Misc

Welcome viewers of Fox & Friends! I am so glad you stopped by the blog!

My name is Kristin Cooper and I am mother to 2 children, Emily and Jacob. We are also expecting baby #3 next year. School supply lists are getting longer and longer and our budgets aren’t getting any bigger. In July I posted Emily’s 1st grade school supply list to find out if it was average length or if it was excessive. It sparked a VERY interesting discussion and it turns out that everyone’s list is getting a lot longer.

But since I am a bargain hunter, I was able to get all the items on the list for about 60% less than retail price. I requested the back to school list in June and shopped for it throughout the summer. I got free paper towels at Target, free baby wipes at Rite Aid, and a 1c pack of copy paper at Staples (they are repeating that deal this week!). (Note these aren’t necessarily pictured in the paper. Emily had started school on Wednesday and I had already turned in her supplies. What you see pictured is extra items that I had in my stockpile.)

I encourage you to take a moment and look around the blog. I call the blog Couponing to Disney because we use all the extra money we save from using coupons, rebates, etc to pay for our yearly trip to Disney World. We saved $3200 for our May 2010 trip and not one dime came out of my husband’s paycheck. If you are interested in learning about all the features on the blog, you can read this article.

Thanks again for stopping by! If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment below or feel free to email me directly.

If you are looking for back to school deals, you can view the deals at the office supply stores here.

Note to my readers: This post will be a sticky at the top of the blog. Please scroll past it for new deal posts.

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Welcome readers of the New York Times! If you happened to read the School Supply article in the New York Times today and decide to visit the blog, thank you for coming!

My name is Kristin Cooper and I am mother to 2 children, Emily and Jacob. We are also expecting baby #3 next year. School supply lists are getting longer and longer and our budgets aren’t getting any bigger. In July I posted Emily’s 1st grade school supply list to find out if it was average length or if it was excessive. It sparked a VERY interesting discussion and it turns out that everyone’s list is getting a lot longer, although mine was about the longest that people had seen.

But since I am a bargain hunter, I was able to get all the items on the list for about 60% less than retail price. I requested the back to school list in June and shopped for it throughout the summer. I got free paper towels at Target, free baby wipes at Rite Aid, and a 1c pack of copy paper at Staples (they are repeating that deal this week!). (Note these aren’t necessarily pictured in the paper. Emily had started school on Wednesday and I had already turned in her supplies. What you see pictured is extra items that I had in my stockpile.)

I encourage you to take a moment and look around the blog. I call the blog Couponing to Disney because we use all the extra money we save from using coupons, rebates, etc to pay for our yearly trip to Disney World. We saved $3200 for our May 2010 trip and not one dime came out of my husband’s paycheck. If you are interested in learning about all the features on the blog, you can read this article.

Thanks again for stopping by! If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment below or feel free to email me directly.

Note: This post will be a sticky at the top of the blog. Please scroll past it for new deal posts.

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Check out my beautiful daughter on her first day of First Grade! Also how cute is the outfit? My Mother-In-Law made it!

And check out my awesome hair cut and coloring I got at our local Headstart! It’s a conditioning color wash with foil highlights on the top. It was only $57 for the coloring which isn’t bad at all! I’ve paid $95 for highlights before. :-O

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Tomorrow is the big day! My daughter starts the first grade. I am really excited, it actually feels like Christmas to me. I am so ready for us to get back into the routine of things.

You probably remember the long school supply list that I posted back in July. I am excited to report that I ended up getting everything on the list for about $40! I estimate that the entire list cost about $100 without any sales. It’s amazing how much you can save when you are a bargain hunter. And that everything we save on isn’t necessarily food.

My favorite bargain was the 1 cent copy paper that we got at Staples about a month ago. That stuff is expensive and I was able to get 2 packs for 2 cents! What was your favorite deal?

So how did you fare on the school supply list? Did you break the bank or did you manage to keep it in the green? I’d love to hear how your school supply shopping has gone!

Oh and if you missed it on my Facebook wall, the Wall Street Journal interviewed me about my back to school shopping! The article ran last week. It was such an honor to be published in the Wall Street Journal!

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One of the best ways to be a successful bargain hunter is to have a group of bargain loving friends in your area. This person (or people) will encourage you, vent with you, celebrate with you and more! I have one myself and it’s so fun to compare deals we scored and help each other know which stores are in stock, which cashiers are the best and more.

So if you are interested in finding a couponing buddy, leave a comment on this post letting us know what area of the country you live in. Then keep a watch on the comments for someone to say they live in the same area as you do!

Good luck! I hope you find someone!

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So who is going to brave the crowds for tax free weekend? I won’t be one of them (we always shop ahead because things get picked over very badly around here). But I want to know who is going and what deals you score! If you aren’t sure if your state is participating, be sure to check out the list here.

If you are in the Birmingham, AL area Jefferson County is not taking off the local county tax (so you still pay 5%) but Shelby county is. You might want to hit the Walmart on Hwy 280 in Inverness or the ones in  Hoover, North Pelham, Chelsea, or Alabaster.

Good luck!

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My daughter is about to start the first grade and when my Mother-in-Law saw the school supply list she was in disbelief. She’s never seen a list this long! So I wanted to know if this is the norm or the extreme….

Student Supplies:

(3) 24 count boxes of Crayola Crayons
(2) packages of #2 Roseart 12 count pencils already sharpened
(2) large pink erasers
(1) pair of Fiskar pointed scissors
(1) bottle of white school glue
(2) large glue sticks
(1) small snap shut school box
(1) pack of Crayola washable markers
(1) package of wide ruled notebook paper
(1) package of white copy paper
(1) package of colored copy paper
(1) large package of Expo markers
(1) bottle of Expo board cleaner
(1) backpack
(2) plastic no prong folders

Classroom Supplies
(1) box of Kleenex
(1) bottle of Antibacterial soap or refills
(1) bottle of Germ X
(3) boxes of baby wipes
(3) double rolls of paper towels
(3) packages of Clorox Wipes
(1) package of gallon sized Ziploc Bags
(2) boxes of kitchen drawstring garbage bags

Additional supplies requested by the teacher (there are 10 teachers with different requests and no idea yet who she will have. I will give an example of the longest request):
(1) money bag
(1) pack of fine point Expo dry erase markers
(1) heavy duty 1″ white clear front binder
(2) 1 subject spiral notebooks (green and black)
(1) clear pencil pouch with 3 holes
(2) plastic folders with prints (red and blue)

The school is also requesting an additional $20 donation!

So is this the norm or the extreme? What is your child’s school supply list like?

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Do you have a question for me? It can be about anything you need an answer too! Confused about how to shop at a store? Not sure where to find something on the blog? Have a question about a vacation at Disney? Feel free to ask me here!

Also if you have left a comment in the past week or sent me an email and have not received a response, feel free to ask it again here! I had about 5 emails that were returned to me this week because the emails were invalid.

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My mother celebrated her 50th birthday while we were at Disney, and I wanted to get her something that would really knock her socks off. So in early February I started saving for her gift and I was able to give her an HP laptop that I got off Amazon with gift cards that I earned from Swag Bucks! (Remember I do have referrals from my awesome readers who sign up under me.)

It arrived yesterday and I took it to her tonight. When she opened it, she cried. She couldn’t believe I would do something so nice for her.

See my mother has a bad back and bad feet. It is very difficult for her to sit at the computer for any length of time without her feet swelling. So this was something that I really wanted to do for her and luckily the laptops have really come down in price.

Her reaction today was worth every cent.

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