Many parents are already planning an early outing for back-to-school shopping, despite the early days of summer. Inflation concerns have spurred people to plan ahead in spending. Bryce Gruber, executive editor of Today's Parent, joined Cheddar News to help provide money-saving tips for affordable school shopping.

<div class="block">Many parents are already planning an early outing for back-to-school shopping, despite the early days of summer. Inflation concerns have spurred people to plan ahead in spending. Bryce Gruber, executive editor of Today&#39;s Parent, joined Cheddar News to help provide money-saving tips for affordable school shopping.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: Money-Saving Tips for Back-to-School Shopping

Now it's time for stretching your dollar where we give you tangible tips to help you make the most of your money. And today we're focusing on back to school shopping while we're still a few months away from the start of the school year. Inflation and ongoing effects from the pandemic have spurred a new trend of back to school shoppers starting the process earlier in the summer. And so many families are currently looking for wallet friendly ways to secure essential school supplies. Joining us now to discuss is Bryce Gruber, he's executive editor at the at the magazine, today's parents. So Bryce, thanks so much for joining us. What are some of the ways uh back to school shoppers can get a head start while also saving money. Well, early is better and this is definitely a great time of year to save because we are just weeks away from what we believe is going to be the next Amazon prime day. And there are still tons of overstocks from last year's school season that are really great for the upcoming school year. Things like lunch bags and sneakers and sweatpants and kind of all the usual suspects that kids need to have for the school year. Um, they're either marked down on clearance already or they will be going on massive sale in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Now, are there any back to school shopping timing strategies that might lead to better savings? Absolutely. So, right now is probably the best time to score out of season merchandise. Your fall and winter merchandise is marked down to like bottom of the barrel clearance prices. Right now, we're talking up to 90% off of last year's prices. So jackets, coats, jeans, sneakers, uh, there are tons of overstocks from last year. Retailers really overshot for chil children's outdoor gear. Um, so you can get really like wonderful deals on hiking boots for kids sports gear, outdoor apparel for Children. Now is a really great time to get 80 to 90% off retail prices. And then as you're moving towards the middle of summer, we're, we believe that, you know, you're gonna get the best prime day deal sometime in early July, we have loads of prime day content on today's parent dot com and you will get things like pencils, pens, notebooks, backpacks, lunch bags, water bottles, all the stuff that kids need for a really good and successful school year up to 60 to 70% off. Now, if there's an item that you should pick up right now and an item that you should probably wait on, what would those two items be, I would definitely go for outdoor apparel for kids. Right now. I would be scooping up last year's winter coats. I'd be scooping up mittens and gloves and, and hats and all sorts of things that, you know, the kids are going to need for playgrounds in just a few months. Um, those are all really, as I said, up to 90% off, you can find unbeatable deals on walmart dot com. Target dot com. Old Navy Gap. They are clearing out everything from last year and they still have plenty of it and they are doing it at rock bottom prices. And then the two that I would probably wait for would be backpacks and writing utensils. Wait a little bit because most of these big retailers will have these Doorbuster deals in July and August leading up to the first day of school where they just want to get you in the door or clicking on their website and they will, you know, a pack of pencils could be 25 cents. A big container of markers could be a dollar. So that's worth waiting for. We're gonna have to leave it there today. That's thanks to Bryce Gruber. She's the executive editor at the magazine, today's parent.