For many school children Summer is ending this week. Malls were packed this weekend with the last minutes back to school. Along with going back to school it means there will be homework. The quality of homework will depend on the environment the homework is done.

Doing homework or any kind of studying on ones bed or in front of the television on the coffee table will only lead to low quality homework. I look the quality of study are will promote the same quality of homework.

If we want our students to do the best, we need to have the best possible area.

I found some great recommendation for the ideal study area at About.com. What impressed me the most it does not take a lot of money to create the ideal study area.

It is just a couple weeks before Boise School District will start their 2011 – 2012 school year. Ms T finished her shopping for her back to school supplies and clothes.

Last year and this year we has Ms T do her own back to school shopping. We gave her a budget and guided her through the process. We see this as a good training to help Ms T to learn some basic lessons in financial planning and shopping.

The first step in keeping with any budget is to Separate wants from needs. It is nice to get the sharpest, and stylish clothes. When you shop with style in mind it is going to cost a lot than if you are shopping for just functionality.

When I was young, and was ready for my first car, I want a 1956 Chevy four door. In reality all I needed was some transportation to and from work. I needed to pay rent, utilities, and other bills. The only way I could afford that 1956 Chevy was if I didn’t pay rent and some of the other bills for a couple of months.

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.

Like any dad, I want to see the best for my children. When it comes to buying for back to school supplies and clothes it can be a bit of a tug of war. This increases as they get older. Girls more so than boys. I am talking about staying within budget!

I am talking about the definition of basics. Last year I did not see what was wrong with the backpack my daughter had from the year before. The concept of a needing a messenger bag to carry over a perfectly functional backpack was beyond my understanding.

The other day, I was talking to a lady from the state of Georgia. She was telling me that she could not afford to buy a computer. She thought is was a luxury besides being a waste of time and money.

A couple of years ago, I doing cold sales calls on businesses in a rather large strip mall. I walked into this shoe store, and asked to speak with the manager or owner. A very well mannered elderly lady came out from the back room and introduced herself as the owner.

I asked what kind of software she was using to manage her inventory. At that point she harshly stated that they did not use any computer software for inventory management.  The only computer they had was the card reader for processing credit cards.

In this post I am talking about lunches for elementary aged children. Why? That is the age range of our daughter. Since school starts Monday, we need to decide if your daughter is going to take a lunch or buy her’s.

Last school year, our daughter was happy taking a school lunch. Then about February she started asking for a hot lunch. This year she wants a hot lunch, because all her friends will be taking a hot lunch.

Most school lunches run about $1.90. Then those school who offer breakfast for the kids for around $1.25. Those families that are struggles there is a reduced price if not free. For the reduced or free school lunch program, you will need to contact for office at the school your child goes.

If you are wondering if it is more economical to pack your child a lunch of buy them a hot lunch, consider the following;

Want to known the rest of the story? Want to know the real cost of taking a school lunch?  Just log-in as a member.

{+}

1. Lunch box or lunch bag runs about $12.00 (That is if the child does not lose it during the school year). The National Standard says our children are to have 180 days of school per school years. That means a school lunch box costs just under 7 cents per day.
2. A sandwich cost between 25 cents to a dollar, depending if it is peanut butter or lunch meat. For our calculations we will say 50 cents per day on the average.
3. An individual size juice container of 6.75 fluid ounces will cost just under 50 cents each.
4. A snack of fruit (say a banana for our calculations)is currently running 47 cents per pound. A pound is roughly 3 bananas. That breaks down to another 15.6 per banana.

It cost to have a child take lunch to to school with them is $1.23 on the average.

What I did show is that there is savings for a child taking there own lunch is not a huge difference to them having a hot lunch at school. Over a week’s time the difference is $3.35. Well, that would add up to $67 per month.

I did not include plastic bags nor the time it takes to fix a lunch. These figures are per child. If you have more than one child in school you can multiply these figures by the number of children you have going to school.

It seems school was just letting out for the summer months. Now we are getting attacked by ads for school supplies for your children. Last night was our night to go out an buy all those things to get our daughter ready for the new school year.

We could have look at each of all those sells ads, then went from store to store for the best deal for pencils, erasers, note books, crayons, folders, and pens. Then we would of have spent more time and money driving from one store to the next. Instead we picked the closest discount department store to buy what we needed to get.

$43.16 was to total for school supplies. Then there was school clothes. I am not going there, because every child boy or girl has their own taste and personal budget.

I remember my dad taking us to buy school clothes. It was three pair of stove pipe leg jeans, and five shirts. Last year school clothes were what we were to wear after school and on the weekend.  That was a different time and place.

Take a look at what we actually spent on school supplies, just log-in as a member. If not a member, you can be one for just $2 per month. Or you can donate $100 and I will personally send you a log-in and password for a lifetime membership.

{+}

The list below is what we actually bought. The list of school supplies that was from the school and what we bought was not the same because there were several items that we could carry over from the previous year.

Things like stapler, pencil sharpen, and calculator are items that general do not wear out. It scotch tape, and 3 ring notebook are items that we already have on hand. So we saved some money that way.

1. Wizards of Wavery Place folder, Tinkerbell folder, Jonas Brother folder, and a pink folder for 50 cents each.
2. Pink Messenger Bag - $13.49
3. Wizards of Wavery Place folder, Tinkerbell folder, Jonas Brother folder, and a pink folder for 50 cents each.
4. 150 count,  3 hole college ruled filler paper – 99 cents
5. See through pink plastic box – 99 cents
6. Crayola Crayons – $2.79
7. Fine Marker 99 cents
8. Elmer’s glue 29 cents
9. Scissor – Sharp – 99 cents
10. Headz cpa erasers $1.00
11. Facial tissue – 79 cents
12. Flex Ruler $1.49
13. Red fine pens – $1.50
14. #2 pencils – 79 cents
15. 12 pack of color pencils – 99 cents

Give you child the tools he needs

Between cloths and school supplies a lot of money is spent getting our children back to school. Elementary age children are pretty simple in what we have to buy for  them to get them back in the classroom. Junior High and up requires more than pencils, paper, and some nice looking cloths. Now they need some pretty powerful tech supplies.

I am talking about a computer and the software to go with it.

Desktop computers and laptops, for school can be purchased from $200 and up. This all depends if it is new or used. CraigsList.org is a good place to start for the discriminating, tech savvy buyer.

Software is another story. The old idea of handwritten reports are no longer accepted, since it is so easy to type, edit and print from a computer. Research is no longer done, from home, with a 36 volume encyclopedia. A high speed internet connection yields information faster and newer. Then our child needs the software to put that information into a accurate, eye pleasing report.

An acceptable computer will run you about $300. Just word processing, and spreadsheet software will run you about $100. Then there is that high speed internet connection, which will be about $35 per month.

For Just $2 per month you get the brand names. Who is charging what? All you have to do to sign up is click on register as a member. It takes just 5 minutes.

{+}

It has been my experience most junior and high schools want their students to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint for their class projects. Now if you have spent a little to much money on cloths, or other school supplies, you may want to consider some ot the open source alternatives. Do I need to mention they are free for individual users.

Open Office has been around for years. It has all the same feature as its’ big brother from Microsoft, with out the price. Open Office is free.

Google Docs is another alternative. Like Open Office you can save files to standard Microsoft formats. However, you do need a high speed internet connection.

Zoho has an office suite that is great for the student with business in their future. Like Google Docs, Zoho saves to standard Microsoft file formats along with PDF’s. Now remember, since Zoho is a Cloud based Software As A Service (SaaS)  you will need an internet connection. Zoho offer all the software that is used in an business, today. What makes it so nice it