Is it back to school season already? I’m hearing rumblings that retailers are gearing up for the annual spending spree so I called Mary, who writes The Recessionista fashion blog. She just outfitted her neice and nephew for fall. We talked about what is worth splurging for, where to go low-budget, and what everybody is going to be wearing when the first bell rings.
What back to school purchases are worth spending a little extra on?
The school stuff is definitely going to see some wear and tear. Khakis that have the better weave don’t rip as easily, they don’t catch or snag. But I’m certainly not going to spend $100 on a pair of khakis. Have you seen the new GAP khaki collection? That’s a great look for a high school girl. Those are under $100. I would go out and buy the more upscale khakis that just came out at the GAP or buy Dickies. I spend more than $20 on those.
I get the kids good backpacks. I cannot believe how much stuff these kids are carrying now. From age 6 through high school they seem to have more gear than I have. I’ll even go for an LL Bean backpack. Things that look cute don’t last. Avoid vinyl and backpacks made of mostly plastic.
Sturdy shoes. That’s an area where I spend a lot because the kids are still developing. They’ve got a long way to go before they reach the final growth spurt. They need a good heel, a good Reebok or PJ Clark shoe. I don’t want them to be getting into bad posture, especially if they are carrying books. Don’t go for flip flops or jelly shoes. When they run really fast they fall down on them, their feet sweat and they get blisters. You do want to get them a nice shoe.
What items do you spend less on?
Shirts. I’ll buy them cheap shirts, t-shirts, tank tops, and pull overs. They tear them and they stain them at an incredible rate. Tank tops and shirts at Walmart are two for $15. Also Old Navy has really has cute stuff for boys, girls and teenagers. You can find cheaper stuff that looks good.
What about accessories?
I bought butterfly hairpins for $1 each at H&M. They have cheap ponytail holders and headbands. I also like Forever 21 and Express for cheap earrings. For accessories I also see that Loehmann’s has some stuff in that area – little pearl headbands for girls to pull their hair back. It looks for upscale than it is.
How much do you spend on back to school shopping?
It varies. Honestly, there were times when I was a good Auntie and did my nephew’s total package, about $800. That’s for shoes, several pairs of pants, a backpack. It does add up. Some years I’ve had to buy him supplies, like an art box, paints and crayons. If I weren’t going to get the high end items I could probably do it for $200.
What’s in style?
The girls want the maxi dress (above). This is like a trend from the 60s that is making a huge comeback. It’s a floor-length dress. It’s loose and flowy, kind of a nice thing for summer and early fall.
Tie-dye dresses where the top is one color and the bottom is another color. Vavartos converse dresses. Target sells them. I think they are $35.
Everybody wants the good jeans. Out here in LA everybody wants the skinny jeans and the distressed jeans. The Fred Astaire hats and white plastic rimmed sunglasses. The preppy look – I don’t see so much of the preppy look. I’m seeing crisp white pants and colored tops for girls, a lot of turquoise or fuschia shirts and the smocked hippy dippy shirt.
Resources from The Recessionista:
Kohls ack-to-School Essentials Under $50
Kohls Back-to-School Trends
Under $40
Kohls Back-to-School Accessories Under $25
This is a guest post from BargainBabe.com’s intern, Alex.
Military spending may seem like far-off dollars that will never see your pocket, but military-based discounts are everywhere. They just aren’t usually displayed in storefront windows.
As a dependent of my dad who retired from the air force, I received tons of discounts all throughout high school and college on stuff like movie tickets, flowers, and hotel reservations. The only time I had to step foot on a military base was to get my military ID card, a process which can take a couple hours but is well worth it.
Sometimes the hardest part is just remembering to ask about these discounts. Who would have thought I would save 15 percent on my lift ticket and ski rental last winter? Oh, and not just for me, but my two friends as well. If you know somebody with a military ID, be sure to remind them of possible discounts.
And flowers! Are flowers expensive or what? I was able to get a discount on Valentine’s Day flowers online because I have a friend in the active military. I showed him Military.com, a site that lists companies with military discounts, and he hooked me up with some of the exclusive coupon codes.
