School Clothes Shopping

I am not a fan of shopping. It wears me out, and isn't much fun. I usually know just what I want, get it, and leave! But school shopping is not always easy. But I have found out how to make it fun for me......find awesome deals! I get such a rush off of saving money! I tend to buy things all year long when I find them on sale. My favorite places for clearance items are ShopKo and Target. Mervyns used to be my absolute fave, too bad they went out of business!

Anyhow, My daughter is in year round school and starts first grade on Tuesday, so I needed a few more things to finish things up. My son will be starting his second year of preschool in September. My daughter needed some long shorts, which are very hard to come by, but short shorts do not work in school, and I am trying to teach her some modesty while she is young. *wink* I also had lots of long sleeved shirts, but not too many short sleeved ones. So today we headed off to some not so local outlets to finish up.

I came back quite proud of myself. Then I grabbed what I already had in the closet for each of them, and well... it was a lot more than I thought, especially for my daughter! She is set for the year (well, besides her constantly growing out of shoes)!! My son did not need quite as many things, because he only has school a few times a week, and he also recently received a HUGE amount of barely used hand me downs from a family friend.

Anyhow, I thought I would share my spoils!!

This is my son's stash


This includes
(3) long sleeved shirts
(6) short sleeved shirts
(2) pairs of pants (jeans and athletic)
Reversible coat
Hoodie
Pajamas

14 items pictured. This does not include 2 pairs of shorts and 2 more short sleeved shirts he got early because he was low on summer things.

The retail item for all the above was: $217.91
The grand total I paid for all of the above: $67.71!!!

14 things (including a reversible winter coat) for under $70! Yehaw!!


My daughter is going to look quite spoiled now, but anyone that has kids knows that the older the get, the harder their clothes get worn. I always thought it was the opposite, that they got older and took care of things better, but not what I have found to be true. We also receive less and less hand me downs these days (though I recently got quite the stash from her 11 year old aunt!)

Here is my daughter's take:


(had to break it into two shots so you could see it better)



Her loot included:
(10) short sleeved shirts
(6) long sleeved shirts
(4) under skirt leggings
(3) pair of shorts
(2) pairs of jeans
Jacket
Pajamas

so 27 items.

The retail on her clothing: $406.78
The grand total I paid: $157.65!!!

I got 27 items (maybe 28 if you count the removable vest that can be worn with other things) for about $150 smackers!

The leggings were the only things that were not on clearance, so they ran the price up a bit, at $9 each, which seems crazy to me for stretchy cotton stuff, but my daughter LOVES to wear skirts, and wearing skirts to school and also loving the monkey bars is not always a good combination, so leggings are a requirement! And she wore the ones we bought last year a ton, so a good investment nonetheless!

I did not pay over $10 for anything pictured above, I even paid $1.48 for one shirt, and a few others were under $3 each. We bought things from Old Navy, The Children's Place, Osh Kosh, Target, and ShopKo.

I do have to say that boys items are much harder to find on clearance. The racks tend to have a lot less on them, and finding clearance items in the size you need is not always easy. It is easier now that my kids are a bit older, because I can usually guesstimate fairly well what size they will be for what season and what not.

I now have a headache from all this math, but the high of getting a great deal is still lingering, and probably will continue to do so as I see them wearing all the cute and cool stuff we got!