10 Tips for Smart Back-to-School Shopping

The best strategy for back-to-school shopping? Get organized, stock up on the basics and look for sales and promotions. Here's how.

Start your back-to-school shopping with a plan. Even if your child's school hasn't supplied you with a list of supplies, you can start with the basics and

take advantage of back-to-school sales. Here's how:

Make a list and get your child involved. Use the recommended or required supplies from your child's school or teacher as a starting point. If you don't have a list yet, you can check with parents at your school who have older kids. They might have good advice about what teachers require in your child's grade.

Or check our list to get started. Sit down with your child and go over your list together. You'll be teaching her how to get organized, a skill that applies to more than buying school supplies.

Separate "wants" from "needs." Most school supplies don't go out of style, and your child will happily use the unsharpened pencils his older sister didn't use. But as any parent with last year's superhero notebook knows, beware the fashion trends in school supplies.

Rather than getting into an argument with your older child about whether a backpack with headphones is essential because "everybody is getting one," try setting a budget for all of the supplies. It will help your child set priorities, learn how to manage money and start saving his allowance for the items your budget won't allow.

• A note from the teacher: You'll be doing your child's teacher a favor if you stick to supplies without gimmicks. Pencil sharpeners that light up are distractions in class, says Jane Ann Robertson, Arizona's 2004 Teacher of the Year and a GreatSchools consultant. "Keep supplies to the necessary and useful versus fancy and fun."

Take inventory. Sort through last year's supplies to see what is left over or can be reused. (Having trouble finding last year's stuff? Resolve to set up a place to keep your school supplies together this year.)

Start early so you can look for bargains throughout the summer. The best bargains are often available at back-to-school sales. Keeping your supply list in your car or purse, or on your PDA will help you shop for supplies as you do your other errands.

Buy basics in bulk. You know you'll need paper, pencils, glue sticks and notebooks. Dollar stores, warehouse stores and even eBay are sources for buying these and other basics in bulk. You and a group of other parents might be able to negotiate a group discount from an office supply store.

Then set up a supply shelf or storage container in your home that you can use all year long. You'll be able to avoid late-night shopping trips to buy notebook paper when you run out. And you'll know where to find unused notebooks and pencils when it comes time to shop for back-to-school supplies next year.

The Absolute Best Things to Give Your Child Your grandparents might have brought an apple to the teacher on the first day of school. Jane Ann Robertson, Arizona's 2004 Teacher of the Year, has an alternative, more timely suggestion: "If you really want to make a good impression on the first day of school, add a packet of stickers or a ream of colored copy paper for your child's new teacher." Nikki Salvatico, Pennsylvania's 2005 Teacher of the Year, adds that the key to helping your child succeed is not something you can buy at your local office supplies store. It's time — time spent reading stories, rhymes, poems and plays with your children. And it's being a role model for the behavior you want to see in your child. "Many parents stop reading to their child once their child begins to read," she said. "Children learn through modeling and reading fluency must be modeled. A child must hear the reader's voice in order to understand fluency. Reading should sound like speaking. "Parents spending time with their children — modeling reading, writing daily — is priceless. When children see a parent reading the newspaper, a magazine, a good book or writing a letter, a paper, a report for work, they then can connect why they are learning the things they are in school," she said.

Get your kids into the recycling habit. Now that environmentally friendly living is a hot topic, it's easier than it used to be to convince trend-savvy kids that reusing an item is cooler than buying a new one. Help them add pizzazz to last year's plain notebook with stickers or photos. Set up a scrap paper bin so that paper with writing on just one side can be reused. Check out garage sales, which can be a source of good-quality used items.

Watch for promotions. Some discount office supply stores offer free shipping on online orders. Local health departments in some areas offer free basic school supplies to parents who bring their children in for immunizations. Hang on to flyers and ads that advertise supplies at a particular price. If the store where you're shopping charges more, ask the sales clerks to match its competitor. Some stores that don't offer price matching will still do it.

Figure out when quality counts. Leaky pens will cost you more in ruined clothes than some more expensive varieties. In the event that a strap or zipper breaks, a backpack with a warranty might be a good investment, even if it costs more.

"When buying crayons, colored pencils, markers and water color paints, I would definitely stick to a name brand," says Robertson. "Name brands seem to last longer."

Not every costly item will last as long as you'd like. Take calculators, for example. Math teachers advise that you not purchase one with more functions than your child will use so that she learns and uses those functions. But as she advances in math, your middle school or high school student will likely need to replace her scientific calculator with a graphing one, and these are costly.

Some schools have graphing calculators that students can check out, like library books. And some parent organizations raise funds to help defray the cost of calculators for needy students. Check with your parent group to find out more about similar programs at your school.

Plan now for next year. Some schools send a back-to-school list home with kids on the last day of school so that parents can shop for the best bargains. If your school doesn't do this, get together with other parents or your parent organization and talk to administrators about how you can help your school put together a list earlier next year.