There is a way to save money on school supplies but it involves you staring now, and not right before school starts. Our Super Savers say you can be under $20 a child if you follow just a few small steps.
School supplies for six kids can be costly, unless you are the Ivanovskys.
"This is the time you really want to do your back-to-school shopping," Super Saver Paul Ivanovsky said.
The Super Savers say shopping a little at a time means you can potentially pay $20 per kid on back-to-school supplies.
"You are not coming up a lot out of pocket with a bunch of money all at once; you are able to spread it out over four-, five-, six-week period. If you have multiple kids can be a burden," Ivanovsky said.
School supply shopping strategy No. 1: Print the back-to-school supply list from Paul's website called iheartthemart.com
"We have a spread sheet of every single item and the price of what you can buy it for," Paul said.
He uses Walmart for the standard everyday low price.
"Walmart is the cheapest for all the school supplies every single day," he said.
But then Paul or Tiffany search for an even better deal at other retailers and post that information on their sites so you can price match or visit that store for that deal.
For example, a box of 24-count Crayola crayons are normally marked $1.97.
"Walmart has a great deal on their Crayola crayons. They're marked down to 50 cents," Paul said.
But at Toys R Us this week, it's four boxes for a dollar.
School supply shopping strategy No. 2: If you don't want to shop a little at a time, do your shopping at one place.
Our Super Savers say it should be at Walmart. And other smart consumers like Talea Johnson agree because of its consistently low prices.
"They are always cheap, they always have what you need and it's just easier -- one-stop shop," Johnson said.
Johnson even created her own spreadsheet because she knows with four kids she has to be organized.
"They all go to different schools so you have to use four different school supply lists. They pretty much need the same thing so I make a list of supplies, who needs what and how many they need," she said.
Shopping strategy No. 3: Buy for the future, especially on those hard-to-find speciality items like charts and book covers.
"I love stocking up on items right now back-to-school where you can get them throughout the year," Tiffany Ivanovsky said.
Keep in mind those penny deals come with a mandatory minimum purchase so don't get caught up trying to get the deal if you don't need anything else.
Find Patricia on Facebook at ABC13PatriciaLopez or on Twitter at @patricialopez13
