Where to Find School Supplies Cheap for Thrifty Third-Graders

Frugal parents hoping to teach their kids a lesson in careful spending may have a challenge when it comes to buying school supplies.

Eye-grabbing displays carefully placed in store aisles promise great deals on everything from paper to pens and pencils, but you might be surprised at how much variation can be found in the prices for most items.

We grabbed a copy of the recommended supply list for third-grade students at Green Brook's Irene E. Feldkirchner School and headed out to check a few stores to do some comparison shopping (we'll check on middle school and high school supplies later).

Unlike some schools, the list doesn't include any specific brand mentions for items, so we checked for familiar brands to give a better apples-to-apples comparison.

You can save by shopping the store brands certainly—and, really, how likely is the project going to fall apart because Billy used a Staples glue stick instead of Elmer's? 

But to keep it somewhat simple, we focused as much as possible on same packaging and branding...with some exceptions, including composition notebooks, which are ubiquitous and have the largest price variance around.

You'll pay $1.99 for one of the marble-covered notebooks at A&P, $2.99 at Walgreen's, a buck at Staples...or 50 cents at Wal-Mart or ShopRite. 

Here are the results on other items: 

One box of pencils:
        Walgreen's: $2.99 for 24
        Staples:      $1.69 for 12
        Wal-Mart:   $1.49 for 12 

Two pink erasers:
        A&P:           $1.99 for a three-pack
        Walgreen's:  $0.99
        WalMart:      $1.48 (three pack)

Two glue sticks (Elmer's, large):
         A&P:           $2.49 (three pack, small)
         Walgreen's:  $1.49 (two pack)
         Staples:       $4     (three pack, large)

One subject spiral notebook:
         A&P:            $1.99
         Walgreen's:   $1.49
         Staples:        $1.99

One-inch binder:
         A&P:             $2.99
         Walgreen's:    $2.99
         Staples:         $2.99

Scissors:
          A&P:            $1.99
          Walgreen's:   $2.99
          Staples:        $2.99
          WalMart:       $0.99