Another week, another trip to Staples to save money on back to school supplies! This week, we’ll show you how we got over $50 worth of stuff for about $3!
SUMMARY
- The Store: Staples
- What We Got: $50+ worth of school supplies
- What We Spent: about $3
HOW WE SAVED
Identify what you need: As we mention in our recent article, Back to School: 12 Easy Ways to Save Money This School Year, we recommend creating a list of all the supplies you need. With that list in hand, you’ll be ready to prowl for the best deals!
Check the weekly circular: Look at the Staples weekly circular in your paper or online to find the latest deals. See which deals match up with an item on your list and then…
Shop! Based on this weeks circular and the items on our list, here are the back to school items we found that were on sale, available for a rebate or were otherwise a good deal:
- 2 packs paper clips = $0.02 (sale price)
- 10 pocket folders = $0.10 (sale price)
- 2 packs chalk = $0.50 (sale price)
- 6 packs pocket tissues = $0.06 (sale price)
- 2 reams of paper = $13.98 ($2.00 after rebate)
- 3 packs of crayons = $1.50 ($0.50 after newspaper coupon)
- 1 pack Avery inkjet labels = $4.99 (FREE after rebate)
- 2 packs Photo Supreme paper = $29.98 ($2.00 after rebate)
Cost before coupons & rebates: $51.13 + tax (and, if you were paying full retail prices, this would be even higher at $63.50 + tax!)
Add coupons: The coupon in the local circular was $5 off a $50 purchase (and you’ll notice we bought just enough to eek by that threshold… yes, we’re sneaky like that and we recommend you do the same to maximize your savings!). We also had a newspaper coupon on the crayons which knocked off another $1.00. Updated cost: $45.13, before tax.
Use your rewards card: Normally, we’d use our Staples Back to School Savings Pass to save a bit more. However, this week we’ve skipped it to be fair to our readers who don’t have one. If you shop at Staples a lot, we’d recommend picking one up. It’ll cost you $10, but you’ll save 15% on most Back to School items. In this case, on this particular shopping trip, it would have saved us a couple more bucks, but the savings without it are still really great.
Cost after coupons & rewards: $45.13 + tax ($48.29 in my home state of NJ)
Submit rebates: Get a whopping $44.95 back in rebates!
Total cost: $3.34!
That’s right, we got $50 worth of great back to school stuff for just about 3 bucks. Not too shabby, eh?
So, that’s how we saved money at Staples this week and we hope it’ll help you save money too!
Finally, we’d love to hear from you too. Tell us how your back to school shopping is going. Leave us a comment here, on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
Happy Saving!