Thursday, August 14, 2008

School Clothes Shopping Check List Saves the Day


I love shopping for school supplies. I love it so much, I like to do it without my kids. It's pretty sad, but I want to be the one to pick out all the cute things for my kids. I don't tend to appreciate their tastes. I know I should be encouraging their individuality and all that, but in case you didn't read my blog banner, I'm a control freak. My poor kids are doomed.

So the school supply shopping is done, the clothes shopping is not. I allow myself quite a bit more time to accomplish this task, as they typically start out the year wearing their summer clothes, or at least some of them, and we can still get away with wearing some of last year's clothes.

I also like to spread the shopping out for other reasons. Such as:

1) I prefer to shop without my kids (see above)
2) I can be more selective and get good deals when I don't have a firm deadline
3) I can't afford to buy an entire wardrobe for each kid all at once
4) Idaho never seems to sell long-sleeved shirts until October. What's up with that?

The problem with shopping at this leisurely pace, is that I tend to overbuy some things while under buying, or completely forgetting about, others. That's going to change though, because I now have this handy dandy little checklist to keep me on track.

The list above is the one I'm using for my kids, I'll just print out one for each kid and go to town. The first step is to assess what they already have and fill in as needed. This means that I have to get the girls to try on all their clothes (which they hate), to see what goes and what stays. Not only does this help me with my list, but it gets the closets cleaned and sorted at the same time. Win, win! Next comes the fun part . . . shopping!

I'll keep the girls' lists with me, in my purse, until I know that I've found everything I need. That way if I come across a good sale, I won't buy stuff I don't need. I hate that.

Here's a blank list for you to print out and fill out for your own little monsters. Just be sure to click on the image for the best resolution before you save it to your hard drive. Enjoy!


This list has been updated, and I've added a School Supply Shopping Checklist as well. To see the new lists, click here.

14 comments:

  1. How long did it make you to create this checklist?

    Will there be another one for the girls Christmas lists? (got you thinking don't I?????)

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  2. This is awesome. Thank you for sharing it. I've learned that here in Idaho, I don't get their school clothes (other than a new shirt for the first day and anything they truly need) until it actually starts to get cold. Otherwise, the new jeans have holes in them before November!

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  3. I totally love the list idea! My husband is the list KING of the world! He thrives on having list. So he was so thrilled about this list that I printed. Thank you for sharing your fantastic ideas! Your the BEST!!!!

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  4. I love this shopping list! I just finished an article for my blog about Back to School Shopping and I am so glad I found your list. It's really cute and the kids will get into the whole process of deciding what they need. If you do not mind I am going to link this post to my blog. If you don't want me to link, let me know and I will take it down. Thanks so much for sharing!!

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  5. Hey Jill! Thank you so much for participating in my carnival! This is such an awesome idea. I need to do better about that because I know I could save money if I planned ahead better. Now I have a question. How did you upload those charts into blogger? I've tried to upload Word documents with no such luck. Anyway, you are amazing!

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  6. Mom2My9, My husband had to help me with my checklist. He copied and pasted my banner, then my excel spreadsheet into PowerPoint. Then he was able to save it as a jpg so I could post it. Blogger will only let you upload jpgs and gifs. I hope this helps! Jill

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  7. Very cute list. My problem is that I wait too long to buy the winter or summer clothes and the stores have already moved on to the next season!

    Thanks for participating in Talk About Tuesday!

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  8. Thank you for sharing the list. Hmm - I do agree with you about shopping without my kids. Sometimes they are just as compulsive a shopper as I am!

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  9. This is great. I have my kids make this list every year. Its even better on this pretty "spreadsheet" Great Idea!

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  10. i agree with rhonda... awesome!!! thank you so much.

    kelly

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  11. Great idea!! I had to share this on my blog here: http://www.vixenmade.com/2012/08/preparing-for-back-to-school.html

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  12. This is what I was looking for!
    Thank you :)

    JessMom2FIVE

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