Tonight, we meet the boys’ teachers. As my 8yo says, “Meet the Teacher Night is just a cruel reminder that school is about to start.”
So, today we’ve been busy labeling and packing school supplies into backpacks. We also made one last trip to the store for the last few items we’d missed.
School supplies are a struggle for me. There is just something about 30 cent bottles of glue and 25 cent boxes of crayons that make you think you need to buy a box for everyone you’ve ever known. (And everyone you might ever meet.)
But, at the risk of being hauled away to the loony-bin, I talked myself out of over-buying this year. I did my best to keep my lips from moving while I stared at, walked away from, returned to, and stared again at bin after bin of irresistible deals.
I think that my resolve has been greatly strengthened by all of my decluttering in the past year. I have unearthed so many places where I had squirreled away extra scissors, crayons, markers, and paper that I hadn’t resisted in years past. I may have had noble intentions to donate them, but the fact was that they had been forgotten and had morphed into clutter.
Another thing that I find hard to resist during Back to School time is the desire to re-buy things that could be used again. For some reason, it seems okay to buy a new backpack, new pencil-box, new scissors, new ruler, etc. . . . even though the ones from last year are in perfectly good shape – and are already labeled!
Like everything else in life, there’s balance. I emphasize to my kids how important good behavior and combed hair is on the first day of school (and every day). First impressions, while not always fair, are a real part of life. When you have the opportunity to control them, you should. When a teacher sees that you took the time to comb your hair in the morning before school, she also sees that you take school seriously. You didn’t just roll out of bed and stumble into school with your hair sticking up on one side and dried-up drool on your face.
Along these lines, it’s important to start school with shoes that don’t have holes in them. Not because we should judge anyone whose shoes do have holes, but because we want to show our teachers that we take school seriously and have spent time preparing for it.
But somehow, this also seems to transfer into feeling like we need to buy a new pencil box when our old one looks just as good as it did last year . . . when it was new. And why can’t you use a ruler for more than one year?
While I do want the first day of school to be exciting for its newness and freshness, I have to teach my kids the thing that I am also struggling to learn. Spending money to buy something that I don’t need, no matter how great of a deal it is, is ultimately a waste of our money, our space, and Mommy’s sanity.
So this year, I did much better than I have in the past few years, taking the time to find and take stock of the things we could use again, and only buying what we really needed. And it turns out that even though I was resisting “unbeatable” sales, I actually spent LESS than I used to.
Duh.
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OK, I’m hoping that this post is more coherent than I’m feeling right now. While shopping for those last few school supplies, I let the kids pool their saved money and buy Wipeout
When I was a school girl, lo those many years ago, I loved buying school supplies. Now that I'm fifty-something, I still indulge.
Every year in August, I go to the store and buy a set of school supplies, including whatever backpack I would have loved when I was a kid. I pick out a lunch box with a water bottle. I get the pens, pencils, notebooks, and the other things on fourth grade list. I look for the sparkly stuff that would have made me tingle with delight.
Then, I take it to the local center that provides for the disadvantaged and donate it.
Somewhere in town is a girl who is starting fourth grade with neat things she wouldn't have had otherwise.
And I get all the good feelings in the world. I got to shop and make a little girl happy.
i love this idea…..i buy for the shoeboxes at this time of year..
I buy for the shoeboxes too. I get enough for half a shoebox, but I only have a 50/50 chance of getting the other half filled, since it’s always so busy in November.
Love it, Hypnobarb! I hope to someday get to the point where I can load up on all of those extras, and actually trust myself to get them straight to the donation point!
I have to say this is the 1st year that I only bought 2 extra items that are not in a backpack ready to go to school. I somehow got sucked into 2 'free after rebate' items. Anyway, I am using many items from last year AND many items that I have over bought in the last few years. Then a fellow over buyer and I traded a few supplies that each had/needed and so got to lessen the stockpile even more. I have to say it was a good year for minimal school supply shopping! I am patting myself on the back.
Oh, I love your honesty- getting right to the point. Move over, is there room in that boat for me?- because I am a fellow buyer of extra supplies when they are so cheap.
In fact, I love office supply stores or the school/office aisle at Walmart. Love it, love it. Maybe that's how I became a teacher- loved the equipment! No, not really- loved those kids, too!
Thanks for your posting about your journey. It encourages us all.:)
Linda C
Go Anon! Love the trading idea! I did come to the rescue of someone who couldn't find construction paper today!
Linda, come on in! I understand . . . what is it about those office supply stores that is so fascinating?
Nony I'm with you sister!
