This is a sponsored guest post.
Slowly, but surely, we’re getting closer to that time of year again. It might not even be the start of the kids’ summer holiday yet, but chances are you’ve already been losing sleep about the dreaded back to school shop. Somehow, every year, it just seems to work our more expensive! It can be so difficult knowing where to draw the the line between only buying your little one what they actually need for the academic year ahead, and allowing them to choose and express themselves through choosing their own stationary, shoes and general accessories that they can wear, because that’s important too. However, the time for worrying has gone! With these top tips, you’ll manage to do the back to school shop, keeping everybody happy, and saving a little bit of cash along the way!
Make a List
One of the best ways to make sure you don’t overspend and buy unnecessary items when you’re shopping for anything, is by making a shopping list and sticking to it – especially when it comes to the back to school shop. A fun way to think about it, is the back to school shop is a sort of mission – and your kids will enjoy getting on board with this too. For any mission to be a success, you need to have a strategic and well laid out plan in place before you do anything, and the same applies for your school supplies shopping mission.
Make a list of things you need, and make one for each child if you have more than one. Then, research where has the best back to school deals on, and which places sell the things you need. If you make a list of items and research how much they’ll cost, you’ll be able to make yourself a budget of how much you should have to spend on the trip and find the cheapest offers that are available. For example, if you were looking to sell your house, you wouldn’t take the first price you were offered, would you? You’d look for a better deal, and you should here too. Likewise, if you list the places where you can buy these things, then you’ll not find yourself wandering aimlessly around shops and picking up things you don’t need along the way. The list only works if you stick to it, so make sure that you do!
Shop the High Street
This is dependant on what sort of school your children actually attend. If it’s a school with a strict uniform policy, this may not apply to you, however if it’s more that they have a uniform code, you might be able to save a little more than you’d originally bargained for.
A lot of high street stores and supermarkets stock school uniforms in, and more often than not they’ll stock cardigans and jumpers of the local schools’ colours in store. If you can get away with it, this is a much cheaper alternative to buying one directly from the school stores. Remember, they’ll charge as much as they possibly can, but if you shop carefully you can definitely cut some corners.
Splash Out on Shoes
It’s understandable that people can’t afford to go all out on every single uniform item, but if you’re going to splash out on one thing that’s particularly good quality, you should make it their school shoes. This is the item of school clothing that will get hammered the most, so the stronger the shoe, the longer it’ll last. If you think back to when you were a child, you’ll remember that you dragged your school shoes through the mud, along the tarmac, in the wet grass, and that they even survived you falling over several times. Well, things don’t change that quickly, and chances are they’re going to have to survive all of that and more. Weak shoes don’t stand a chance against a playful child!
Be Smart with Sizes
Finally, remember to be smart with sizes. As parents, you’ll be fully aware at how rapid a pace children grow at, and it can actually be quite frightening how quickly they shoot up and fill out! Because of this, at the start of the year it’s no good buying clothes that fit snugly, because chances are by Christmas, you’ll have to buy them all over again! That’s not to say dress your child in massively oversized clothes, but if you tactically buy them a single size bigger than they currently are, you could save yourself money in the long term.
