School Supplies Shopping Guide 2015 – It’s the 7th Annual Oakland County Moms School Supplies Shopping Guide! Best prices on school supplies are compared at Meijer, Target, Walmart, Staples, and Office Max.
I visited Target, Meijer, Walmart, Staples and Office Max to find out which store has the best prices on school supplies for back to school. We typically would visit KMart in the past, but many have closed so we thought it best to bring Staples into the mix.
School Supplies Shopping Guide 2015 Big Board
I want to make note of a few things in reference to the school supplies prices chart… the school supplies selected are some of the most commonly requested items to be purchased. This is not a complete list (as we all so painfully know). This school supply list includes some of the basics and is set up to be a gauge to see where the different stores fall in comparison to one another.
This is our 7th year of doing our School Supplies Shopping Guide comparisons. Overall, school supplies prices have stayed about the same compared to last year, with some even decreasing… e.g. the price of the Crayola 12-pack of colored pencils. One item that saw an increase across the board (except for at Meijer) was the glue sticks. You’ll note an asterisk next to some of the glue stick prices as well. Those stores did not carry a 2-pack, so I calculated the value of two glue sticks based on the pricing and number of glue sticks. The odd thing here is that you don’t save by buying a larger bulk package (as you would in most instances). With glue sticks, you’ll see you’re better off buying a 2-pack from Meijer than a 6-pack from Staples.
One item that we changed out this year was the college ruled notebook. We exchanged it with a 70-page wide rule spiral notebook since that is more commonly purchased for grade-level school children.
When in a hurry as most of us are while shopping for back to school supplies, how and where a store has the school supplies section set up is key. Staples and Office Max have the school supplies scattered all throughout the store making it a difficult task to get everything on your list. Staples even had missing/confusing prices and no price checker in the store… so you won’t know the true price until you get to check out. The other stores had most of the supplies contained in one area. Meijer and Walmart conveniently had the school supplies at the front entrance. Target has kept their school supplies display in the back of the store. Meijer, Target and Walmart had all the supplies available in these areas with Meijer being the most organized, Target a close second and Walmart right behind at third.
When doing the price comparison for school supplies, I went with the lowest priced option available for each of the items. However, when considering the 1-in three ring binders, I compared only the hard cover style. There were some of the flimsy plastic sheet type binders, but they were so flimsy and some were already torn so I wouldn’t even consider including them as the same item.
See related posts below for more Oakland County Moms School Supplies Shopping Guides.
