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Wow! My senior mom and I were in Walmart last week and discovered they were busy putting up back-to-school supplies and banners, including their wonderfully discounted crayons and markers.
Somewhat sadly, I passed on the 25 cent crayons and really cheap markers, choosing instead the washable markers. Happily they were discounted as well – $2 for the packages I picked instead of the normal $3 +.
As a member of the Baby Boomer Generation, I have fond memories of these sales, except that they used to be at the end of August. That’s “back in the day” when all schools were on a traditional schedule. Now that many are year round, the sales start sooner and last longer. The only problem is for those of us still on traditional schedules is that we might not realize the sales have started already and miss out on some great deals. So, for all of you in that situation, it’s a great time to start watching for the weekly hot deals and stock up for the year. I’m especially hoping to find dry erase markers on sale. Those things are so pricy and a couple of my grandkids use them regularly for school. Of course, those in homeschooling programs tend to use these supplies all year, but we still stock up at this time of year to get the most bang for our buck.
For that matter, even you grandparents who don’t do much about school supplies might want to take a quick peek at the sales. It’s always fun for the grandkids to visit grandma and grandpa and find lots of cool drawing supplies! As I’ve written before, I highly recommend having a couple of project centers if you have the room, to keep our visiting grandkids’ hands and brains happily active.
Don’t forget the long distance grandkids. One of our favorite ways to save money is to stock up on writing materials for all the letters, cards, and notes to each of them. I have to confess, I tend to follow the email route for the most part. My senior mom, on the other hand, loves to write all her grandkids often so she really appreciates these great savings on her fixed income. It’s also a great opportunity to send an “I’m thinking of you” gift to our aging parents. A nice package full of pens, pencils, erasers, and maybe even some Forever Stamps helps out their budget and gives them a warm fuzzy feeling to know you are thinking of them.
It may be earlier than my youth, but back-to-school season will continue to be one of my favorite seasons for all these reasons and more! Don’t wait too long to have fun yourself. 🙂
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Very cool idea! Thank you for the suggestion. 🙂
Yes, the back-to-school sales dates can take customers by surprise. Most schools in Michigan do not start classes until right after Labor Day, but the school supply promotions started right after July 4.
In the meantime, here’s another craft supply tip for grandparents: if there is a newspaper printing site near you, ask how to acquire the “end rolls” of newsprint. It’s becoming more common for newspapers to contract to printing sites out of town, but if you still have a locally printed newspaper you can ask for the newsprint rolls that are too small to load onto the press. There will probably be a nominal fee, but you’ll get a heck of a lot of craft paper for the trouble.