Some places are a little less accommodating. They have strict rules about offering their discounts only to those serving active duty, meaning nobody who is retired or simply has a parent in the military is eligible. Should you try to get your discount anyway? Knowing you’re not active military that’s up to the individual. The average behind-the-counter-guy/girl is not going to be up to speed on the differences between military ID cards, but that may change. Knowledge is power I say, use it with everyone in mind.
The savings don’t stop at the storefronts, though. I was once pulled over for an illegal U-Turn as well as impeding traffic. The cop started writing me up before he noticed the military ID in my wallet as I showed him my driver’s license.
He still wrote me up for a basic traffic violation, but made it clear that he could have done worse. Did he hold off because of the military affiliation? Maybe. Something tells me picking up that military ID card on the base was worth the time. It expired years ago, but still comes in handy.
Check this eHow page to see if your relationship to somebody in the military makes you qualified for special discounts.
USA Weekend had a great round up of tips to save money on summer activities. Here are the best of ‘em.
- Monitor flight prices by setting up an email alert on FareCompare.com.
- Save gas and time by getting an automatic toll pass such as E-ZPass, FasTrak or SunPass (the last of which you can buy pre-paid at grocery stores in Florida).
- Join the free loyalty programs at your local movie theater. AMC’s MovieWatcher and the Regal Cinemas Regal Crown Club both have good perks.
- Find the best price for summer theater at SeatKarma.com, which monitors prices from more than 200 ticket brokers.
- Make your own fast food to avoid pricey take out. Make mini-pizzas by topping flatbread, bagels, or English muffins with tomato sauce and cheese. Make bean and cheese burritos in advance, wrap tightly and freeze for a microwave-ready bite.
- Look for discount tickets to baseball games and bring your own food as much as is allowed.
Thanks, Meital!
Reader Suzanne is quite the freezer diva, but she shares none of my problems with frozen foodstuffs taking up residence in her freezer. She described her system in a useful comment this week:
I label and rotate my stock. I have a top freezer with my refrigerator in the kitchen. This is where I keep items I will be likely to use within the next 2-3 weeks. I have a chest freezer that stores items bought in bulk and on sale at good prices. These are dated/labeled. This is where the stock for the kitchen freezer comes from. I have learned to only purchase the items we use on a regular basis so that I do not have “tenants.”
This is a great idea that I’d like to implement. But Suzanne, what do you do with leftovers? Do you immediately incorporate them into future meals or make yourself use them before you can replenish from your chest freezer? Do tell!
PS. This picture is not of Suzanne’s freezer, but I imagine hers is just as well organized!
Here’s a cool website for readers. BookSaleManager.com lists local and community book sales by state. The site is fairly new but they are adding several hundred sales a day, a rep for the site told me. Libraries and non-profits can list their sales for free.
Search for sales by state for sales near you. When I searched for sales across California the site returned 283 sales, including a promising one tomorrow in Los Feliz. (Titles are $.25 to $1).There were 39 upcoming sales in New York and 41 in Florida. See all sales by state.
Some sales also list how many books will be for sale.
If you set up an account, you can get emails about upcoming sales that fall a zip code radius that you set, i.e., 10 miles within the zip code 91302. You can also create a calender of upcoming sales and get email notifications about the sales you are interested in. Neat!
Related:
One of life’s annoyances is that freezers are always three-quarters full when really, they are empty. Don’t know what I mean?
Last night I was looking for freezer space for my groceries, and saw pizza sauce, mashed potatoes, cubes of chicken broth…I think. I can’t really tell!
Rather than admit defeat I close the door to think. I need to make room, but I can’t toss these indecipherable packages and containers because I have been paying to freeze them all this time. They must be valuable – and edible – if I put them in there!
Which brings us to the first law of freezers. The longer an item remains in the freezer the less likely you are to throw it away OR EAT IT.
I call this the grandfather rule. In practice, ancient items have grandfathered rights to remain in the freezer.
The problem is these inedible edibles are taking up valuable real estate. How am I supposed to be a freezer diva when all I can stash in my icebox is one measly pizza pocket? It’s embarrassing, I tell you.
Worst of all, my frozen foodstuffs mock me.
Have you ever tried to put a carton of ice cream on top of a grandfathered tenant? Immediately slides off and jams the door before you can slam it shut. It’s as if all the old tenants pass around a bottle of olive oil and lather up so nobody can cozy up to them.
This is the second law of freezers. Old = oily.
