When August comes around, Shannan Younger knows she’s going to spend a lot of money on supplies, but she doesn’t stress out because she knows the secrets to staying in budget.
“Shop when you’re not tired when you’re not hungry, shop when your children are not tired and not hungry. It’s a lot easier to rationalize, to stick with the list, and to avoid the impulse purchases that you’re making just because you need to get it done,” said Younger.
The local mom has been blogging for nearly two and a half years, and says back to school shopping starts with organization.
“Shop your house first before you go to the store,” said Younger. “See what you already have on hand. Chances are you have a lot of the items shoved in the back of a drawer. So make a list of what you have, then make a list of what you need, and that’ll help keep you focused and help keep your kids focused.”
Younger also suggests only buying necessities at first then waiting for markdowns.
“Hold off a little bit on the spending, I think we get messages especially from the retailers that you have to buy everything right now and that’s not always the case. You know, see what’s on the school list of course, and if it’s not on the list its not an immediate need, and you can wait a few weeks and it’ll probably be on sale, or maybe in a couple of weeks your kid will have completely forgotten about it and you won’t need to buy it all,” said Younger.
Shopping for back to school can also be a perfect time to teach your children important life lessons.
“Its also worth discussing with your child the difference between a want and need. You know and that’s a good life lesson, and school supplies shopping can actually be a great time to learn about budgeting and what has to be purchased versus what can be lived without. That doesn’t make it easy to be the only kid without the One Direction folder, but life will in fact go on,” said Younger.
For more parenting tips you can follow Shannan Younger’s blogs at www.momfactually.com or on Chicago Now!
Naperville News 17's Natalie Vitale reports.
