Remember a couple weeks ago when I wrote about setting up a budget for our daughter for school clothes and school supplies. The post was titled, Back to School – A Dad’s View. Well, a few days ago, we gave our daughter her money and went shopping for school supplies.

We chose to do the school supply shopping on a Thursday evening. I would pick up our daughter at the Boys and Girls Club, then my wife as she was getting off work. Then we would go out to dinner before shopping for school supplies.

While at dinner we set and listen to our 10 year old talk about the different places she wanted to go to get what items. She, in a very confident voice announce she want to go to Office Max for her school supplies.

If you remember the budget was $50 for school supplies. At Office Max the bill was $80 and some change. As we walked out of the store, we reminded our daughter the extra money she spent on school supplies would come out of the money for her clothes. Realizing just spent $30 of the money on her clothes our daughter grabbed her mother by the hand and got her money back.

When they got back to the car, we headed over the ShopKo. This was the second choice for where to buy school supplies. There the bottom line total was $55 and some change. This included a $14.99 back pack, that was not among the items purchased at Office Max.

The following items were purchased on 8/5/2010. The list of items to be purchased was from what a 5th grader school supply list of needed items at the start of the school year. This is not a complete list, but overview sample. In all fairness to both  Office Max and ShopKo, I just listed equivalent items.

Now for clothes, our daughter chose to stop first a a thrift store, where she was able to get 5 set of cloth and a pair of shoes for $xx.xx. The next stop was Wal Mart to get the remaining necessities for $44.34, after tax.

So total school supplies (including back pack) was $55.67. $45.46 and $44.34 put her under the $150 budget by $4.53.

Tags: Back to School, Boys and Girls Club, Office Max, Shopko, Wal Mart