Shopping Results Week of 8/7

I'm done!  I have officially finished spending all 100 of my dollars for my personal school supply donation challenge.  Before I tell you what I accomplished with that money, let's recap what I got this week. 

Earlier this week I posted my shopping plan, but I ended up abandoning it for the most part.  I realized that I had been shopping sales, and not really thinking about what Hopelink said they needed most.  So, I looked back at their most needed items (here), and then did an inventory of what I had purchased thus far.  So glad I did.  Ends up I had plenty of many of the items on sale this week, and hardly any of a couple of things on Hopelinks most wanted list- specifically, binders, markers, colored pencils, and rulers.  So, I redid my shopping list and ended up with the following items for the week.

Target (Round 1):
I ended up going to Target twice this week.  Once because I needed a few things for the house, and swung by the school supply section (like I could resist!)  However, since I didn't have my list with me, I just got things that I knew I wanted to purchase. 

• 2 Mead 5-Star spiral notebooks for $1 (I had a $1.00 off of 2 coupon)
• 1 Kid scissors 2-pack for $0.90
• 2 Up & Up eraser 2-packs for $0.20 each
• 4 RoseArt thin marker 10-packs for $0.50 each
• 1 Up & Up wood pencil 24-pack for $0.90
• 2 Bic Shimmers mechanical pencil 8-packs for $0.90 (I had $1 off of these, too)
• 2 wood rulers for $0.50 each
• 2 Up & Up pencil sharpeners for $0.20 each
• 5 RoseArt school glues for $0.20 each

Fred Meyer

•  6 filler paper 150-sheet packs for $0.48 each
• 12 2-pocket folders for $0.08 each
• 10 sprial notebooks for $0.10 each

Staples

• 1 Zebra ballpoint pen 7-pack FREE (after Easy Rebate
• 10 2-pocket folders for $0.01 each
• 2 cap eraser 12-packs for $0.10 each
• 2 Sharpie 2-packs for $0.25 each
• 2 reams of Hammermill copy paper for $0.50 each (after Easy Rebate)

Walgreens

•  3 filler paper 280-sheet packs for $0.99 each

At this point, I had spent about half of my weekly budget, leaving me with about $14 left to spend for the whole challenge.  I decided to prioritize my spending so that I would be able to provide enough complete supply kits for 2 students, enough supplies (minus backpacks and binders) for 8 more kids, and then the other assorted supplies would be bonus.  Does that make any sense?  So that meant I still needed to purchase 2 binders, 5 packs of colored pencils, 6 packs of markers, and 7 rulers.  Considering the price of binders, I knew it would be tough to get that all for $14, but I was determined to try.  Here's how I did:

I stopped at Goodwill on the way (I've been looking for an entry storage solution and found one there for a great price.  More on that later...) and actually found a 2-inch binder in excellent shape for $0.99. Score!

 Then to Target to see if I could get the rest.  I got:

• 1 Avery 2-inch binder for $4.29
• 7 rulers for $0.50 each
• 5 RoseArt colored pencil packs for $0.50 each
• 6 RoseArt thin marker 10-packs for $0.50 each
• 1 pencil sharpener for $0.20

I bought the pencil sharpener thinking I was about 15 cents short of my $100 grand total.  However, after I got home and added everything up again (from all 4 weeks of the challenge) I discovered that I had made a mistake earlier and was actually still $0.68 cents short.  I hate to leave money on the table, but I also am done shopping, and did not want to make yet another trip to Target.  So instead I threw in a pack of Crayola colored pencils I had picked up for myself.  That made me $0.31 over, but I can totally live with that.

So there you go, shopping done, and challenge done!  Now I just need to gather it all up, take some pics and share with you what I got.  Look for that later today.