WHETHER your kid is heading to primary or secondary school in the next few weeks, sending the children back to the classroom isn’t cheap.
According to a report by financial provider Shepherds Friendly, the total cost for school uniform across your child’s education can hit nearly £5,000 – while after school clubs, holiday childcare and school
meals bump the cost up further.
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This means millions of cash-strapped Brit parents are on the lookout for affordable ways to slash the expenses wherever possible – and now, one savvy shopper has come to the rescue with a purse-friendly buy.
According to Samantha Scott, a major UK superstore has slashed the price of all the necessary back to school essentials – and you can bag a mega haul of stationery for under a tenner.
So, if your little one keeps losing their pens, pencils and other school must-haves, you may wish to plan a trip to the nearest Tesco pronto.
During her visit at the popular retailer, the lucky shopper got her hands on a huge variety of stationery, including pencils with eraser tips, pastel ballpoint pens, sharpies and more.
Showing off the incredible haul on Facebook, Samantha said: ”Stationery all reduced in Tesco.
”Less than £10 for all this.”
In the post, Samantha – one of the 2.6million members of the
Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK group – revealed she had also purchased cut-price finger paint set, Tipp-Ex, several sticky tapes and neon sticky notes.
Other wallet-friendly bargains in the epic sale also included glue sticks and colourful highlighters.
In total, the Tesco customer had bagged more than 30 different items for the bargain deal of less than £10.
According to Samantha, fellow shoppers can find the jaw-dropping price reductions in the general aisle – and not near the back to school shelves.
She went on in the comments: ”Some items were on the original shelfs with yellow stickers the rest were just marked down on the shelf.”
Uploaded less than 24 hours ago, the post has already taken the internet by storm, winning Samantha a whopping 1.3k likes.
Keen to snap up the goodies, more than 300 members of the page flooded to comments, where many tagged their friends and family.
I’ve only ever bought one jumper and a shirt
Janine McDonald uses swaps and local community resources to find school uniform for her two daughters – now 13 and 15.
They’re both in different schools, with different uniform, but Janine, who is a single mum, has limited the expense by swapping and finding donated items to fit both girls.
She says: “At both schools, they have a pre-loved uniform section, so you can go in and either swap something or buy it for just literally a couple of pounds.”
In Manchester where Janine lives there are Gateway centres which are a ‘one-stop-shop’ for a wide range of council and community services.
She added: “The local gateway hubs hold a uniform Donation Point so you can just drop off any uniform there, and then anybody is free just to come and have a look and take anything that they need.
“I find they last absolutely fine, so I don’t need to buy new.
“I reckon that has saved me a couple of hundred pounds for each child.”
Janine, who has taken her recycling expertise and turned it into a decluttering business Clear the Clutter Now, says that setting up or joining a community WhatsApp group is another way to get cheap uniform.
The mum explains: “In the streets around where I live at the end of the school year, we’ll put on there, whatever age trousers we’ve got from whichever school, and then people just give them to each other.”
She recommends that parents, as well as looking for free uniform, take school uniform lists with a pinch of salt.
“You get the uniform list, and sometimes it recommends, five pairs of trousers, or X number of this, X number of that,” she says.
“Realistically, you don’t need that many.
“You can always buy one to start with and top up if needed.”
One cried after realising they had paid the full price: ”We shopped to soon.”
”Love a bargain,” someone else chimed in.
A third exclaimed: ”OH MY GOOD LORD, I AM GOING TO END UP LIKE A KID IN A CANDY SHOP! THANKS FOR THE POST!”
A fourth warned: ”Not reduced in Coventry today but fab bargain if they are in your area.”
”Cost me 35 pound for my kids,” a mum had seen the post too late.
