GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — Some students in the Triad have already started the new school year, and thousands more will be headed back to class over the next few weeks.
No matter when they start, there is one thing that is the same across the board: the cost of getting ready for the first day is going up.
With inflation hitting some families hard, we wanted to know where you could shop and get your back-to-school supplies for the least cash.
Taking a Guilford County Schools list of classroom supplies for second graders to three popular stores to compare prices, we shopped for the best deal.
This is what the list consisted of:
- Glue sticks (4)
- Crayons (1 Box of 24)
- Dry erase markers (4)
- Spiral/composition notebooks (4)
- Loose Leaf wide ruled Notebook (1)
- Erasers (Pencil top)
- Folders (with prongs) (4)
- Scissors (1 pair)
- Pencils (24)
- Tissue (1box)
- Bookbag (no wheels) (1)
Target shelves were emptying fast, and they were also the priciest on almost everything. We purchased the full list for $42.29.
Over at Dollar Tree, we managed to get the list for $24.02.
This store had the cheapest items, however, it didn’t have everything on the list.
We had to improvise on some classroom supplies such as pronged folders and dry erase markers.
Tuesday Jennifer Hepner was hoping to make the grade shopping for her daughter Grayson’s school supplies at Walmart.
She was able to save a few dollars because of the surplus of school supplies she bought last year during the back-to-school sale.
“They have crayons here still for a quarter a pack. And when the kids were coloring a lot, I would always come and buy and get extra pencils and markers and coloring supplies to last throughout the year,” she said.
The Hepners also realize buying store brands rather than name brands goes a long way.
“Name brand because these crayons are 25 cents, these Crayola’s are 50 cents, and they are the same thing,” Grayson said.
They also didn’t have to get everything on the list like binders and book covers that were passed down from older siblings.
Hepner’s final savings report card:
“$50.27 for part of the list,” Hepner said.
Our Walmart basket cost us somewhere in the middle of the other stores with a whopping total of $37.16.
Keep in mind that cheaper products may not be of the same quality as more expensive ones.
One of the most expensive items on the list this year is bookbags.
We were able to get one from Target and Walmart for $15, while Dollar Tree’s offer was just $5.
The cheapest item we found was the pronged folders that are going for 15 cents at Walmart.
Also buying unsharpened pencils can save you almost half the amount you would pay for sharpened ones.
Lastly, try to catch as many deals as you can online. Sometimes you may get lucky and find items cheaper there as well.