If you are lucky, you will close the freezer completely on the seventh try. (Yes, I leave the freezer bursting precariously and yes, I make sure not to be the next person who opens it.)
Yesterday, after a late-night run to Albertons, which is having a massive sale through Tuesday, I came face to face with my grumpy old tenants. Oh, I’ll outsmart you this time, I thought when I returned with three whole chickens, two cartons of ice cream and one pint of sorbet. (Not to mention 11 boxes of cereal, all on super sale.)
The sorbet popped into the door on top of a bag of chili peppers (I’m testing how long they freeze. Three years and counting!) I jammed one ice cream container into a bag of frozen peas, and I rearranged two packages of hot togs to make room for a chicken. I shoved the second ice cream carton into a bag of hamburger buns and stuffed another chicken on top. That leaves one more chicken. Into the fridge with you!
The door stayed shut, but 
I know my tenants will get the better of me soon. So this morning I decided to confront them once and for all.
I opened my freezer and evicted every last edible and inedible package, above. Get moving, granny!
Here are the shady characters I have been renting to this entire time. Items in italics are bound for the trash.
4 D, 2 C and 2 AA batteries
1 small bag of breadcrumbs
1 tupperware of breadcrumbs
8 frozen strawberries
Full loaf of bread
1 bag of chili peppers
2 frozen cheese and chili tamales
Small bottle of Jeager with one shot left
2 containers of Hubby’s chili dated 1/9/08 and 9/22/07
Tube of limeade syrup
7 containers of chicken broth
1 freezer-burned chicken carcass (for making broth – as if I needed more!)
7 half-full containers of pizza sauce
1 serving of mashed potatoes
4 veggie burgers (unopened)
1 baggie of gray, freezer-burned chicken meat
1 small, 1 large bag chopped peppers
7 hot dog buns
8 hamburger buns
4 mini pita rounds
2 empty plastic bags
3 slices of bread
2 1/4 chunks of unsliced bread
4 slices of bread
1 unopened package of vegetables
2 cracked containers of beef gravy
1 bag edamame
1/2 bag pork wontons
2 whole chickens
1 lb ground turkey
2 packages of hot dogs
4 chicken thighs (in two bags)
5 completely unidentifiable packages
3 cold sports packs for icing joints
1 blue eye mask
1 bag peas
2 bags chopped green and red peppers
6 potato rolls
1/2 bag petite onions
1 rolling cloth (for dough)
1/2 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequilla
2 mini empanadas
1 bag french toast
1 container sorbet, two boxes of ice cream
6 otter pops
4 cubes of potatoes
1/2 package green beans
2 tiny balls of dough
1/2 lb sliced turkey breast
I wiped down the freezer, re-arranged the items by category (from the bottom up, bread/veggies; meat; anything in tupperware; misc.), and snapped a picture for you all to see evidence of the third freezer law. Sometimes you have to throw stuff out. Notice the top shelf is half-empty. Success!
The National Parks Service has two upcoming fee-free weekends at more than 100 national parks that usually charge entrance fees. The freebie includes entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees but NOT fees for reservations, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties. Still, the offer is pretty awesome.
The fee-free weekends include:
- July 18-19, 2009
- August 15-16, 2009
For a list of free parks by state, click here. (The page may take awhile to load.)
Here’s another tip the park service is passing on. Many national parks never charge an entrance fee, so you can plan inexpensive visits year round! They also provide a list of family activities this summer.
Thanks, Hubby!
I’m organizing the first ever Frugal Fe$tival to celebrate BargainBabe.com’s six-month anniversary and to launch the exciting expansion I’ve been hinting at (which will be revealed next week…fingers crossed).
The Frugal Fe$tival is a one-day physical gathering of frugal folks who want to have fun sharing their frugal lifestyles. Save the date – the Frugal Fe$tival is Sunday, July 26, 2009 in Los Angeles. Here is why you should come.
- It’s free
- It’s going to be fun
- The first 50 people to arrive will win a free Bargain Babe T-shirt
- You can get free financial advice by signing up for a 15-minute consultation with a financial adviser
- You can trade your unwanted coupons for ones you want
- You can enter the frugal contest – the top three frugal tips will win prizes
- Each adult will receive 10 free tickets to enter raffles of their choice
- Raffle prizes will include gift cards, financial consultations, books, T-shirts and cash!
