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7 Ways To Save On Back To School Expenses

August 18, 2019 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

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7 easy ways to save on back to school expenses for your kids.

7 Ways to Save Money On Back TO School

Getting kids back to school ready can cost a pretty penny.

In order to keep these expenses under control, there are several easy ways to save money. These 7 ways to save on back to school expenses will lessen that back to school burden that can occur if spending gets out of control.

And with all that extra money you are saving, you will have a little leftover to show those teacher’s how much you appreciate them!

Our “Back to the Grind” coffee gift and the “Back to School would be totally Nuts without you” are two of our favorite gifts that are cute and inexpensive!

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

7 Ways to Save on Back To School Expenses

Check out these 7 ways to save on Back To School expenses and still has your kids ready and prepared for their first day.

Shop Tax Free

Many states do a tax free weekend a week or two before school starts.

This is a great way to save some extra cash on any items that you need to buy. It is especially beneficial if you have a big ticket item like a fancy calculator or a computer that you need to purchase.

Check the parameters of your state’s program, some allow more than others to qualify for the tax free exemption.

Evaluate Real Clothing Needs

The start of a new school year practically screams for you to buy your kids a new wardrobe.

But you certainly don’t have to! If you live anywhere like us, it is still in the mid to upper 90’s when school starts in August.

So summer clothes are pretty much a must. I know kids grow so fast and you need a new set of clothes almost every season for a while. But those summer clothes I bought in April or May still fit.

You may end up needing to buy some fall clothes but you can probably wait a month or two before incurring that expense.

Buy Used Clothing

There are tons of places that you can buy really high quality used children’s clothing very inexpensively.

If you don’t know about and use BST groups on Facebook, you are overspending.

Have brand specific kids that will only wear XYZ Brand? I bet they have a BST group for it.

I love putting my kids in brands like Mini Boden, Hanna Andersson, Polo and of course smocked dresses for the girlie. I wouldn’t dream of paying full price for these but I can often find very gently used for about Target prices.

I explain all the ins and outs of Buy, Sell, Trade here. This is not your neighborhood yard sale site. It ships to your door and it is amazing.

Almost Amazon good. Almost.

You can also search your local goodwill or consignment shop if you like the old fashion thrill of the hunt.

Reuse Backpack / Lunchbox

Especially if your kids are a little older and out of the character backpack phase, you could reuse the same backpack or lunch box for a second year.

Or since I still have some little’s at home, it is very reasonable to reuse my son’s paw patrol backpack for a second year of MDO. They hardly use those anyway!

The savings on this can really add up.

Pack Lunches

Depending on how much lunches cost at your school and the extras that they buy, you could easily spend $500-$700 a year on lunch.

Not to mention that they may only eat the unhealthy options and it will be hard to know.

Brown bagging their lunch fare can be a really easy way to save money.

I also love that it helps to teach responsibility and independence if you involve them in making the lunch. My kindergartener enjoys helping!

Here are lots of school lunch ideas that I send to school often. And bonus, they are peanut free, just in case your school or an allergy requires that.

These are some of my favorite Lunchbox helpers to make packing lunch a breeze.

I have been using this stuff for about three years now with no need to replace! It is all top notch quality. You won’t have to replace these as often, therefore, saving money. 

Save 5% at Target

If you use your Target REDCard debut, you will save 5% on your entire purchase.

Combine this with school supply sales and cartwheel coupons and the savings can be pretty substantial.

Use Earned Giftcards to Help With Expenses

Earning gift cards in your spare time can be a great way to offset the cost of starting back to school.

I have been using Swagbucks for years as an easy way to collect points that can be exchanged for gift cards to use for birthdays, back to school or Christmas gifts.

You can do some tasks like answering survey or polls or watching videos to earn points.

My favorite way is simply using their search engine to earn points. I set the Swagbucks homepage as my default web browser.

By searching as usual at home and at work, I typically get enough point to get around $100 to $150 in gift cards a year.

It might not be life changing but it can definitely help with incremental expenses!

Sign up for Swagbucks here if you don’t have an account!

I hope these 7 ways to save on back to school expenses helps you this year to save and keep more of your hard earned money in your pocket!

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