My oldest daughter is just starting Kindergarten this year and I'm thankful to be staring at the face of such a small supply list.  I know this won't always be the case and we have two more kids following behind her.  Do any of you have suggestions how to prepare for this each year?  Do you set aside some each month, knowing it will get emptied once or twice a year?  Is this a regular monthly expense I should be prepared for?  I appreciate any suggestions!

You should have a little set aside for their expense. Theres always something they will need for school, for projects, school trips, field trips, lost, broken and other mishaps seem to follow all children. You probably should just set aside about 15 -20 dollars a month for them, if they dont use it that month just keep that amount for the next month.

I got lucky this year and my mom sent me money for school clothes and supplies.  I hate accepting money from her, but we really needed it.  We don't have room in our budget for school right now.

I would keep on the lookout for free school supply events. I know yesterday here in my city the school department held a back to school bash in about 8 locations and gave out free backpacks filled with school supplies. When I was in Deleware visiting my inlaws last week, a church was having a back to school event to distribute backpacks with supplies. Keep your ears open around your town/city and look at fliers. This happens in a lot of communities. You may be able to pick most of them up for free!

For shopping for the kids, I shop clearance racks and 2nd hand stores. My kids closets are packed and it is all in excellent shape just from shopping the clearance racks and stored like savers. Savers is a big thrift store chain that sells donations to benefit non-profits. They sometimes have sales where they do all of a certain color tag is 99 cents. In the last month I hit there when yellow and green were 99 cents. I took care of my 2 boys and my stepdaughter. Yes, I had to spend more time going through the racks and inspecting clothes. But between the 2 stores in my state I went to, I was able to get them all stuff and spent about 100 total. For an 8 year old girl, and 5 and 2 year old boys, I would say 100 is pretty good, and that includes a few extras thrown in(like Eric Carle books in mint condition for 49 cents!)

I also pick up items for me and hubby there. Found some great capris for me from my fave store for $6 (they would have cost 50 there), and some long sleeve button down shirts for hubby for work (Gap and Edie Bauer) for $5 each that were in mint like new condition.

I've come to the point where until we are out of debt, even the stuff we need we HAVE to find cheaper ways to do it. So, check out your local thrift stores. Even some older kids will get on board with this. My boys are young so they don't know the difference (they love Savers, and I usually let them get something cheap, like a little tikes drum for $2, or the wooden airplance for 2.50 that was brand new and looked handcrafted and when I brought it home and looked it up online found that it was a $50 handcarven wooden airplane and this thing was brand new!).

Just my ideas

Christine

what ordinary mom said about the free supplies, or fill your bag and you get a 20% off in places like office max. Theres also a great used clothes store called platos closet, i've gotten new things from there (with tags) for less than $10. Good luck with your shopping

You can get paper, pencils, pencil boxes, crayons, etc from 99 Cent stores.  They usually have scads of that stuff.   Staples sometimes has really good deals on calculators and notebooks.

I remember school expenses extending to field trips, science fair projects, and dioramas throughout the year, so it might not be a bad idea to have a little set aside to get you by from Sept - June.