Why It Is Not Too Soon To Get Ready For "Back To School"

Last night I ran into a friend at a local store where they were showcasing their "Back To School" section.  Her question to me was: "Don't you think it is crazy they are already pushing shopping for back to school?".  I told her not at all and went on to explain why.  

Each year I inevitably hear a couple of complaints from parents in the week before school goes back.  One is how they are scrambling to get everything.  They have waited until the last minute and now are trying to get a household of anywhere from 2-6 kids ready to go back in a week. This often means finding stores out of items and also tends to be very overwhelming.   

The other big complaint I hear is how much it costs to get their kids ready to go back.  While you have the school supplies, you often hear about new clothes, shoes, and backpacks to add on as well.  I have had parents tell me that just for each child's school supplies they have spent a couple of hundred dollars.  I will be honest in telling you that this blows me away!  Before my kids started school I was totally freaked out by people telling me about their kids school supplies.  Now I know different and would love to help others. 

While I coupon and their are coupons that come out to help with school supplies, you don't have to even be a couponer to buy school supplies on a tight budget.  If all you do is get the Sunday paper, look at the weekly flyers and stop at 2 stores a week, you will be amazed at how well you can do.  Each week starting from a couple of weeks ago, store flyers start coming out with weekly deals just to get you into the store.  Office Max is one example as they come out with deals like what you see in the picture below.

Last Sunday, their flyer came out with deals where the pencil erasers, index cards, and pocket folders were 1 cent each with a minimum $5 purchase.  This meant that I bought the package of glue sticks, package of blue pens, and package of red pens (items on my oldest son's school list), as the items to give me the minimum of $5 and then was able to get 30 pocket folders, 9 packages of pencil erasers, and 9 packs of index cards for $7.78.  This week they have the scissors for 25 cents each, sharpies 25 cents each, and packs of 4 glue sticks for 25 cents each, which made my total $3.18.  I then went over to Fred Meyer's where the binders are on sale as well as buy one get one free, filler paper 79 cents each, bottles of Elmer's glue 59 cents each, Ticonderoga 24 packs of pencils $2.99 (half price), Crayola crayons 59 cents each, Crayola crayons 59 cents each, package of highlighters $1.00, and a package of 2 erasers for 49 cents.  All of the extra items that won't be needed for the boys this year, will be stored away in my plastic totes for when they run out or for next year.

Each year I stock up on these items when they are at their cheapest price point so that we are prepared.  Last year I had very few items that HAD to be bought.

If you start doing this, it can make it very easy and less stressful to be prepared as well as much easier on the pocket book.  I would tell you that with 3 boys in school, our school supplies come to maybe $60 a year if that.

What if I also told you that I have their pants and shoes for school next year?  This was done a few months ago when there was a sale on jeans on for $8.88 a pair as well as a clearance on shoes.  Believe me, with 3 boys, we wear through jeans and shoes so it would be insane to pay top dollar for these items!

Running A Household On A Budget - Stocking Up On Laundry Detergent

In a household of 3 little boys, my husband, and myself, you can imagine that I have a little bit of laundry to do each week!  One of the things I learned about when I learned how to coupon 4 1/2 years ago, was to stock up when you find an excellent deal on something.  In my first year of couponing, I was able to build up a stockpile of laundry detergent that I am just coming to the end of.  Yes, you heard me right,  I was able to stock up on enough laundry detergent that I haven't had to buy laundry detergent for about 3 1/2 years!  A little over a month ago I noticed that I only had a couple of bottles left.  That meant it was time to start watching for the right sale to combine with the right coupons.  However, I almost broke down and spent more than I am accustomed too a couple of weeks ago, as I was afraid that the right deal wasn't showing up.  However, this week I found that deal.

This week, Walgreens put a sale on Purex where you buy 1 bottle at $5.99 and then get one free.  When it is a store sale where you get one free, you can still use a manufacturer's coupon on the free item.  This Sunday's paper came out with Purex coupons for $1.50 for one bottle, as well as coupons for $3 off of 2.  I purchase a "coupon clipper" subscription to our local paper for $20 a month.  This means that I get a daily paper and 5 copies of the Sunday paper to get all of the coupon inserts.  As well, I have a few friends that pass along their coupon inserts to me.  Usually I have 8 or 9 sets of coupons from the Sunday paper.  So guess how I spend my Sunday nights?  Clipping coupons and putting them into my coupon binder. It has become my weekly routine. Organizing them into a binder by categories was something I learned in the couponing class I attended when I started.

You can see that my binder is two sided.  On the right side I have all of my household and personal item coupons, and on the left side are all of my grocery coupons.

So with the buy one get one for free sale at Walgreens this week, I was able to get 16 bottles of Purex (33 loads per bottle approximately) using 8 coupons for $3.00 off of 2 bottles for $26.80 with sales tax.  With spending $26.80, I saved $71.92 for a total savings value of $75%!