Want the chance to win a $500 shopping spree with me? Here’s your chance!
The awesome people at ConAgra foods and HEB, along with Supermarket Guru Phil Lempert are sponsoring this awesome treat!
One of my fabulous readers has the chance to join me and Phil Lempert on a shopping spree at HEB. Like I stated in the into to the Back-to-School Meal Maker Challenge, the 2 winning bloggers (and their readers) are to receive this $500 shopping adventure.
I need everyone’s help spreading the word about this great promo. While this giveaway is open to all US residents, should you be chosen for the spree, travel expenses are all on you.
Rules for the Shopping Spree Entry:
Leave a comment on this post telling me your most creative back to school tips. Can be organization, meal planning, recipes, etc. You can even get really creative and send me a video that I can post on Frugal Reality!
All Meal Maker Challenge, ConAgra, HEB Combo Loco, and Phil Lempert posts are part of a sponsored promotion. My involvement is being compensated to comply with the FTC guidelines.
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Allow the child to choose his/her own lunch box… or decorate a previously owned one! They tend to want to take their lunch rather than buy lunch. (Even worked on my husband! Ha!)
I don’t have little ones old enough for school yet, but I am a teacher so I have to organize “back to school” for myself! My biggest tip is to spend a little time on Sunday making all my lunches and snacks for the week, and then take them all with me to school Monday morning.
I am a teacher and I have kids that cannot afford school supplies. So my kids and I work hard all summer and especially when the back-to-school sales and coupons come out to find really good deals on school supplies. First we get the supplies we need for the kids. Then we get everything we think other kids might need and fill as many grocery bags as we can before school starts to donate to my school and my kiddos elementary schools for kids that cannot afford school supplies. Last year we collected 5 grocery bags full of school supplies to give to my students in my class. This year I am much more money saavy and hoping to be able to do much more with my money! I love using this opportunity to teach my kids about giving!
I don’t have kids yet, but I know several teachers. And they always report there are children in their class that don’t have school supplies. I use coupons to buy cheap/free items, then I load it all up and deliver to the teacher. She can distribute them as needed throughout the year or use to restock her own shelves. Teachers spend a lot of their own money to get their classroom up and going. It’s just a small way to give back.
My school tip is to have my son pick out what he wants to wear the next day to school–it’s easier to go over that the “night before” then the last minute before the bus comes. It’s hard enough to get him up beside going over everything in the closet.
I have everything prepared the night before. It makes the next morning go smoothly. I just ordered free labels off of vista to label all of my son’s things for Mother’s Day out.
Frozen veggies! You put them in the lunchbox in the a.m. and they are thawed by lunchtime. My 4YO daughter loves her peas and corn and green beans this way…not too cold and not too warm.
During the weekend, when we pick up and clean the house, we choose the clothes the kids are going to wear during the week days at school. This saves us a lot of time!
The best back to school tip i can share is to color coordinate school subjects. Math is red, Spelling is blue, English is yellow….. and so on. This way my child has a color for each subject. Works like a charm!
My kids aren’t old enough for school, but since I’m following frugal blogs during this phase of my life, we stock up on some of the supplies we’ll be needing (starting next year!). Also, we grab some freebies and cheap items to donate.
Frugal Back to School Tips
As we get ready to hit the books and go back to school, there are a few tips that I recommend that can make your year flow smoother, while saving money and even teaching your kids a thing or two about thrift.
1.Stock Up on Supplies
Late July and the month of August are the best times to get school supplies for pennies on the dollar. Most moms get what is on their child’s list and are happy with their savings. But then, most moms also run out of sharp crayons, filler paper, notebooks and scissors (anyone here actually remember where their scissors are?) by mid year. Spend a little extra money now and stock up on supplies to last you through the entire school year.
2.Buy Quality Pencils
The one item that I purchase for full price when it comes to school supplies is Dixon Ticonderoga pencils. The cheap 5 cent ones you can get during back-to-school sales will end up costing you more heartache than anything else as the leads break easily and you have to sharpen them constantly. The Dixon pencils are quality and will preserve your sanity – a must during back to school!
