Back to school: Get your plan on

Aug 142012

August 14, 2012 Posted by Traci Add comments

The start of school is just around the corner; have you started planning for the year ahead? This little bit of upfront, organizational work is going to help you more than anything. For many of us in the Fresno/Clovis area, we’re at T-minus 1 week and counting, so planning is slightly limited. With that in mind, here’re some organizational ideas and general things to consider for the upcoming school year.

The first most important thing: Get your sleep schedules back on track. All summer long, my kids have stayed up ridiculously late, enjoying long, leisurely mornings. No more.
- Start by ratcheting back bedtimes. You still have time to make this gradual shift. Example: If your teen enjoys staying up until 2am surfing the web, start by making lights out at midnight, and pulling it back nightly until you’ve reached their optimal school year bedtime.
- Likewise, start ratcheting back wake-up times, as well. Sorry sleepy teens: No more rising at noon.

School clothes: Right now it seems like everybody is having a sale, BUT – if your kid is young enough not to — or just generally doesn’t – care, consider second hand stuff.
- The AMVets Thrift Store on Shields and Cedar (at 168) has a huge selection and is BEYOND reasonably priced.
  - Bonus: Every Sunday, almost everything in the store is a minimum of 50% off.
- For the fashionistas in the house, try Plato’s Closet. This store offers only gently used, name-brand items. Example: Lucky Brand Jeans, which go for upwards of $50 per pair, can be found at Plato’s Closet for about $20 or less. Good deal.
- Both Craigslist and garage sales offer a few surprises.
- If second hand isn’t your bag, all the big box marts and clothing stores are having summer end-of-season closeouts. Remember: Kids in this area can continue wearing shorts for awhile longer; hold off buying pants for as long as you can and scour online sales.

B2S school items: Personally, I’ve slowly been stocking up on paper, glue sticks, folders and pens when I’ve found sales. Office Depot has a 1cent sale on several items, including single-subject notebook, pencil pouches and rulers. While you likely won’t need 15 rulers, consider stocking up on the single-subject notebooks.
- Remember back to some old couponing rules: Kids go through paper like snack crackers; it’s nothing to them. And then the next thing you know it’s November and all the prices have gone back up to $2 per pack or $3 per notebook. Be ye not so annoyed!
- STOCK UP NOW. Get way more than you think they’ll use, because 1) They will surprise you and use it and 2) School supplies don’t go bad. Dole out what you need, save what you don’t for next year.
- Split up your transactions. Many of these deals are limited to a certain number per transaction, so get as much as you want/need/can and break up the number of transactions.
- Continue to check for coupons in the Sunday paper. There was a coupon for ball point pens in last week’s Sunday section. Remember: Coupons are cash, so let the manufacturers else pay for stuff for you.

School lunches: These are the bane of my existence. I am always scrambling to come up with brilliant lunch ideas, and then just lunch ideas, and then just whatever I can stuff in the bag. Plan ahead.
- Not everything has to be prepackaged. A basic lunch breakdown:
  - Sandwich or main item: Along with the usual sandwiches, try getting creative with burritos or slice of pizza.. Easy to make from scratch
  - Piece of fruit
  - A munchie: I like adding nuts, popcorn or some kind of pretzel/cracker/chip thing. That’s just me.
  - A sweet: I like to add a cookie or something, but sometimes I do a few marshmallows and some chocolate chips
- Bear in mind, if you’re going with a 4-item lunch, you’ll need 5 per of each item per week, per kid. Prepare on Sunday for the week ahead, and declare the items OFF LIMITS after school; they’re for lunches only.
- SIDE NOTE: It’ll help if you plan your dinners knowing you can repurpose your leftovers into lunches. Tonight’s baked chicken can become tomorrow’s chicken sandwich. Tonight’s meatloaf is tomorrow’s meatloaf sandwich.

Make an appointment for your kid’s physical. If you have a kid involved in sports, avoid the mad rush of next month and make sure you get that physical taken care of now. Last year’s physical will likely be out of date.
- Too late to get an appointment? If your insurance plan covers it, consider going to Urgent Care for a sports physical. It won’t be as in depth as your kid’s annual physical, but it will get the paperwork done.

Heading off to college? Remember that dorm beds require XL sheets.
- AVOID buying all the cute, kitschy stuff until you know what size dorm you’re dealing with.
- Be aware that many college campuses offer all kinds of amenities, and may actually already come with some stuff. Example: Desk lamp. Or dorm-wideWIFI.
- You can always make a special day of getting dorm room stuff AFTER your student meets his or her roomie.
- Stock up at the Dollar store for cleaning items. Be prepared that your college student won’t use them, so provide — but don’t over-invest.

Rules reminder: Be sure to remind everyone of the school-time rules, whatever they may be. In our house, that list includes:
- Video games only on weekends
- Nightly bedtimes per child
- Cell phone hours
- When the WIFI gets turned off
- Coming up with a shower schedule (who is a.m., who is p.m.)
- Making your bed before leaving the house
- Who is responsible for what chore

[photo via http://nejs.org/]