Budget School Supply Shopping

Each fall, children head back to school with shining new school supplies, sporting new backpacks, and wearing the new trend in clothes. Before this can happen, parents flock to their local stores to buy all the supplies on their children’s school list. And these school lists always ask for some pretty ridiculous supplies or specialty colors. School supply shopping is never as easy as grocery shopping. Plus their a way too many people trying to shop the same aisles with their children.

Waiting until right before school begins, or even two weeks out, can create chaos for families and leave them running from the store instead of searching for good deals on school supplies. So how do you avoid the madness and save yourself some cash? We’ve got the secrets below.

Pro Money Saving Tips when Shopping for School

These three tips below will save you time and money when you shop for school supplies this year. A little time up front is a life saver while in the store.

Organize your School Supply Shopping Lists

Before you beginning shopping, figure out how many of each item you need to buy. If you have only 1 child, this is easy. But if you have multiple children in school, print off a copy of each list. Then take the time to combine their lists onto one master list. You can write all supplies onto the longest list, create a new list altogether, or even cut and paste their lists together. Whatever works best for you. This way you only need to check one list to get everything you need. This will save you time searching through multiple lists.

We prefer to start with whichever child has the longest list for the year. Then we tally the other children’s supplies onto that list and write extra supplies on the bottom. A little pro tip – if the school adds nonsense to the bottom of the school supply list, cut it off and make a copy with only the list so you have plenty of room to write.

One more idea for combining lists if you happen to have electronic copies. Highlight and copy the longest list over to your own document. Then you can tally right in the document and type in additional items. You only need to print one list and you are good to go!

See What School Supplies Your Already Have

At the end of each school year, teachers send home the leftover supplies, notebooks, and folders. Save these as often plastic folders, scissors, rulers/protractors, and store containers can be reused. Plus the used notebooks, pencils, coloring supplies, etc are great to have around the house when your children need some at home or your child’s teacher requests a notebook in the middle of the year. Teachers are way less picky with what you send in mid-year than at the beginning. And we have had entire notebooks returned never used!

We use our master school supply list and cross check with the supplies we already have a home. If you are making an electronic list, you could always do this step before you print so you have a nice clean list to bring to the store. As you check these leftover supplies, organize them into your child’s school supply holding area. No need to waste time and do this twice. Check your list, check what you have, and organize all in one fell swoop. This will save you time later.

Start School Supply Shopping Early

School supply shopping starts before school ends and continues throughout the summer. So many parents wait until the week or two before school begins and have trouble finding what they need at discount prices. Watch the sales ads beginning in May for discount supplies. This will save you the headaches of competing with everyone else the two weeks before school begins and the shelves will be much more organized and easy to find supplies.

First, Google any strange items or colors that were requested. Often, you can find these for cheap at Target, CVS, or Walgreens. This year, my daughter needed an orange notebook and a white folder. We were able to find both of these at Target for a little more than we would have paid at Walmart for every other color of notebook and folder. Walmart just didn’t happen to have those specific colors.

Second, keep an eye on the weekly sales ads. Ours get delivered to our home each Tuesday, but you could also check online. Be sure to check Walmart, Target and office supply stores like Staples and Office Depot. Costco and Sam’s Club are great stores to check for school supplies but unless you are shopping for a larger family, these don’t tend to pay off well.

But don’t forget some of the not thought of stores as well. Many times local grocery stores, Walgreens, CVS, Kohls, even Home Depot or Lowe’s will have sales on school supplies. I often get my notebooks at my local Jewel for $0.10 a notebook! That’s quite a deal. As a last ditch effort, you can also check Amazon for any unique supplies your child needs. However, we tend to find that we pay much more for supplies on Amazon than at the local stores.

Begin With Walmart for School Supplies

Once you have shopped the sales, and checked out the ads, it’s time to do your major school supply shopping.

Start at Walmart and buy supplies that cost less than $1. I love to buy crayons, colored pencils, markers, paints, notebooks, folders, and glue here. You can usually find these for prices between $0.15 and $0.97. I also will on occasion buy paper towels, Kleenex, wet wipes, and Lysol wipes. I only purchase these items when they can be found for less than $1 as you can often buy these at the dollar store.

Then, take a trip to the local dollar store. You can find paper towels, Kleenex, wet wipes, Lysol wipes, sandwich bags, gallon bags, paper plates, cups, and most small containers for $1. While it doesn’t seem like much, you can save between $0.31 and $2 per product. It’s definitely worth the extra trip, especially if your kids need to get out of the house for the day.

We love school supply shopping on rainy or cold weather days. Many people tend to stay home when the weather isn’t great and you can’t be outside enjoying the world. So you might as well spend your time wisely and get that school supply shopping down.

PTA School Supply Packs

These are a great idea for families with little time but money to spare. They are a great way to support your PTA, but not a great deal if you are trying to save money. If you are frugal with your shopping and reusing, you can purchase your school supplies for a little more than half of the price of these packs. Plus, you avoid the shipping costs by making the trip to the store.

Good luck on finding awesome sales for school supplies! Be sure to check out more school supply shopping tips. Leave a comment below to let us know your favorite shopping deals when looking for school supplies.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.