3.Color Coordinate
In our house, each child has his or her own color. It makes life so much easier! The red backpack, lunch box, pencil box, folders and notebooks belong to one child, while the blue belong to another. Now when someone leaves their notebook in the middle of the floor after school, I don’t have to dig around to try to figure out whose it is!
This color system also works very well when listing after school activities on a calendar. Blue marker for my son’s activities, red for my daughters.
4.Butter Up the Teacher
Remember all those cheap school supplies you got? Well, with the economy as it currently is, more and more parents are not providing what their children need to be successful in school. Usually, it is the teachers that end up picking up the slack, at a great expense to their already tight funds. Consider donating extra supplies to your child’s teacher directly.
Also, since I am able to get such great deals on supplies and save so much money on food on a monthly basis, I try to give back by helping financially with field trips. Whenever the kids bring a permission slip home for a field trip requiring money (usually $3-6) I always double the money so that another child (and there is always at least one) who has returned the permission slip but not the fee can attend.
I also make it a point to meet my children’s teachers the first day of school (at the latest) and stress that I am available for help in any way they might need, whether that is bringing in snacks for a party or chaperoning a field trip. Involvement is key.
5.School Food
We pack our lunches and snacks instead of purchasing them from school. Sunday is our preparedness day, as we bake cookies and other treats to last the week (well, sometimes they get gobbled up early; we’ve learned to hide things from Daddy!) We also prewash, peel, and cut up veggies and put them into sandwich baggies for the week, such as carrots and celery. For dip, we bought Tupperware smidgets (small containers) off eBay that work perfectly. Juice boxes are stored in the freezer to keep lunch (and juice) cool until lunchtime everyday.
We also take a few minutes on Sunday to menu plan our dinners and after school snacks. This helps tremendously as once school gets back in session, it gets hectic – FAST!
6.Money Management for Teens
The tips above work great for elementary, but what about teenagers? There is a whole different set of rules when it comes to teens! First, they should be given control over some of their own finances. Back to school shopping is a wonderful opportunity to begin this education.
With teens, it is helpful to give them a list of what they need (clothes, shoes, supplies) and a budgeted amount of money that should cover those supplies. The rules are simple: buy what is on the list, and if there is any excess money, it is theirs to keep. Teens not too much interested in frugality suddenly become deal divas!
To extend this responsibility, offer to give your teen each month the amount of money you would pay for school lunches on a daily basis. Your teen has the option of buying school lunch or using the cash to buy food at the store to take a sack lunch, and pocketing the difference. The rule here is that lunch must be eaten. Your teen will surprise you!
Hopefully these back to school tips will get you off to a great school year! Enjoy!
Organization is the best because you have to know what you need for school. Whether it’s: textbooks, folders, tablets, pens, pencils, paper, backpack, and binders, they’re all the basic necesities. One major part is the first day of school. If it’s a child, they’ll need their bag with the essentials and lunch (if they take lunck). If it’s a teenager, they’ll need just paper and a tablet. And the most important is a high school student, on the first day at most schools, you must have your textbooks and essentials or you will fall back on your classwork on the first day.
The next step is lunches, whether you’re buying or bringing your lunch, know where it is, how much, and the best place and time to get it.
Step 3 is transportation, are you going to ride the bus, what time do you have to get up and get ready, what time do the bus come, where will the bus stop be. If you’re driving or being driven, DISREGARD that.
And the last and most important of them all when it’s back to school. The meeting of friends, old and new.”I wonder what classes they’re in, Maybe we’re in the same class or locker buddies.”
Just like when I plan meals at home, I try to plan around the fruits and vegtables. This tends to create healthier meals rather than starting from the meat.
For example, if my daughter wants grapes and tomatoes for lunch- yes insanely enough she loves these two things – together!
I could throw in a whole wheat english muffin, slice of mozzarella cheese, sliced tomaote and grapes. She has a healthy and filling lunch and got exactly what she wanted!!
We start by going to bed earlier the week before school starts. That way we’re already into the routine and adjusting our sleep habits. We also have specific “landing spots” for everything when the kids get home: backpacks, lunchboxes, even notes from the teachers. This way nothing gets lost, and we eliminate mad scrambles in the morning looking for that all-important paper.
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