By the time Mary Lucca went school-supply shopping for the first time, the store displays were already picked over. It was nearly impossible to find the brand of crayons on the school supply list, and pre-sharpened pencils and white erasers were sold out.
This year, though, Lucca was ready. The mother of three grade-schoolers began planning early. She collected her two oldest kids’ unused school supplies—notebooks, glue, and crayons—in a central location. “He just made do with what he had at school,” she said of her oldest. “He probably only used one box of crayons.” Youngsters also often don’t mind reusing paint shirts and backpacks from one year to the next. And Lucca set aside a crate for each child, adding household staples: paper towels, facial tissue, cleaning wipes. “We buy everything in bulk,” she says.
Discover fun things to do with the family
Subscribe to the St. Louis Family newsletter for family-friendly things to do and news for local parents, sent every Monday.
As for clothes, the family often shops during end-of-season sales. This year, they bought shoes in June and are waiting to pair them with first-day-of- school ensembles. “Whenever anything goes on sale, we buy it and set it aside,” she says.
Even with all the planning, though, she and her husband will be taking a trip to a discount store to pick up additional items. “We took two different carts because there’s so much stuff, it gets confusing,” she says. Maybe this year, they’ll have to use three
