If you have never had to back to school shop for kids consider yourself LUCKY, as in winning the lottery lucky. These first few weeks of August are terrible. Stay far away from the office and school supply isles in stores. Don't go clothing shopping in kids or juniors areas of department stores. This is my warning to you! It is just as bad as black Friday. Yes you heard me right. To make it worse the only time this event fell into our schedule was on tax-free weekend. That equates to oh about a bazillion more people in the stores just to save 8% on their purchases.
There are mobs of people. A lot of times on black Friday there are only occasional children but during back to school shopping you have all the parents and all the children as the children just H-A-V-E to select their own pencils and pens for an unbelievably long list of school supplies needed each year. Oh don't go thinking just because they had a pencil box last year that they can in way use the same pencil box this year.
1. The kids would be laughed at and made complete fun of if they came to school with last years "stuff".
2. The teachers/schools require completely different supplies from one grade to the next.
So here we are in the midst of the mob looking for: book bags, pens, pencils, paper, folders, trapper keepers, planners, composition notebooks, calculators....on and on. Trying to get everything shoved into a shopping cart so the next mob can make their way down the isle. BUT WAIT...on top of all that you need to do your best price comparison shopping. They hide the sales items and have the expensive stuff prominently displayed. Yes, there is a large price variance on items. One set of pencils $2 - next pile same set of pencils in different packaging $4. You grab the wrong thing...double the price and with 10,000 people in same isle as you it is very easy to get the wrong item or the most expensive item.
After that traumatic experience we have yet to get the first day of school new outfit. This requires one store for the boy and 16 stores for the girl. Finally, after an exhausting day we complete our mission and head home exhausted with germs. Yes both Ann and I caught colds from this mess.
Next I am moving onto public school itself. When childless people say its a free education, they have absolutely NO idea what they are talking about. Public school is SO FAR FROM FREE it is not even funny. So on top of the new clothes, shoes and school supplies I now need to write checks for things such as:
Ipad "insurance"
Activity passes
Lunches
Additional check to be in activities
Plus another check for clothing to be in activities listed above
Each item requires a separate check. The kids each start school with about 5 checks for this and that. Ann lost one of her $75 checks but a nice lady found it and called me. THANK YOU good Samaritan.
No, you can not go shopping for good deals on these items. You must just smile, bend over and write a check for whatever dollar amount the school says.
That my friends is back to school time for parents.
There are mobs of people. A lot of times on black Friday there are only occasional children but during back to school shopping you have all the parents and all the children as the children just H-A-V-E to select their own pencils and pens for an unbelievably long list of school supplies needed each year. Oh don't go thinking just because they had a pencil box last year that they can in way use the same pencil box this year.
1. The kids would be laughed at and made complete fun of if they came to school with last years "stuff".
2. The teachers/schools require completely different supplies from one grade to the next.
So here we are in the midst of the mob looking for: book bags, pens, pencils, paper, folders, trapper keepers, planners, composition notebooks, calculators....on and on. Trying to get everything shoved into a shopping cart so the next mob can make their way down the isle. BUT WAIT...on top of all that you need to do your best price comparison shopping. They hide the sales items and have the expensive stuff prominently displayed. Yes, there is a large price variance on items. One set of pencils $2 - next pile same set of pencils in different packaging $4. You grab the wrong thing...double the price and with 10,000 people in same isle as you it is very easy to get the wrong item or the most expensive item.
After that traumatic experience we have yet to get the first day of school new outfit. This requires one store for the boy and 16 stores for the girl. Finally, after an exhausting day we complete our mission and head home exhausted with germs. Yes both Ann and I caught colds from this mess.
Next I am moving onto public school itself. When childless people say its a free education, they have absolutely NO idea what they are talking about. Public school is SO FAR FROM FREE it is not even funny. So on top of the new clothes, shoes and school supplies I now need to write checks for things such as:
Ipad "insurance"
Activity passes
Lunches
Additional check to be in activities
Plus another check for clothing to be in activities listed above
Each item requires a separate check. The kids each start school with about 5 checks for this and that. Ann lost one of her $75 checks but a nice lady found it and called me. THANK YOU good Samaritan.
No, you can not go shopping for good deals on these items. You must just smile, bend over and write a check for whatever dollar amount the school says.
That my friends is back to school time for parents.
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