When my children were really small and I was just barely coming to terms with the slob thing – I over bought SO MUCH that my kids [now the biggest is 12!] are STILL using some of it.
I tried VERY hard not to go nuts this year – I did buy an enormous notebook supply because we were finally OUT and they are a big writing supply for them at home too – but they already have a home in their specific spot.
However with three huge lists I barely had to buy anything – we shopped last night and I spent so little it was unbelievable – all because I have too much already.
I've also outfitted the little one's daisy troop with supplies for two years already without noticing the lack ;p
I resisted the sales pretty well this year – I'm proud of myself!
This is super old but I wanted to comment anyway. First of all, I think I like this blog twice as much whenever you say things like, ” Not that I’m complaining, because next week when the house is unnaturally quiet, I know I’ll miss them,” or that you look forward to spending the summer with your kids. Way too many people I’ve seen look SO forward to the time they don’t have to deal with there own children for seven hours a day. They celebrate, and I can’t imagine how their kids feel. It’s more than just wanting a little sanity break too. Maybe you’ve seen this. I love seeing how you treasure time with them. Now, the main reason I posted here is to say that I’m tempted to buy school supplies anytime, sale or otherwise. I just love any stationery or office supplies, and I’m not even in high school anymore! Most of the time I’m contented to just look, though. 🙂
I decluttered my kids’ bedrooms recently (a hellish job because I hadn’t done it in, like, forever…) and I found a GAZILLION pencil cases and stationery supplies. Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but the boys had about 10 pencil cases between them and oodles of pencils, textas, rulers etc. etc. AND this doesn’t include all the stuff I bought them THIS year (our school year started at the end of January) which was on the book list (and which they obviously didn’t need most of). I decided then and there that I will never purchase my kids another coloured pencil! (No, really, they’ve got enough to see them through the remainder of their schooling, especially as they get older and use fewer coloured pencils in class).
I love stationery myself, and I love looking at it, and I love buying it… but after going through all our stuff I’ve realised it will be another few years before I will ever have to buy another pen. AND I still have most of the pencils I got in a big set when I was in school (over 20 years ago), and I even have a retractable pencil that my parents bought me in 1981, when I was 7 or 8! So really, I also never need to buy any… and yet…
OH MY GOODNESS!!! This is so ME!!!!
yep me too…the guy at staples says he laughs every fall..it is like watching kids in a candy store every fall with some of the moms..lol
I ove school supplies, and feel like I over buy every year, but we homeschool and the kids and their friends have total access to the supply cabinet. They make so much cool stuff that I am glad I stock up every year when it is so cheap!
Oh Nony, you hit the nail on the head! As an elementary school teacher in a CA public school, I absolutely go bananas when the school supplies go on sale! You’d think I teach 200 students by the amount of supplies I grab, rather than the 24 that are assigned to me. How can anybody resist $0.25 Crayola crayons? As a fellow slob with hoarding tendencies (and add ADHD to that profile), I’m overwhelmed by the quantity of school supplies that I bring into my classroom every September. Due to budget cuts in CA, teachers often purchase supplies for our students, and since I work in a low socio-economic area, I want my new students to begin the school year with new things. Now, if I could just limit myself to buying only one item per student (do they really all need extra erasers, pencils, rulers, etc.?). My slobified mind thinks they do! Oh well, at least I’m helping the economy!! Good luck on a successful school year for your kids and for you!
I am a former teacher, who can’t resist new crayons, and notebooks either. I even treat myself to a new coloring book every Aug. to match my new crayons! lol
Today I put staples in the stapler for my 4 year old who just discovered the wonders of stapling. And let him use as many as he wanted. After all, the staples I put in were part of a high school graduation gift I received 21 years ago…an enormous box of office/school supplies from my aunts. I come by it naturally, LOL.
I just counted. I still have 19 spiral notebooks and 31 two pocket folders. And my kids are done with school. I think I bought them for about 5 cents each.
Oh my! This is SO me. There are so many great bargains on school supplies in late summer. “I have grandkids”, I reason. But I have much much more than I need. I already bought some this year, but this post I hope can help me stop and assess!
So very much later, I had to laugh. Mine graduated I high school in 2014 (so ages after you wrote this). I sent them off to college with soooooo so many office supplies from my stash. I then decided to not let myself buy ANYTHING office/school supply related unless I had run out of everything that could be used for it (so I could replenish post it’s when I ran out of sticky notes but not pencils until I ran out of pencils).
Uhm, I cannot yet buy pencils. And I just, 10 years later, bought new dry erase markers (I did make myself use up the wet erase)