Stretch Your Back to School Budget
Although the beginning of the new school year is a month away, now is the time to save money on school supplies and clothes. If you are like me, you are on a tight budget and need to make the most of you dollar. Every penny saved adds up. Before going shopping, set your limit and don’t go over. Scour the ads each week and clip those coupons. Make the supplies look more appealing by presenting them to your child in a decorative basket.
Recently Staples, Wal-Mart and Office Depot have had mind blowing deals. Unfortunately unless you have camped out overnight and been one of the first to make a mad dash to the product, you have been met with empty shelves. These deals go quick. If you live close, it may be worth the trip to see if they have some left. If you are rural like me, don’t waste your precious gas chasing a deal that is not in stock. You will be better off paying a little more and saving the fuel.
Watch CVS. They may not have much in school supply deals, but what you save on other items and CVS bucks will more than make up for the non sale prices. Learn the CVS shopping tricks and you will be surprised how much you can save. Sometimes buying an item that is on sale will earn you more bucks than you will pay. You can give the items you don’t need away as gifts. The same with Wal-Mart. You will save a lot on groceries with the right coupons and this will offset the non-sale items you need for school. I cannot stress enough not to chase deals at stores. If you are in the area fine, but a deal isn’t a deal if you use 8 dollars in gasoline getting there and back.
Checkout your local goodwill store once in a while. This store has very cheap clothes that are like new and sometimes even new with tags. Not only can you maximize your clothing budget, you are giving a gift to a good cause. Freecycle is another way to obtain decent clothing. You can get summer gift baskets of clothing for free. Check on yahoo for a local chapter. If you can predict what size your child will fit in next summer, now is the time to take advantage of all the summer clearance specials on shorts and shirts.