I Spent Over $250 on 2nd Grade School Supplies

No seriously, I spent over $250 when I was looking for .25 Crayola Crayons!

(Last year we spent less than $20)

It all started when I received a helpful email from my neighbor and elementary school mom on the latest deals for this year’s school supplies. First, she sent a list of deals from our locally grocery store HEB and then followed it up with even better deals from Office Depot. Score!

I’m off to Office Depot with Camp Daddy in tow determined to check this off our summer to-do list. Reading iPhone message “Office Depot”…looking up at sign above the door “Office Depot”, we walk through the door. I know it’s weird to check the sign on the door before going in but do you know how many times I’ve driven to Office Depot, wandered the aisles looking for a sales flyer item then realized that the coupons in hand were for Office Max not Depot? I’ve even gone as far as to argue over the price of an item at the register before sheepishly realizing my mistake. Why can’t those stores just merge already?

We wander around the store looking for (from friends list) the…

• .24 ct Crayola crayons for $0.25 a box (limit 5)
• Folders with brads and pockets 10 for $1 (limit 10, must buy 10 for the price)
• Rulers for $0.25
• Filler Paper Wide Rule 150 ct for $0.25
• Sharpies (5pk) and Expo dry erase markers (4pk) are 2 for $5
• Plastic pocket folders with brads are $0.49 ea.

The only deal we found was .01 cent pencil sharpeners. WT? I rechecked my friend’s email. This woman knows her stuff and is rarely wrong, what happened? Where's that post "I got something so incredibly cheap", retail therapy high?

“Do you folks need any help?“ the sales person asks.

“We’re not finding the deals on school supplies we expected so we’re going to try somewhere else.“ I said a little annoyed but with a genuine smile.

“Let me see what our flyer has on sale.“ the very kind sales guy says. He lists the current weekly deals and pointed out that I was probably thinking of LAST week’s deals and next week other items would go on sale so I could pick up ALL the school supplies at a great price.

"Hmmm...I see." I said.

If you come EVERY week you can get all of your schools supplies at great prices...? Argh! Camp Mama doesn't have the time to come in every week to save $5 per trip. The extra gas alone defeats the savings.

We opted to skip the $4.99-24 count Crayola Colored Pencils that were on sales last week for .25 and wait to buy them at HEB for .40. On principle we head towards the register to buy what was on sale knowing that we could wait to pick up the other school supplies during the weekly grocery shopping trip. (Which I did the next day...$15 for all the supplies plus extra to donate to the school.)

Then BAM! We get snared by the reason that Office Depot only has a handful of items on sale at a time...to get you in the store! As we're walking to the register with our .01 pencil sharpeners (limit 3 pk), six folders, one composition book and a $2 metal ruler (not on sale but it was indestructible), the electronics department like a magnet starts to pull us into the aisle...

"Ooh look at the pretty Tablets...Cameras...Printers", I say completely distracted.

"We should look at printers since your printer broke," Camp Daddy says pulling me into the aisle. To be fair we really did need a printer because after a month of emailng our neighbor asking to print stuff for us, they had stopped returning our messages.

"Oh, and there's that HDMI cable I need to hook up the monitor to my computer...", I add.

Needless to say, $229.46 later, we walked out of the store with a new WIRELESS printer, HDMI cable, a mobile notebook table/cart AND some school supplies. Yes, our big mission to save four dollars and fifty cents really paid off!

Office Depot: 1

Camp Mama: 0

(But at least we got three pencil sharpeners for .01, right?)

NEXT STOP: Meet the Teacher Night