School goodies

“Are your shoes on? Where are your shoes? Turn off that TV! C’mon, c’mon!” As promised, I took the kids to National Bookstore for their school goodies last Friday. Once again we are reminded that summer is not long enough. Seeing my 2 siblings go to college and my 3 nieces is a beautiful thing for me.

I need to improve my spending practice so I plan ahead how much to spend on back-to-school needs. I asked the kids to prepare the shopping list because I want them to be part and enjoy this kind of thing. New clothes, notebooks, pencils, and crayons fill out the shopping list.

This year, I went back to National Bookstore. I choose the mall since they offer comfortable shopping with an air conditioned center where we can spend leisure time as well. Last year we had to shop at Divisoria as my father insisted but end up spending 2x as I have expected with less quality bulk notebooks, pens etc. And later I found out, that the box of pen I bought were almost of no use.

National Bookstore was jampacked of people. It took us almost an hour to get all what we need. I had to pick something that the kids would love to have but wont hurt much my pocket.

A spiral trendy notebook with quality ‘A’ paper cost around PhP17.00 to PhP30.00 for grade schooler. You wont’t believe me, we managed to get an eye-catchy with good paper quality for just PhP12.50.

These are for Angel, she’ll be on her first grade this school year. These notebooks are from Aspen, each with 90 leaves and it cost PhP12.50 only.

These are for Nicole and Aleksey, they will be on their 3rd grade and 4th grade respectively. These are also from Aspen, with 90 leaves and PhP 12.50 each.

These lovely notebooks are for Laila. Initially, she wanted binder notebooks but of course ‘ate’, the kontrabida, did not allowed her. One-piece notebook for all subjects promotes laziness and photocopy notes. These are from Advance. Price ranges from PhP 26.75 to PhP 29.75. Other brands which are trendy but overly-priced notebooks are simply not in my list. They cost Php50.00 to phP 200.00. Binder cost PhP200.00 to PhP 500.00+ . There’s no way I will allow them in my shopping cart these era of my life. LOL.

and these are for Jun, my youngest brother who will set his foot to college this June in Ateneo de Naga Univ. I preferred plain and black Veco notebooks for him. Each cost PhP 29.75. It has white and clean paper surface. The Yasaka white notebook cost Php 33.00,better than Cattleya and other brands whicht cost phP 39.00 and above

Large Crayons for the kids cost PhP31.00.

I got the kid a small and easy to clean water bottle. Notice the small lid include to avoid water spill. Each cost phP 119.75. There were other water bottle that are cheaper but they have straw which is imposible to clean.

The kids enjoyed shopping. I just love watching them pick their own stuff and ask me to check the price and if they can take it or not. There are so many others in the box that I wanna show here but I simply don’t have enough time to do it. But I hope you get the juice. Don’t go for overly-expensive school goodies. You can get your kids a candy-color (which kids love) and trendy stuff without sacrificing quality. You just need a time to roam around the store and gear yourself with a pen and paper to list and compare prices. Sounds funny, but in the end it saved me a lot of money.

Mwuahugs!