well, if your CA won’t do that for you, I will! We could get the ol’ a-double-dot.
Hah. In.
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My coffee maker made some weak 
coffee this morning. I could see through the carafe. 
I put in the usual amount of ground beans. 
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School supply lists came out. My 6th grader is likely going to need $200 of supplies, and that’s assuming he DOESN’T get assigned to the math teacher who has “glue gun with matching glue sticks” as one of the items. WTF?!
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What kind of supplies are on that list?
the cost of the supplies is inversely proportional to how often they’ll use them during the year.
notebook - $0.50, gets used every day
glue gun with glue sticks - $25.75, gets used once.
Source: am knowledge, did raising of 4 humans.
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Amazon raised their free shipping threshold to $35.
I would agree but with one caveat. There’s also an adjustment factor for an item’s propensity to break.
Mini Me goes through a minimum of two sets of headphones every single year, and those are among the more expensive school supply items. I’m assuming those get used a lot or she wouldn’t keep breaking them.
If anyone has recommendations for durable headphones I’m all ears. If they cost twice as much but last three times as long then that’s a bargain. I’ve been buying fairly cheap Target headphones.
Nothing that’s so nice it will get stolen from the unlocked bin where they are stored at school.
I am only raising 1 human, so I need to rely on the wisdom of others’ experience.
One of the required items this year is earbuds. Over the ear headphones are explicitly NOT ALLOWED, they have to be wireless earbuds. I imagine they have to make exceptions for kids whose ears can’t fit them, or who have issues with things in their ears, but man. I am not happy about that.
Also, each of the 8 teachers has a list of supplies. Many are community items, which means we can’t just buy a pack of pencils and have him use them for all classes, no, we have to bring a pack for EACH TEACHER. And each teacher requires at least one 2” binder, so we have to upgrade the backpack to fit everything. Expensive.
My other annoyance is that the school supply lists come out well after the tax-free weekend, so I have to either guess at what’s on the list or miss out on the opportunity to buy stuff tax free.
Last year I guessed and bought a 12-pack of Ticonderoga pencils. Nope, they needed a 24-pack. I guessed and bought two notebooks: red and blue. Nope, they needed two notebooks but they have to be green and purple.
I AM A CHEAP ACTUARY! PUT OUT THE FREAKING SCHOOL SUPPLY LIST BEFORE TAX FREE WEEKEND DANG IT!!!
Sorry, I’ll settle down now.
What are these tax free weekends you refer to? I don’t think PA had them when our kids were in school.
One weekend before school stores have the option to not collect or remit sales tax on clothing & school supplies.
Retailers don’t have to participate if they can’t manage tracking eligible items and such, but of course most of them DO participate.
And it’s a fairly broad list too: computers & equipment, clothing & shoes (up to a maximum dollar amount per item and they very clearly specify that retailers can’t play games such as selling the right shoe and the left shoe separately in order to stay under the limit), anything that might reasonably be construed as “school supplies”.
Relatively new thing.
Also, it’s intended to be for back-to-school, but adult clothing absolutely counts since it could hypothetically be for high school or college students. So if I need to stock up on gym socks for myself or get some new work shirts then I can absolutely get in on the deal.
But I Googled and it seems that Pennsylvania has not yet jumped on this bandwagon.
In my state they started when my kids were in school. I think a neighboring state did them and too many people were going there to shop, so we started our own.
But it is so crowded at the stores that weekend that we decided to shop at other times. I usually would but only one new outfit for the first day of school. We go back in August and it’s silly to buy winter clothes then bc they can wear shorts to school. And they will likely grow before it’s time for winter clothes. I also got good backpacks that I didn’t replace every year. I let my daughter test that one year and her backpack broke the first day of school.
My favorite back to school shopping was when I had one in college and one in HS and I sent them to the store with my Target card and a strict budget.
This is an issue, for sure.
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It might be older than some of the posters on here, but I guess when you are ancient 26 years is “relatively new” 
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Oh, apparently this would be a moot point in PA because they never assess a sales tax on those items to begin with.
True, though it does tax some computer items. I don’t know which would be tax free.
17 years in my state. But if the tax-free shoe fits, i will wear it 