School shopping

The beginning of the school year in the USA must rival Christmas for the amount of money being spent! Last week we got a note from my son's teacher for this year listing the supplies he will need to bring with him. Fortunately, his school provides many of the things he will need - not all public schools in the USA do. He needed a 3 ring binder (I emptied one of mine for him), pencils (we rounded up a dozen from around the house) and 2 notebooks (I picked some up at Staples earlier this summer when they on sale for 1 cent each.) DONE. 

When the kids are old enough to be heading off to college, the shopping list will not be that short of course.  I went to Target last week and had a hard time finding the things I needed. There are women's clothes somewhere behind those boxes. 

Almost all the aisles in the store looked like this - piles of fridges, microwaves, TVs - all the college essentials ;-) 

Snowstorm shopping

I still haven't figured out why every time there's a big snowstorm, this happens in the supermarket:

We joke about all the people who are going to make French toast because bread, milk and eggs seem to sell well before a storm, but chips and salsa?

Oh, and for Mother Hen, who has never seen a pumpkin covered in snow, here's a snowman with a pumpkin for a head!

Christmas shopping

I am one of those mothers who likes to take her kids to museums for fun and buy her kids educational toys. Fortunately, most of the time my kids seem to like this! Our trip to the UK this summer had a Roman theme - Bath, Chedworth Roman Villa, Roman tour of Chester, Wroxeter Roman city . . . So when I saw that the British Museum shop has a free shipping offer on right now - including to overseas addresses - I had to take a look. Oh dear! I could spent quite a lot of money there, and not just on the children! Well, I'm sure I could get some of those things here in the US, but some of the things I like  are British Museum exclusives. Hmm - may have to browse some more and put a wish list together!

By the way, if you click on my link to the shop and end up buying something there, you could help defray my expenses shopping there as I do get a commission on purchases made in the next ten days through my link.

30% off - 4 days only

(For my US readers only.) This weekend (July 30 - August 2) you can get 30% off at Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic stores with this coupon. 5% of your purchase price will then be donated to Donors Choose, an organization that helps teachers in the United States fund classroom projects.

Sadly, the kind of requests teachers make are very often for basic items like paper and crayons! I had a project funded earlier this year so that I could do some multimedia projects with my students. I had already spent several hundred dollars on materials this year, so it was nice to have someone else spend a couple of hundred on my behalf. So, if you were planning on shopping at any of these stores this weekend, please take the coupon with you. It'll save you a few dollars, and help some teachers and their students out too!