How We Save Money for Back to School

We are all on the hunt for outfits, shoes, school supplies and everything else that comes with going back to school. I very rarely purchase new clothes throughout the year for our kids. I find that they grow out of them too fast and ruin the best and most expensive ones first. I decided years ago that I would not do that anymore.One of our local children stores does a deal every so many months when they are changing out their inventory for the next season. They do a "Stuff a Bag" sale. You can stuff as many clothes you can in a regular grocery bag and you get it for $9 bucks. Yes, $9 bucks. When this situation presented itself to me, I was intrigued by the test of how much I could fit in one of those bag. I wanted to get as many clothes as I could without going past the one bag for 9 bucks. They had the bags hanging in the clearance section for easy access. Once you find your clothes, you remove the hangers and start your packing.

I tried 2 different ways to pack my bags and went with the laid flat and folded in half option. My husband packs his work truck so he is a pro at packing, so of course I wanted to see how I measured up to my husbands expert packing skills. I was pretty impressed with my outfit jackpot. Unfortunately, there was pretty much only girl stuff, no boy clothes. Luckily, my son has a nice stockpile of clothes and only needs a few things. I will go back to the same store and grab him a few more outfits. It is all lightly used, name brand clothes for a fraction of the original cost. I will take that any day. Anyhoo, let me show you all 3 packing processes and the result of the bag. I am all about trying different ways to do the same thing to get a different result...an even better one.

So, basically you get the same amount and they each had a bit more wiggle room. If they would have just been tossed in the bag, I would have NOT gotten this many clothes. I know it is crazy I got so excited, but hey when do you get almost 2 school weeks of clothes for that price. Practically a steal.

Okay, on to school supplies. No, we do not take part in the tax free days for school supplies as we do not have very many things to buy yet. I found that Wal-mart really let me down this year. The prices sucked to say the least. I needed non-pronged folders this year for my daughter and go figure an isle FULL of pronged folders. My options ended up being designed folders for .97 or a plain ones for $1.47, so we went with the designed ones. I wanted the sturdy little plastic non-pronged folders, but no such luck. I love the .50 crayons, .25 wooden rulers(craft wise) and $1 markers.  You can get a 12 pack of glue for only $3.44 at Hobby Lobby or each 4 oz. bottle of glue for .50 each at Wal-mart. I think they totally skipped out on the deals this year for back to school. I was not happy to see that the plain and designed 1 1/2" binders are almost $4 and $5. So, no happy school supply buying here. I spent more on school supplies than clothes. 

SHOES- I would be lying if I actually said our family does not have a ton of shoes. We all have multiple pairs, but the thing is with the kids is that they are very hard on their shoes.  My husband is very hard on his shoes as well and is always in need of a new pair. We buy so many shoes we get lots of rewards from Finish Line. We take advantage of the coupons($10 off purchase etc.) they send us through the mail, my husband gives the ones we do not use to his co-workers, which helps us as well. Finish Line continues to send more coupons and probably about every other month we get a $20 off coupon. So, we are all set with shoes and ready for school. I am pretty happy with having pretty much everything taken care of for both of my littles. Anyone can be a member and your points earn you the $20 cash card. 

Only 2 more weeks until school starts in this house. I think I may experience empty nest syndrome for a while. I am sure I will find something to do with myself. More on that later. 

What deals did you snag this year?