Try Not To Stab Anyone With Fiskar Scissors

I always keep the receipts of everything I buy (think donate) that goes to our children's school. Back to school stuff, cost of tickets for plays and anything else. Then I count it as a donation on our taxes. Our kids go to a private Christian school and not only are we paying tuition, individual and "community supplies," but we also have minimum volunteer time that is a montly requirement. It probably isn't legal, but until I am told not to, I am considering supplies a donation, not a requirement!

Ah, the school supply lists, how quickly they grow up and yearly school supplies pale in comparison to gas and insurance.... it's alwats something ;o)

The 'tax free' made me curious so I did some poking around and discovered it is not all that easy to find. Closest place to me would be New Mexico, two states away....

http://singleparents.about.com/od/cuttingcosts/qt/TaxFreeHoliday.htm

I miss back to school shopping. In college, you can just bring your laptop and you're set. I love lists and picking my stuff out of bins. True, I never paid for any of it, and Walmart is a hell hole, but still.

I don't recall any sort of tax free weekends in Illinois! Wow.

I LOVE this blog.
1. Shop early if you can. The money you save by waiting for the tax-free weekend is nothing compared to the bail money it will cost after you beat someone’s ass in Walmart.

There has never been a truer statement. (Yes I know truer isn't really a word, but I like it anyway.)

So damn true Nina.
1st off Florida has NO back to school tax free "holiday" this year. For the 1st time in I don't know how many years!
2nd our school doesn't give us a supply list until the kids actually go back to school... the teacher's send them home with the kids on the 1st day. I will go check the school website now though, just in case... but I highly doubt it.
3rd... I'm glad I'm not the only one who popped a vein when I found out that most of the supplies I bought for my children were "community". That ishh pissed me off when I 1st found out! I had never heard of such a thing!!

Last year.. I did most of my B2S shopping at Walgreens... They had this HUGE sale... I mean reams of paper for $.10... folders for 2cents... a pack of 12 pencils for a quarter... Plus they had those coupons in the circular which gave even more off the total order. It was AWESOME. I hope they do it again this year... I've been hawking the ad circulars!

When does Kali go back? Mine start Aug 25th.

Buying school supplies every year....reason 2345 for me NOT to have kids!!! LOL

AND...you REALLY have to work to stab someone with those scissors....not that I know or anything!!!!

I spend WAY more each year then I'm allowed to write off on my taxes. On top of the money I spend to get my kids ready, I then spend the money to get my classroom ready. I typically dump $300 bucks at Staples before the first day. Then I replenish throughout the year.

I don't fund raise for the schools, but I will write a check directly to the PTA. I also send double in when it's time for field trips so that ALL the kids can go.

You pay one way or the other - either at the store, or with higher taxes.

...and if you think public schools are bad, you should see what they expect at the private schools. That always burned me more because I was paying through the nose for tuition. Hello? Just raise the damned tuition and stop nickel and diming me to death.

I shopped early. Between CVS (Extra Care Bucks) and Staples (free backpack) I got most of what the kids needed for damn cheap or FREE. And, I didn't have to worry about that last minute back to school dash. My daughters school sent her supply list with her report card at the end of the year. My sons school won't tell me what he needs until he goes back, then each teacher hands out lists. But I got the basics. Notebooks, folders, pens & pencils. In total for all their stuff I spent around $20.

Oh and don't get me started on the "extra" stuff. Dry erase markers are for who ? I also had to buy her a flash drive. Seriously ?

Supplying things like copy paper is counter productive. You can't complain to the city/Bd of Ed that you need the supplies, and have them pay you any mind, if the work keeps getting done.
We went through a period in the early 90's when we just didn't have decent working typewriters. Detectives started buying their own typewriters because we had a lot of typing to do every day. The union pointed out that as long as the job was getting their paperwork it seemed that we were exaggerating the problem. As soon as we stopped using our own equipment and the paperwork slowed down we found ourselves drowning in new word processors. We had new machines on nearly every desk and more stored on top of file cabinets. So much so that by the time we started opening those, more that a year later, we found some of them to be defective, but they were now off warranty.

Fortunately, there are no shared supplies at my daughter's school. There were bins for scissors and glue thats it. I also labeled all her stuff with big black letters, cus I bought her the good stuff and wasn't up for that sharing crap.

I was a little confused on why we had to furnish some of the supplies such as copy paper, ziplock bags, and coffee filters. Come to find out it was for snacks at snack time (She was in Kindergarten last year).

Now, I'm one of those moms who loves to participate in school functions and make things for the parties and whatnot. But I got so annoyed with having to send in snacks once a month for snacktime. I don't know why I guess because I was actively participating I felt it was a little much. Especially when I knew there were parents who weren't doing anything.

At the time it was just the 3 kids and we manage well, but I can only imagine what this year will bring with having 4 little people running around. Though only 2 will be in school this year. But hey daycare is another expense that is not cheap at all.

where the hell do you people live? I mean, I know public school is state-funded but seriously, the teachers pay for supplies out of their own pockets? Parents furnish the classroom? Twilight zone shit here. Our schools always had supply rooms; the most insulting thing on that list was reams of copy paper, someone has got to be kidding me here.

