The Best Ways to Save on Back to School Shopping

I know, school just let out and here I am talking about back to school shopping already. The truth is these next couple of months are going to fly by and when September comes knocking you’re going to be scrambling to get all of those back to school necessities.

You can avoid the craziness (and overspending) that back to school shopping causes if you start now!

Here are some of the best ways to save money on back to school shopping.

Clothes

Clothes are one of the biggest budget killers when it comes to back to school shopping. Instead of feeling drained after replenishing your kid’s closets here are some things you can do right now.

Raise Clothes Money By Selling Old Clothes- This little tip is simple enough but is often overlooked. You can hold a yard sale this summer (Around July 4^th and Labor Day always do great in my area) sell all of your children’s old clothes and then use the proceeds to purchase new school clothing.

If you don’t want to have a traditional yard sale then try selling on Facebook Yard Sales.

Buy Secondhand Clothes – Next, to make the money you just earned stretch a little further you can buy quality used clothes for back to school. With online consignment shops like ThredUp and LikeTwice it’s completely possible to spend half of what you normally do on back to school shopping and get clothes that are twice as nice.

In addition to utilizing online consignment shops you should also hit up some yard sales for maximum impact.

Shoes

Shoes are one thing that I have a hard time finding used. Kids can really wear down a pair of shoes so the quality of secondhand doesn’t normally make the cut.

Here are some of the best strategies for buying shoes for back to school.

Wait for Back to School Sales: Start watching the sales when back to school starts being heavily promoted. If you take note of sales instead of jumping on the first offer you can get pretty good deals.

Shop Through a Cashback Site: Did you know that cashback sites like TopCashback offer up to 8.5% rebates to places like Amazon? That’s like an instant 8.5% off and something that you should definitely be taking advantage of!

Buy Off Season for Teenagers – If you have a teenager who has went through most of his growth spurts then go ahead and buy things like winter boots and sandals on the off seasons. Unfortunately this is hard to do for growing little ones.

School Supplies

While school supplies aren’t as expensive as clothes it seems like the supply list is never-ending. (Or at least it was for my Kindergartener last year!)

Here’s how to save on school supplies.

Stock Up While Back to School Sales Run: School supplies are insanely cheap around back to school time. With some smart planning you can even snag free school supplies by using coupons with sales at places like K-Mart, CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens.

Since kids normally end up using way more supplies than what’s initially on their back to school lists it’s a wise idea to go ahead and stock up on as much (or even a little more) as you anticipate your child using.

Map Out Your Plan Now

If you take the time to map out a back to school plan now and strategically start purchasing the items you’re going to need you can save a boat load of money.

You can take this even farther by picking up one of these work from home jobs for a little while or taking advantage of sites like Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars.

How far ahead do you start planning back to school shopping?