Works for Me Wednesday: Cheap School Supplies

It's super cheap school supply sale time! I admit that I'm a huge school supply addict. I love a good sharp pencil, love the smell of a box of crayons and think that new glue sticks are just wonderful! I have a school supply drawer that overflows in crayons, folders, rulers, pens (variety of colors), pencils (mechanical and traditional), erasers, glues (liquid and stick), markers (fat, skinny and dry erase), highlighters (long, short, fat, skinny, refillable), colored pencils, and paper (spiral and loose). Don't worry. I share my loot. My nieces and nephew know that Aunt Amy's school supply drawer is open all year long. Do you know what a drag it is to pay full price for school supplies in January? I start all of them out with some basic school supplies at the beginning of the year. Obviously, I tailor their loot bag to what is on their list. My sister has already called to see what she can get from me and skip purchasing altogether!

I stopped by Staples and Walgreen's on my way home from work. Look at what I got! Between the two stores, I got $38.50 worth of school supplies for a whole $4.15. The bottom right three items were rebate things from Staples, but I ran the Easy Rebate already and it is in process. The Papermate pens were 9 cents a package, the Papermate mechanical pencils and rulers were 19 cents each, Bic highlighters and paperclips were 49 cents and the Pentel pens were $1.00 for the package.

Keep in mind that Walmart will match a competitors ad pricing at their registers. Make certain to take your ads with you and that it is the exact item pictured, during the same ad week run (sometimes Staples only offers specials through Wednesday) and that you only get the precise limit printed. I've gone to Walmart to ad match when there have been several ads with items (sometimes up to 5 or so.) Kmart is particularly horrible at having items in stock that they have on sale, so most of the time I have Walmart ad match to them. They WILL not ad match coupon sales (like in the Walgreen's ad. They must be an advertised item, not a clip-out coupon item.)

Important to know-- I don't go out of the way to get the cheap school supplies. Sure, I can get supplies sometimes as low as a penny, but it isn't worth it if I've just paid out $5.00 in gas to get there. If I'm in close proximity, I'll stop in. Since Walgreen's is just up the street from us, I'll probably stop in again for some more mechanical pencils.

Places that I've gotten rock bottom school supply items:
Staples
Office Max
Kmart
Target
Walmart
Walgreen's

Happy school supply shopping! May an inexpensive 64 count box of sharp, intoxicating smell filled crayons be in your shopping basket soon! :)

Smiles in my day:
- Cheap school supplies.
- Cooler temperatures.
- Though I was concerned and slightly freaked out at first, the neighbors didn't choose to put an overly bright light over their garage like their neighbors/renters (who are blinding us with the light in a Poltergeist kind of fashion. "Go towards the light Caroline!")

Pick-Up Fairy Count:
- Giraffe book
- Roll of tape gum
- Polly Pocket car
- Musical twirly/clacky instrument
- Rush Hour Game

To my WFMW readers- The Pick-Up Fairy visits our home in the evening after K- falls asleep. Whatever items that she has not picked up, the fairy confiscates for 1 week. Our home has stayed tidier over this past week than it has been in quite a while. Hooray!

Blog Hop '09 Giveaway! From July 23-29, 2009 (at 9:00 PM EST), I'm giving a $10.00 Target gift card away to a lucky winner. Come on by!