5 Back-To-School Shopping Tips To Beat Stress And Save Money

If you’re reading this, that means that one of the most dreaded times of year for parents is here: back-to-school shopping. And while you might have had stressful situations shopping for your kids in the past, this time is different. Why? Because you have us to help you out! Here are five of our best tips to ensure you handle this shopping season the right way.

Most schools give out a shopping list of items teachers have specifically requested for your child to bring to class. Use them! This is a perfect way to ensure you are not wasting money buying items they’ll never use. Walmart also has a directory to make the lists easy to find. If your school does not have a list already prepared for parents, it doesn’t hurt to reach out to your child’s teacher and ask for their personal recommendations. This is also a great way to connect with them and introduce yourself before the start of the school year.

Yes, purchasing the cheapest school supplies for your children is enticing. But it’s important to value the quality of the products over the discount tag. Trust us on this. It’s easy to take the cheap route but frustrating to run back to the store every week because a new item has broken. It might seem like a big investment to buy the more expensive supplies, but it is the most affordable option in the long run.

You have probably gotten your kids brand-new backpacks for the new school year, which is great. But before you disregard their older ones, please check the inside. There might still be some perfectly good pencils and notebooks that can be recycled for this year.

Speaking of cleaning out bookbags, go through your kids’ backpacks who have already left the nest and are onto college. Before throwing all the presumed junk out of their backpacks, take a minute or two to go through it and see if anything left can be reused for your younger kids. It might only save a few bucks from your school shopping, but it’s worth a look.

Say, for instance, your shopping list asks for 50 pencils for the entire school year. We recommend buying them some at a time. Why? For starters, your child will only go through half of that amount, at most, by the end of the semester. And, if you decide to purchase them all in bulk at the beginning of the year, most will end up getting misplaced by the time you actually need them. And, if you choose to wait until the new year to buy the second half, the back-to-school rush will be over, and they will be half the price. Happy shopping!