Oh. My. Word. Who knew that buying school supplies could be such a beat down! I had this vision that Baby #1 and I would go to Walmart with his school list and we’d waltz up and down the aisles finding everything we need in one store.
Not so much.
Thanks to Hubs getting jury duty and getting half a day off from work I did have a chance to take Baby #1 to Walmart just the two of us. That’s where the fantasy ends. I was so consumed with getting exactly what the list said and was so overwhelmed by ALL OF THE SCHOOL SUPPLIES I could barely keep my head on straight.
And let me just take a minute to get on my soap box to say how annoying it is that I can buy a box of 24 crayons for 25 cents, but the 8 pack of crayons (which I had to get 6 packs of) cost 78 cents! That totally annoyed me.
Anywho I left Walmart with 4 things left on my list of 16 that I still needed to get. No problem right?
Wrong
5 stores after Walmart I finally have everything.
Six stores people- it took me six stores to get it all!
The bad thing is I was so beat down by this whole process that by the time I got to store #6 and still couldn’t find a 50 pack up white construction paper I had to settle for a 200 pack of drawing paper. Now I have to decide if I’m going to be the cheap parent that opens the pack and pulls out the 150 sheets that he doesn’t need, but we would use here (Baby #2 loves to draw and goes through a lot of paper).
So I now have all 16 items- including the elusive 1 1/2 inch green heavy poly binder (we found it on store #4). It’s technically not a heavy binder, but it is green and poly and 1 1/2 inches so I figure three out of four will have to be good enough. I even got an extra one to put on the school supply black market since the store was running low on them.
When we got everything we needed today (I had to hit 4 of the stores with all three kids in tow) we hit happy hour at Sonic. I really needed something stronger than what Sonic was serving at this point, but a diet cherry coke had to suffice.
The kids got slushes and I decided to lie down and read a book while they had snack at the kitchen table. They were being so quiet I knew that something was up.
And I was right.
They made “slurpie nachos” (everything slushie related is a slurpie in our house).
I guess 3:30 is a bit too early to call that dinner.
When Candace isn’t running around town looking for school supplies she blogs at Mama Mia.
I got smart last year and ordered the PTA pre-packed kit from the school. Worth every single penny!
I buy what I can find. If the paper is the wrong size I know it will still get used. We needed 100 page notebooks and I could only find 70 page at Target. So that’s what I got. Since my kids bring home unused notebooks every year I don’t feel too bad.
Jamie–each grade at our school has a workroom where they can keep extra supplies. So that paper goes somewhere! 😉
I’m boycotting buying school supplies this year.
Or am I really?
Guess you’ll never know.
Every year I have a rant (or two) on my blog about the endless list of school supplies. It is INSANE. I have to say, it does not start the teachers and the parents off on the right foot for the beginning of the school year! My opinion only.
haha and the worst part is… the teacher doesn’t even want most of that!
Plus… the random stuff you found that isn’t exactly right (the drawing paper for construction paper, etc.)… they’d rather you leave that home because they don’t have anywhere to store it!
School supply shopping is so ridiculous… they should just tell all parents to send in 25 bucks and let the teachers buy what they need for the year…
So funny. And that last picture just makes my stomach churn…ewwww!
OK…the Goldfish in the slushee looks nasty! hahhahaha!
We are homeschoolers, and I taught 1st grade, and BOY do I feel bad for what I put those parents through. Granted, I wasn’t responsible for making the supply list, but really? some of those things are horribly picky. Glad you finally found what you needed…after SIX stops…sheesh.