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"Ahh\u2026the joys of school shopping.  Before I get into how I made out with my credit cards and tell you about the other assignments that Laura Rowley from Yahoo! Finance has given me, I thought that I would share with you my tale of school shopping while the subject is still relevant.  I was proud. In previous years, I would have charged these clothes, but loaded with new determination to get out of debt and remain that way, I began saving in June to budget $200 for each of my three children. I tackled Matthew first. Being a boy and being 9, he&amp;#039;s happy with whatever I buy. He&amp;#039;s starting to pay more attention, but he still hates to shop and is happy for me to do it for him. Armed with online coupons during an up-to-50% off sale, I bought him six polo shirts and a fall jacket for less than $100! I then went to a discount store and found 6 pairs of Ralph Lauren jeans, new boxers, and Ralph Lauren socks for $80.00. I spent the rest of the money on school supplies and he was thrilled.  The girls however, are a different story. Katie, 13, is very &amp;quot;fashion aware&amp;quot; and would die if she couldn&amp;#039;t wear the latest trends from the high-end stores. Hannah likes the brand names, but she is better at stretching a buck. Before arming them with cash (I thought it was very important to let them handle the cash so that they could feel it going in and out of their hands as they shopped), I sat them both down and we talked. We discussed that if they bargain shopped, they could make their dollars stretch further by combing discount stores for the basics; jeans, underwear, socks, etc and then hitting the sale racks of their favorite stores for the name brands.  I know they heard me. Katie ended up finding 3 pairs of name-brand jeans and cute bras that she loved at the discount store and bought 3 brand-name t-shirts and a pair of on-sale sweats at Hollister. She did give into temptation for a $50 pair of jeans but felt the remorse right away. Hannah bought all of her jeans at the same discount store, 5 t-shirts at Hollister and had plenty of money left for the teeny-bop underwear she loved at Victoria&amp;#039;s secret. The result? Katie came home with 3 outfits and Hannah with 5 for the same money. Even though Katie wasn&amp;#039;t perfect in her bargain-shopping, she did try. Seeing Hannah with more definitely made her think.   Lesson learned? I think so, but we&amp;#039;ll see. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a45381/wants-vs-needs-the-joys-of-school-shopping-1903/?click=wdy-more>