of glue sticks. After looking through the sacks, I found the package of glue sticks - normally a pack of 6 glue sticks but this package awarded 2 free glue sticks for a total of 8. We had a lively discussion about how 4 2-ct packs of glue sticks is the same as 1 8-ct pack of glue sticks. (For some reason, my granddaughter doesn't just take my word for it, insisting on understanding in order to agree but I wouldn't have it any other way).
The most exciting part of our inventory was when we got to the pencils.
The list required 96 pencils. I had purchased 7 packs of 15. My granddaughter calculated how many groups of 15 we would need to make a total of 96 When she had counted 6 packs, she reported that she had 90 pencils.
"Is 90 enough?" I asked her.
"No, I need 96," she said.
"What should we do?"
"If I add another 15, it will be more than 96".
"How much will it be?'
"105."
"So do we add another package? or do we take 6 packages that make a total of 90?
She thought about this for awhile, and finally decided she would take the additional package of 15 and as a result will be taking more than she needs but if it was a question of taking more or not enough, she wanted to take more.
Inventorying her school supplies was an authentic experience for my granddaughter and gave her the opportunity to experience performing the math that you need to live rather than math used to reinforce or remediate a concept.
In my humble opinion, the best math is math you do to live - measuring, converting, counting, evaluating, analyzing, quantifying. It's a mathematical world. Our math skills are our path to success. This experience inspired me to think about the math I do daily and invite my granddaughter to help me do the math necessary to live in the world successfully so she can make connections between what she is doing in school and what she is doing or will need to do in her life.
Thank you so much for reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know - I'd love to hear from you!
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