I was an elementary school student in the frickin REAGAN era and even then the school supplied scissors, glue, calculators etcetera. When I got to middle and high school there were computer labs and eventually laptops you could check out and take home. I went to a public school in a medium-sized city, thought this was normal.

"1. Shop early if you can. The money you save by waiting for the tax-free weekend is nothing compared to the bail money it will cost after you beat someone’s ass in Walmart."

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!! And this, dear people, is why I love me some Nina, hahaha!

I always refused to let the things I bought go into a shared bin. I'm a single mother of one on a budget and I managed to buy supplies. Its not really fair that I also have to buy supplies because someone else WONT. Don't even get me started.
Thankfully he's a junior this year (gasp) so there are no shared supplies or i'd be still throwing fits!
Happy Birthday Jack!

My Grandmother used to get my stuff and when I would come home with the supply list she would throw it away...

"You can write on the paper I bought you and with the pencils I bought you, what the hell is the difference?"

We never really had transportation so once the shopping was done...it was done.

She went at it with a teacher that insisted she would lower my grade everytime I wrote my notes in a binder instead of a notebook. Grandma told her exactly where she can put that notebook :)

She never lowered my grade but I always got stuck with the left handed scissors :-/

We didn't have that sharing supply rule so everything the students had were for themselves, not the whole class. So I can't see a teacher getting all upity about what type of paper you're writing on or how many brown crayons were in your pencil box.

"The money you save by waiting for the tax-free weekend is nothing compared to the bail money it will cost after you beat someone’s ass in Walmart. "

LMAO

Oh and at the end of the year, do your kids generally get some of the stuff back? Like scissors or pencil boxes and more permanent things? I resend those if they are in good shape.

Waiting for the list in the mail. I really wish they gave it out at the begining of summer, there have been so many deals. I don't mind supplying the tissues, or some other things like that, which may make the teachers life a bit easier. It would be nice to spread it out through the year, but maybe that's what the teacher has experienced, that parents are more likely to help or they can grab the parents at the begining of the year. I know my 1st grader last year was always late giving notices for class projects and stuff, and I am sure the teacher put out of pocket for some of that stuff. When I saw her, she would ask if I had this or that already (one being a plumbing joint that I just happened to have a few of, they used for a reading exercise), or empty jugs or buttons and stuff. My husband puts his money in some classroom things even teaching high school. It is a bit much though to ask the parents to buy the red pens for the teacher. One thing though knowing my husband is a teacher I wondered is why can't a teacher ask for such and such a dollar amount, and then buy them at a discounted place for teachers such as staples? It would be cheaper for everyone in the long run, and the teacher would get exactly what they needed. I know the problem there though, people would be complaining that the teacher would pocket some of the money or just the fact the teacher was asking for money.

See.. This is why we buy the prepackaged school supplies directly from the school. They have them for sale on Meet The Teacher night and we buy them and leave them right in the classroom. The kids never even have to carry them to school. It's a little pricier that way but my sanity is so worth it...

I always loved getting school supplies. However, I never really got the whole list you need for school till the first day. So I would get the things I KNEW I needed during sale times and then on the first day, I'd doublecheck with what I bought to see if I missed something. AND of course, I always did because it was something completely random that the teacher wanted that wasn't something I would usually have to look @. I think the one thing I love about college is that I know what I need and have to get and dont have to worry about getting certain supplies. All I need to worry about are textbooks and because CUNY is full of slackers, I have to wait till the first day anyway.

I cant wait to get to school. I want to change my current routine already!

Poor Tru.
By the time he started school I refused to buy MOST of the items on his school supply list.
I told the teacher that somewhere in that big ass box on each table were his big brother and big sisters
scissors, crayons, markers and ruler

I also refuse to buy hand sanitizer or Kleenex.
My kids are equipped with travel baby wipes (kids with eczema can not use sanitizer) and travel packs of wipes. Yeah the travel packs of Kleenex are more expensive but it really burns my ass to furnish stuff for the entire classroom that my kid will never use.

If anything funny sounding is on the list I ask the teacher why it is there. Budget problems are not MY problem I pay my taxes every year.

Single mom 3 kids I am a cheap bitch this time of year.

In defense of the odd list of items for school, it is an unfortunate truth that school budgets have been hit hard for years, and once they get the parents to pay for things (I paid for the school's Kleenex and such even as far back as 1984), they immediately wipe that line item off the budget for subsequent years.

Historically, though, teachers have paid through the nose with what little they had for a salary for everything from Kleenex to composition books to pencils to pens to bandaids, you name it, since the 19th Century. I remember mine did. I also remember my parents supporting each one of my sisters' and my classrooms every year with donations to those causes, anonymously.

Come to think of it, I think I'll do that after I move.

I'm with you on no liking other people's kids... especially in Walmart!