Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Back-To-School Shopping for the College Student

The back-to-school adventure is even more fun this year for me. Not only are all 3 of my kids going back to school next month, #1 son is heading off to college on the other end of the state. This translates into even more outlay of $$$ for him, as he will require a laptop computer and items for daily living in his dorm room.
What makes this a challenge is the fact that #1 son is living away from home this summer and after his summer job is over, he will only be home for 6 DAYS before having to leave for college, so it's been left up to me to pick out/up all these items he'll be needing BEFORE he comes home.

And you know I am all about being frugal, so the mission is to get what he needs for as little as I have to spend, while still getting him decent stuff.

He'll be sleeping on a twin sized bed at school. As he has a full size bed at home, I've been on the look-out for sheets for him. I finally found a deal on bedding.

I know these are NOT high quality luxury sheets but this is a college dorm situation for an 18 yr. old. It's highly probable that either #1 son will ruin these doing his own laundry or they will get 'lost' or just walk away at some point in the year, so I'm not wanting to spend big buck$ on sheets. I found these bedding separates at a local discount/discontinued item store.
I got 2 whole sheet sets(1 flat/1 fitted/2 pillowcased)for $18.16.....that's $9.08 per set.
I bought blue sheets. I figure this way, he won't have to deal with bleach as they aren't white sheets, so less chance of him ruining them. And the color will hide stains too.lolol
I may go back and get a couple more fitted sheets because they tend to wear out faster than top sheets.

I am all about buying used whenever possible. I was reticent about buying these WALMART Sheets, as they are made in China. But I figure buying them from a discontinued item store is as close to buying used as I want to get with sheets. Walmart got pennies on the dollar selling these items to my local odd-lot store so Walmart isn't seeing a profit on this purchase.

So I've gotten the bath towels and the sheets. I'll let #1 son pick out the comforter when he gets home.

Sluggy

3 comments:

  1. Ah yes, college dorm shopping :) We have an outlet store nearby called Ollie's and back when our son was heading to the dorms, a friend found great sheets there for the weird-sized dorm beds (not twin, some other funky small size, of course) for $7/set - I happily paid her to get extra sets... which are now all lost/gone since son isn't in the dorms any longer and couldn't care less about keeping his sheets. Oh well!

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  2. Oh, I LOVE Ollies!lol That's where I got these sheets and over the years I've probably gotten ALL the sheets in the house there.
    I use to live in Ollies....lolol

    Luckily this college doesn't have those funky XL Beds, so I don't have to buy those hard-to-find-so-u-pay-through-the-nose XL sheets. Your friend did good finding them at Ollie's tho.

    I figure all guys of that age don't care or take care of stuff well so I'm glad to have found something for cheap. Hopefully they grow out of that phase & I'm hopeful your son does by the time he's say....40! ;-)

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  3. "just walk away at some point in the year,"
    That is so funny. And what makes it so funny is you might be right. I'm sorry that you will only get to see him for 6 days. That's sad. I'm sure that you will be able to get everything that he needs in those few days. Enjoy your time with him. I'll be back here in one year when Anna goes away, I'll need your guidance and support.

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