Stock up at Back To School Time

I used to work in a daycare, and at back to school sale time, I stocked up on items I would need for the daycare for the year (scissors, colored pencils, markers, etc.). For example, I would buy a case of Crayola 24 pack crayons and ten boxes of the 64 pack - that way, when our crayon tubs ran low, I would throw in a couple of 24 packs to keep up the most used colors and occasionally put in the 64 pack to replace the rest. It was a real budget help. Now some people would wonder why I didn't buy cheaper crayons. We did try the cheaper ones, but these tiny, waxy particles would fall off the paper when the kids were done coloring.

The "crayon shrapnel"; stuck everywhere, and we had to do much more cleaning. The extra crayon expense saved us in cleaner!

I am a college student (a mom who went back to school when her kids were older), so I am always needing to pinch pennies. When the stores have their back to school sales (and especially their clearance sales after school starts), I still stock up on thing I know I'll need. Staples has an AWESOME clearance table all year long - we have found some really good snags there!

By Marie from Idaho Falls, ID