Summer is nearing an end with back-to-school season around the corner. Smart shopping expert Trae Bodge spoke with Cheddar News about what to know before making a shopping list to cover for supplies.

<div class="block">Summer is nearing an end with back-to-school season around the corner. Smart shopping expert Trae Bodge spoke with Cheddar News about what to know before making a shopping list to cover for supplies.</div>

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Making Your Shopping List Before Back to School

Summer is almost over and soon students will be back in the classroom. So today we're launching a new series. Need to know back to school over the coming weeks. We'll share tips and tricks to get everything your kid needs without breaking the bank and it starts with your shopping. What do you really need to buy? What can you leave off your list? Joining me now, smart shopping expert, Rey bore. Always great to see you. Thanks so much for having me. Hannah. First. I can't believe we're talking about back to school here. We are. What's the first step when parents get a list of supplies from school? It can be overwhelming as you know, it really can be. So you want to take that list for back to school. But then you also want to take a look at what you have at home and then create your own list because there might be supplies that you could reuse. Maybe the backpack just needs a good wash. Some of the clothes will fit, others will not make a list and then do your plan of attack for shopping. What about those big ticket items? Like laptops? Tablets, graphing calculators. Great question. So sometimes your kids do need these things for school and they can be very expensive. What I like is to buy refurbished. There are many businesses that offer this, just make sure that you are buying one with a warranty in case something goes wrong. But in most cases, these items are like new or repaired and they are fine school. Is there anything you can leave off your list? At least for the start of school clothing? And now this sounds weird, you know, you might think you need everything for clothing before school starts. But what I recommend, especially if your kids are, you know, trend sensitive, buy those general basics and then save some of your budget for after school. So when they start and they see that everyone's wearing Barbie Core, then they can get some of those pink items and add that to their wardrobe and you won't hurt your budget. Speaking of trend sensitive, what do you do if your child really wants something? But you just aren't too sure if you want to spend the money on it. Well, in this case, what I would do is make sure your child has some skin in the game. They don't understand that those really expensive sneakers are going to impact your budget in such a substantial way. So what I would say is show them how much you have to spend and ideally give them a gift card. And have them spend it themselves. Um, I don't know if I've ever talked to you about gift card, granny. They have something called Build a card. You can give your kid a personalized gift card with a fun picture on it and a message and send them out into the world to go shopping on their own. So when they buy those expensive sneakers, they'll see that that balance goes way way down very quickly and they will make more cost conscious decisions when that money is theirs and not yours. What a genius idea. I love that. I'm stealing that. I'm using that. Anything else parents should know before we go back to school? Yeah, a couple of things. So you don't have to go, only to say the office supply stores to buy your back to school items. I recommend buying in bulk if you happen to have a membership, take advantage of those discounts there and don't forget about dollar stores or other discounters. Uh Dollar General who I work with. They have brand name items from like Crayola Elmer. So you can do a lot of your back to school shopping right there. And plus they have coupons on top so you can really save a lot just by shopping at a store. Like Dollar General. Fantastic tips. As always. Thank you.