Back to school business

What I'm about to share with you... well it is kind of embarrassing. I think I have perfected the art of saving time and money on local school supplies. No, I'm not super mom. No, I don't have it all together. I've just done this for several years and had to find a way to make it easier.

Call me old. Call me lame. But I'm preparing my family, being diligent with my time, being a good steward with the money my husband has earned, and fulfilling my inner nerd all at the same time.

And to help my fellow moms, on a tight budget, who are secretly nerdy, I'm sharing my process with you.

Make a master list

First I downloaded all 6 kids' school supply lists and combined them to a master list. 

I separated each line by:

Papers, Binders, Notebooks, Folders

Pencils, Crayons, Markers, Pens

Scissors, Glue, Etc.

Non School materials. (Like Clorox wipes and Ziploc Bags)

Doing this keeps me from cycling through 6 lists and makes it easier to find things while at the store. I've found that when you come back to the same Walmart aisle more than 7 or 8 times to look at the 5 million types of glue sticks, the employee's get concerned. 

I should also note that if a school supply list calls for a particular brand, I try to buy that. If it doesn't, I find the cheapest thing possible. I've helped teachers fill their cabinets on the first day of school before and felt really bad when my kid's pencil box was the only one that did't fit perfectly in the shelf with all the others. For the whole year. I also know that "washable" is a relative term for every brand except Crayola. Some of you don't care about this and are thinking, "buy the exact thing on the list? Ain't no body got time for that!" I hear ya. But this is how I roll.

Beside each item I have a row for each of my kids. It comes in handy when I'm determining something is for an older child or my preschooler. Ashley will want the last cheetah print pencil bag and Kate will want the Elsa one...

It only took me 30 minutes and is SOOO worth it. And pivotal to my weird process. Even if you only do this part, it helps a ton.

But the next part is my favorite.

Compare prices

I go to 4-6 local stores to compare prices. But its crazy easy and I can do it with all my kids. I might look like a crazy person, but lets face it. Have I ever been normal??

I take pictures. Not of everything. But if its something I remember from my list (and after typing it up, I usually remember a lot of it) I take a picture of the item with the price tag. If I'm not sure, I take a pic anyway. It takes seconds to fly through the aisles snapping pictures. And everyone knows that when you've got kids in tow, it all falls apart when you stop the cart. So keep moving and snap those pictures!

Plug in the prices

Again, this maybe took me 30 minutes at most. I had to suffer through sitting in my ugly/comfy recliner with a cup of coffee while I "worked". It was rough.

First on "Tab 2" of my master list excel file, I copy and paste my whole master list from Tab 1. Where the kids' names are, I go back through and put store names. Going through all the pictures from Dollar General, Kroger, Target and Walmart, I record the prices next to each item. Again, I don't have pictures of everything, but I try to get some key items and it gives me an idea of who's cheaper.

Now I can print this out and have a quick reference for what to buy where.

Shop

This weekend, sans kids, I'm going to hit up just a couple of those stores. This year, several items are cheaper at Dollar General and I've got a $ off your whole purchase coupon that will make it all even cheaper. Then (unless there is something just way cheaper somewhere else) I'll go to Walmart for the rest. Based on all the prices I plugged in, Walmart was cheapest across the board in my area this year.

Divide it up

Then I can use my master list go through and divvy out all my goods to the right kid!

~~~

If you think I'm crazy and are now afraid of me.... I'm ok with that. I've had seasons where this just sounded way overwhelming to me and I just needed to print the lists, go straight to Target, spend 6 hours in there and several hundred dollars later, be done with it. Like, seriously, I'm only kind of kidding.

But if you love this and you're going to try it, let me know!! I hope this encourages you that you can have a big ol family but still save time and money!

Now lets pretend that the time I saved wasn't just spend blogging. ;)