- Find out more about the mysterious expansion Julia has been talking about on BargainBabe.com!
If you’d like to get involved as a volunteer or sponsor, please email julia@bargainbabe.com. Lots more information to come!
Now that it’s officially summer, time to get your beach reading on! Here are a few good sources for cheap books.
PaperbackSwap.com – register for a free account and list 10 books you are willing to swap. That earns you two credits to request books from other members. The more your trade out the more books you get to request in. You pay to mail out books and receive them for free. The site is great for kid’s picture books and NY Times best-sellers. They also have DVD and CD swaps. Read more about how it works.
BookMooch.com – this site uses a similar system as PaperbackSwap. You pay to mail books and receive them for free. You need to send out one book for every three you receive to remain in good standing. BookMooch is free and has a very cute Web site.
Bookins.com – this site charges a flat fee of $4.50 per book but boasts better customer service than Paperback Swap and BookMooch. The site’s point system allows you to trade books for DVDs. You can also print postage from home. Read more about how Bookins works.
Goodwill and Salvation Army – large thrift stores often have a used book section. Expect older titles and great prices.
Your local library – but of course!
Related:
15 places to get free books online (affordable if you have a Kindle!)
Education World provides summer reading lists by grade (scroll down to see the options)
NY Times recommends these books for vicarious travel
Thanks, Andrea!
Here’s one way to lower your wedding costs: go on a road trip instead. Jaime Case and Chris Hodges, a 30-something couple from San Francisco, dreamed of a destination wedding in Mexico but they couldn’t stomach asking their guests to spend $3,ooo apiece to celebrate with them. Instead, they are bringing the wedding to their guests. I spoke to Jaime on week three of the six-week pre-marital road trip adventure.
Why are you having a road trip wedding?
It started off as a trip to go visit everyone so they can save money by not coming to the wedding. And it’s become more of an odyssey of learning about marriage. It’s like premarital counseling but more intensive and all encompassing. The idea is to save more money for other people. On the whole we are still spending less than the average wedding, which is about $30,000. That doesn’t include the rehearsal dinner, the dress, and the honeymoon.
How much did the recession play a role in your decision to have a road trip wedding?
If we got married in 2008, we would have done what our friends did: a week-long destination wedding. We absolutely would have done that. But in my heart I could not stomach asking people to pay to go to Mexico.
How much is your road trip wedding costing?
Everything we’re doing…will be less than the average cost of a wedding, about $27,000 dollars. The road trip is only costing us about $2,000. The gas itself is $1,100-1,200, plus a few nights at hotels. We’re not adding food because we would eat anyway and a lot of people are buying us dinner! We are staying with family and friends and eating cheaply. Ford donated a Fusion and is covering car insurance. We pay for the gas.
How much are you saving?
A traditional wedding would have cost us about $27,000. The trip is saving us $25,000, some of which we are using to throw a dinner at a restaurant for family and close friends when we return. That’ll cost about $12,000. But our guests are also saving a lot of money, which is more of our point.
How much are you saving your guests?
It would cost our 200 friends in other states about $20,000 to come visit us. Plus, we get to spend a lot more time with them than we normally would at a standard wedding.
Are you having a ceremony?
We are having a ceremony and small dinner in Ventura, Calif. It’s going to be about as non-traditional as you can get. No flowers, no wedding party, no wedding cake. Just dinner at a restaurant. You can call it a wedding or whatever you want, but that’s more for my parents. We didn’t mind spending money on serving people dinner. But we wanted to spend money on spending time with people.
Did you get a dress?
I got a sample dress at Saks bridal, which was closing. I’m probably going to sell it afterward. My Mom bought it. If you have any debt at all, there’s no need to spend $2,000 on a dress. But I wouldn’t position us as the cheapest wedding around.
Where have you gone so far?
We have been to 19 states, including CA, OR, WA, ID, CO, WY, UT, NM, LA, MI, AL, FL, GA, SC, NC, TN, KY, W.VA, IN, OH, PA, MD and D.C.
Has anything unexpected happened?
