Well here it is a month into school. Of course ALL the back to school supplies are no longer on Super sale.

This year the town I am in, went from a school supply list for each school (broken down by grade and then each grade list having a few items that were teacher specific) to a list for the entire town (broken down by grade). I know that this list are really only per semester supplies as right around Winter break every year 90% of the supplies are used up and at the parent teacher conference they send home a supply list of the items your child needs for the rest of the year. I also looked at the list this year and thought to myself man this list is Small.

I normally just double or triple the list. Well this year I did not buy ANYTHING, I went through my school/office supplies boxes and I had more than double or triple the list. I had stocking up on the FREE stuff and 1 penny and 5 cent deals last year and the year before and CVSing and so when we packed up the house to sell I knew I was not going to need anything at least for this year maybe more. See I had a now Xhusband that was in college and a son in school plus needing paper stock for the house I always stock up at B2S time.

Well the new District wide school list had 1 bottle of glue and 2 glue sticks listed. This was the same for Kindergarten and the second grade. Well it is now a month into school and a newsletter sheet was sent home and what does it say, that of course the kids are running low on glue sticks and some kiddos are already out. My son still has one stick left and I think I sent him to school with like four sticks at the begaining of the year as he had the same teacher as last year and I still had a copy of the prior years list.

The first grade teachers are asking the parents to send 10 glue sticks to school per child. Well I had actually 12 glue sticks in my boxes of supplies and I might even have a few partially used ones in the art supply box that we use for his home art homework.

So now I am thinking ten glue stick is possibly what they will be going through until mid term because he went through at least 1 maybe 3 sticks in a month If I remember correctly. So I am wondering do I buy gluesticks now?

Staples has a 4 pack of their brand on sale for $1 until the 25th. which is the same price as the sales at B2S time which is a 2 pack of elmers for $.50, My concern is do I buy three packs so I have 12 more on hand incase the sticks only last until midterm or do I wait and see. Now we are talking about spending $3 BUT when glue sticks are not on sale they can cost like $2.50 a 2 pack. I dont want to have to pay that much for 2 when I can get 10 for that price but on the other hand I am trying to downsize the amount of school/office supplies I have because I think I have an excessive amount. (Heck until the teachers sent home the notice saying send 10 glue sticks we had 6 2 packs sitting in a box).

Glue sticks do come in handy for projects and
Office Depot has a teachers 30 pack of the elmers glue sticks that are purple than turn clear on sale for $13.99 which is actually 46 cents a stick which is more money than the staples ones BUT I like the color changing ones as it seems my son uses less glue with the purple kind. BUT then I have a box of 30 Which could be enough glue sticks for years since I am not sure if in the second grade if they will switch from using primarily glue sticks to primarily liquid glue. I think the big BOX of 30 glue sticks might take up less space as the hanging cards the 2 packs are on take up a bit of space. I am not sure what to do since I want to downsize the office/school supplies to a reasonable level but on the same hand the point of stocking up on supplies when they are cheap is to have the supplies when they are needed and to not to have to pay $2 for a notebook when it could have been purchase for $.17 in August.