Back-to-School Bounty

A couple weeks ago, I wrote on Inexpensively about buying school supplies to donate to needy students.

We signed up to fill 2 backpacks at church for the Back-to-School Blast, one for a middle-schooler and another for a high-schooler. All the items in the picture were obtained from CVS and Meijer, shopping back to school sales. All in all, I spent $2 on the assignment notebook, $1 on the flashcards, $1 on 20 spiral notebooks, 40 cents on the pencil case, and about 50 cents in the folders. Everything else was free.

Five dollars. I filled two backpacks for $5*, and have a big pile of notebooks and binders and pens and pencils, as well as many other supplies, to give to my sister-in-law who teaches at a low-income school.

It doesn't take much to make a difference in someone else's life, and it pays to find ways to save money on both things for yourself and things to give.
 
* There are a few things that were on the school supply list that I wasn't able to find on sale. I spent another $3 on a calculator, $3 on 2 colored pencil packs, and $14 on two alarm clocks, one for each backpack. The backpacks were bought as part of the program for $10, so the total cost of each backpack filled with supplies was about $20- totally worth it for the opportunity for an at-risk kid to be able to learn!