Shopping mall (Photo credit: pix.plz)
Back to school shopping ads have me thinking about the first time I took my son back-to-school shopping with his own money. He had spent the summer cleaning up roofing shingles and other debris on a construction site. It wasn’t ‘easy money.’
He set the budget. I contributed half. I was impressed by almost everything that happened after that. First, there was a thorough inventory of the closet. He decided that many of last year’s clothes were, in fact, still pretty good. Those that no longer suited him were packed up for either give-away or the consignment store. Next, he went through the paper and found out what stores were having sales, giving coupons and the like. Then, he made a list that included his basic needs – and some ‘wants.’
I’m generally a very fast shopper – probably because I don’t enjoy it all that much. I don’t think that I have ever spent so much time in a shopping mall – before or since!
He compared and contrasted, balanced wants and needs. We checked laundry labels (!) to make sure that he could handle the care required. He made notes – and went on to another store or two before ever parting with a dime.
It was wonderful to watch a young man who did not think he was good at math decide whether the “buy one get one free” was a marketing scam or in fact a better deal than the straight 15% off…. But a highlight that I remember, many years later, was when he found a designer shirt that had been marked down in a store where he had a coupon for a discount on the total purchase.
What a learning experience! Saving, budgeting and planning before hand followed by wants v. needs, decisions about quality and value, stretching your budget as far as possible, separating fact from marketing fiction…. There was also almost none of that negotiating or tension about what he liked versus what was sensible or what we could afford. He had all of the control.
Is it faster and easier to do the shopping ourselves? Probably. But if you can manage at least one “together trip” there are great lessons to be learned — and opportunities to see new strengths in our children. Even if you’re not ready to turn over the whole process, can you start with the school supplies? Or the shoes?
Who knows, maybe you’ll move on to groceries???
We like SHARING:
5 Responses to “Adventures in Back-to-School Shopping”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
you know, you develop an entirely new appreciation for money when you have to work for it. Makes you think twice (or even three or four times) before spending it. 5-star article here – nice job!
Thank you! This particular trip stands out as a very sweet memory for me — one of those moments that I realized that my son was becoming more and more able to stand on his own two feet.
Aha! Real life learning (in education we call that the “teachable moment”). Research shows that learning is much more likely to be long-term when we answer the question “why do I need to know this or do it this way?” My children are still young and we are going to begin our formal education journey this fall for the first time. At this point I think the most I can ask is when one do you like more? Isn’t life always about making good choices? In a few years, I hope I will be able to witness my fashion-conscious daughter learning how to work with a budget…
Or maybe it’s an opportunity to teach them about manipulation, to tell them that just because people say it’s time to do something, doesn’t mean we have to do it. Our society is built to teach children to grow up to be good little adult consumers, and look where our consumption obsession has gotten us. Maybe BTS season is the season to teach kids not only about thrift but about thinking for themselves. They’re going to have to do it someday.
That’s a great point. And, there are also wonderful thrift “tie-ins”…. if your child is particularly fashion-conscious he or she can see what people are ‘really’ wearing before they shop (great discussions about advertising here). We can talk about delayed gratification…. and how the prices go down after school starts and the advertisers are trying to get us focused on the next big event. Or, heaven forbid, even being satisfied with what we already have!