5 Ways to Save Cash on Back to School Shopping
Tips to avoid breaking the bank while preparing for school.
Reuse what you can, don’t buy everything at once, buy secondhand, and take advantage of online coupons
Download Price Alert from Edison Mail to help you get cash back
Back-to-school season is never as happy as the commercials make it seem. For most students, it means a return to early morning wake-ups and late nights doing homework. For most adults, it means shelling out more money than they would like on school supplies. In fact, a recent survey from the National Retail Federation anticipates 2019 will be a significant spending year for school and college supplies. The consumer survey estimates sales for the shopping season will total a record $80.7 billion.
While there’s no helping the students out with their dread of the school year to come, there are plenty of good tips to help out anyone hoping not to pay an arm and a leg on purchases to prepare for their next phase of education.
1. Take inventory and reuse what you can
While some supplies only last a single school year, there are quite a few items that last year after year like pens, paper, barely used notebooks, calculators, etc. Send your kids off on a scavenger hunt to find the items on their back-to-school list that they already have at home, so you don’t shell out a ton of cash buying what you already own.
2. Don’t get everything at once
There are items you need starting from day one, and then there are items that aren’t necessary until later on in the school year. If buying everything at once is too much for your budget, find out from the teacher what items aren’t necessary until further down the line and purchase those later when they’re actually needed. This cuts down on stress at the store and takes a load off your budget.
3. Buy secondhand or not at all
Thrifting is trendy again, and with websites such as ThredUp, you can get lightly used clothes delivered straight to your door at a fraction of the cost of department stores. This is especially helpful if your kids are just starting to go through their growth spurts and are outgrowing their clothes every other month.
Used books are also an easy way to save. Websites like AbeBooks and Chegg have millions of books for you to purchase. With AbeBooks’ focus is more on reading books such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Chegg’s focus on textbooks, you’ve got all your bases covered. Chegg also allows you to rent books for the semester or year for a flat fee and then send them back after you’re done, so you don’t have a bunch of textbooks lying around after the year is up.
4. Reach for online coupons and discounts
Couponing can save you some serious cash, but it usually requires a lot of effort. For those not willing to sit around and cut out paper coupons, offers.com is the place to find coupons and deals necessary to not break the bank. All you have to do is search for a specific store or brand, and then select the coupons you’d like to use. Or if even that’s too much couponing effort, Honey is a free extension that searches the web for every working promo code as you check out online shopping. It applies the coupon codes that apply and saves you money with little to no effort on your end.
5. Get Cash Back With Edison Mail’s Price Alert
Did you know there’s an email app that puts a personal shopping assistant in your mailbox? Edison Mail is a bargain hunter’s best friend, built from the ground up for a modern consumer shopper. That means handing more than your average mail pile. This universal app to manage all your mail accounts in one place is wicked fast and dead simple. The app helps you keep your shopping organized by managing your retail subscriptions, tracking packages, and making receipts and bills easy to find. Most importantly, Edison Mail offers Price Alert, a new feature that’s determined to save you money.
All you have to do is to turn on the feature within Edison Mail, and shop online like you normally would. After being activated, Price Alert will monitor the price of every purchase you make that sends you an e-receipt to your mailbox. If the price drops by more than a dollar, Price Alert will suggest an email with the details for you to send the seller requesting a refund for the purchase. All you have to do is press send, and wait for the cash back to start rolling in.
Edison Mail’s Price Alert monitors online price changes at top retailers throughout the USA that have price match policies in place, so it’s worth reaching out to request refunds for price drops. Popular stores supported by Price Alert include Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, Old Navy, Macy’s, Nike, Target, Walmart, and many more.
In only a small sample of thousands of shoppers using Edison Mail’s Price Alert for just two months, the feature tracked more than 1,400 price drops in purchases and created potential for thousands of dollars cash back. Try it out and let us know what you think!
As of Summer 2022, Price Alert is no longer available. We made the difficult decision to sunset this feature in order to focus our resources on other features we feel will bring greater value to our consumers. To learn more, please check out our FAQ.
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