Some of the people we spent time with we’re going to become even better friends with, like a guy who I was on the swim team with in junior high school. We would not have invited him to the wedding, but he heard about our road trip on Facebook and invited us to stay in their guest house in Salt Lake City. We stayed with them and had an amazing time. I feel we’ll actually go back and go skiing sometime. If they had come to the wedding I would have shook their hands and that would be it.
They say planning a wedding is the first test of a marriage. How is going being on the road together?
We’ve only been doing this for 20 days, and we have thought about breaking up. Imagine talking about your marriage and what it’s going to be for 45 days straight. Fundamentally I know Chris is a good person. He is a gem amongst men in that he can talk about anything. I don’t have to deal with, what are you thinking? I don’t have to wonder. I know because I can ask. That makes him very attractive.
I’m more driven. Chris likes to enjoy life a little more. It’s my personality to wake up and have a to do list. During an interview, there was a question about Chris not being as passionate as me. It hit me at the wrong time and I shared more info than I should have. Later, Chris brought it up. He said, This seems like an issue. This keeps coming up. We need to solve this, he said. When we talked it through we just have different way of looking at it. We both want the same things but we have a different approach.
For more check out the Wedding Road Trip blog. Thanks, Monica!
Not to be outdone by Bank of America’s museum freebies, Target is sponsoring dozens of free and discounted events at museums across 17 states, including AZ, CA, CO, D.C., FL, IL, IN, MA, MI, MN, MO, NY, NC, OH, PA, TX, and WA. Check out the list here.
For a snazzy list of Target freebie programs in Los Angeles, check out this page.
Thanks, Karin!
What is an appropriate gift for your child’s teacher at the end of the year? How much should you spend on a teacher? Here are six gift ideas and a poll.
1. Buy a group gift card with other parents to one store like Target, a department store, mall, or another multi-purpose retailer that gives the teacher options for how to spend it. Each parent can contribute as much as they like.
2. Buy them flowers that they can toss later. The teacher will enjoy them and not worry about accumulating more stuff.
3. Have parents email photos of each child and put them into a photo book (Snapfish and MyPublisher are two options and both often have coupon codes).
4. Give cash. Stuff the bills into a card, of course.
5. Have your child write a note about what they appreciate about the teacher. If other students can contribute, great!
6. Create a gift basket themed around the teacher’s hobby or upcoming event. If you know the teacher is moving into a new home, collect items s/he will find useful in the move. If the teacher loves to garden…you get the idea.
[poll id="25"]
Thanks, Kim and Karen!
I spent the weekend in Portland visiting family and discovered a fabulous way to make a wallet. Very hip and green! You take a half gallon juice or milk carton, cut it up, fold it just so, and voila! A pocket-sized change purse or wallet. My niece Ellie is pictured holding one she made herself.
To make one of these wallets you need:
- Half gallon milk or juice carton with plastic cap
- Scissors
- Wallet Template
- Pen
- Ruler
- Butter knife (to make the folds)
Below is a picture of an open juice carton wallet.
For step by step directions with pictures AND a how-to video, visit this FamilyFun page. The whole project takes less than an hour.
A reader named Ellie left a great comment this week that showed how you can turn something simple – a patch of water – into a very cheap, very entertaining afternoon for kids. And you can do it almost anywhere there is a public stream!
There’s wonderful park in Hollywood where I used to take my kids (moons ago!). It’s on the north side of Los Feliz, not too far east of Western Ave. Can’t recall the name of the park. There’s a creek that runs through the park, which sometimes has crawdads and other creatures in it. There are picnic tables and benches, and it’s shady, which is great on really hot days.
We used to give the kids tiny bit of hot dogs attached to strings so they could troll the waters for some kind of “catch.” They never caught anything, but were always ready to try, and loved playing in the park.
I bet my nephews would love to “go fishing” at a stream near their house. And my sister would certainly appreciate a few hours off!
Related:
Frugal activities for kids this summer
Free family movies this summer
Summer camp alternatives to save money
A site I contribute to called Toddler Magazine is giving away a 7-night stay for four people at an all-inclusive Club Med resort on Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. The prize does not include airfare. Sign up for the contest here.
You can enter everyday if you like. The contest ends August 1, 2009.
This contest certainly dwarfs the $25 gift cards to Trader Joe’s or Target that I am giving away! Luckily, you can sign up for both. Win my contest and you can purchase a new swim suit to wear at Club Med if you win on Toddler!
