Planning ahead for the next school year's school fees

[ncarr]

I can't believe they charge you a fee to have your kid eat lunch at school!?!?!? That sounds crazy to me! I totally understand not wanting him to leave and go back. Besides being inconvenient it also disrupts his day and would get him out of "school mode." We actually frown on parents taking their kids out of school at lunch at my school... they usually bring them back late lol

[WV_mom_of2]

I am reading this thread and feeling very lucky! I assume most of you must have your kids in private school? I think it's crazy for a school to charge you a fee for your child to sit in the lunchroom. Lunch is part of the school day and should be treated as such. For a school to charge you for supervision of your child is just nuts!

My kids don't have alot of fees maybe because they are in public school. Our school supply lists are just basic. They need notebooks, binders, loose leaf paper, pens, pencils. When they were younger(they are 13 and almost 17 now) they needed things like crayons, markers, scissors, etc. I hit Walmart or Kmart when they have the back to school sales and stock up. I buy a case of notebooks, lots of loose leaf paper, etc. If we run out, I buy at Dollar General. I don't keep track but I probably don't spend more than 50.00 or 60.00 for all the supplies they need for an entire year.

I buy very few new back to school clothes. My mom volunteers in a thrift store and gets great, name brand stuff there half price. My kids have tons of clothes and I don't have to spend a dime for them! My sister only wears expensive name brands and only for one season so she passes everything down to my dd. I bet my dd owns 50 pairs of name brand jeans right now! I usually allow her to buy a couple of new things, but the girl is a bargain shopper so I don't spend more than 25.00 on her usually.

Ds is very tall and very skinny and there is only one brand of jeans that fit him well. They run 18.00 a pair. When it's time to start school he wears the ones from the previous year if he hasn't outgrown them. If he needs new ones then I buy him usually three pairs. I supplement them with camo pants I find at the Dollar General or at thrift stores. I do have to buy him new shirts at times since he tends to outgrow them lengthwise. I hit the stores and look for marked down t-shirts. I can usually get him t-shirt for under 4.00 each. Twice this year a store in our town has had plain dark colored t-shirts for 1.25 each!

Dd rarely wears tennis shoes and she has three pairs here that she has had forever and they still look new. She wears flip flops to school in the spring and fall. In winter she wears clogs or maybe they call them mules? At MOST I spend 15.00 on her for shoes all year.

Ds gets a new pair of tennis shoes as he needs them. I allow no more than 40.00 for a pair and thankfully he is in the same size as dh right now so as he outgrows them dh can wear them. Otherwise we pass them down to my nephew. He normally wears boots and my parents usually get him a new pair for Christmas. I MIGHT spend 80.00 a year on shoes for him if he outgrows tennis shoes in a year.

School lunch is 1.45 for each of them per day. They bill us at the end of the month. My kids eat at school about 90% of the time this year.

Other fees we have are......

Yearbooks - 40.00 for ds and 50.00 for dd
Field trips - we are only required to send spending money
School carnival for ds - 8.00 (and I usually end up paying for my nephews too so that's an extra 16.00)

In the last two years we have had these expenses for dd in high school

Class ring - I think it was 180.00 can't remember for sure
Letterman's jacket - she earned this for academics, taking honors and advanced classes and being on the honor roll 300.00 I think can't remember. The class ring was her birthday present that year and the letterman's jacket was her big Christmas gift

Prom ticket - 10.00
Prom dresses - this is her first year going and I bought two beautiful used dresses for a total of 16.95 plus 12.00 to have one altered. The one she finally decided to wear was free
Prom shoes - 3.00 on clearance at Walmart
Prom jewerly - 13.00
Prom wrap - 15.99
Stuff to do nails for the prom - around 10.00
She isn't getting the official prom pictures done since she is going alone. We are taking pictures here and then again when we get her to the prom. She is taking her camera to take pictures too. We will have some fees with developing them, but I will set a limit and she will be required to pay anything after that limit. Her aunt is doing her hair for free!

Next year she will be a senior and I know we will have some expense with that. She will have to order a cap and gown and announcements. Each year I take really nice pictures of the kids with my digital camera and she has said that she wants me to take her senior pics. My sister also has a really fancy camera with the different lenses and she has offered to do them also so hopefully the only expense will be in the developing. The after graduation party is free to the seniors. There will be no senior trip that I know of. Some expense with the prom but we will not go overboard. I am just in shock at the amount people are paying for the prom here this year. A mom told me this morning that she has spent over 1000.00 for the prom and her dd is only a sophomore. This isn't even HER prom! She's going with a junior or senior!

I am very blessed to have thrifty kids. My dd would pass out if someone suggested she buy a 400.00 prom dress. When she found out that my friend paid 500.00 for her dd's senior pics this year she had a fit LOL. They have always worn second hand clothes and are two of the best dressed kids in school. They both LOVE thrift stores and yard sales. So that combined with public school maybe keeps my fees down?

I don't really do a budget. Around the first of August I have them go through their clothes and try them on. Then we see what they need from there. I start watching for sales, clearance racks, etc. If they need something expensive(like ds's boots) we try to wait for Christmas or a birthday to get them. I work during the summer so we have extra money just when we need it for the supplies,etc.

[elphie]

We homeschool so the financial pressures are different because we have choices but still there because we are responsible for it ALL. It has helped us a great deal to write education in as a line in our budget and we have a cash envelope for it. Some weeks/months we don't spend much of it but others we will have to dip in and spend it all for a resource we need so its nice to have the leftover cash still in the envelope from earlier times. Sometimes we decide we want something expensive (for example we want Wii Fit for PE when the weather doesn't permit us outside and we are in between sports seasons) and we trim way back on the extras, like going to the children's theater productions at the local college, to save up for it.

I would also suggest talking to your child's teacher. When I taught ps I was happy to let parents know what items were essential for MY classroom (we had a school list and I had to put items on my list that OTHER teachers found "necessary"). I had no problem telling people that disposable cameras weren't a necessity.

[mommy4ever]

I am reading this thread and feeling very lucky! I assume most of you must have your kids in private school? I think it's crazy for a school to charge you a fee for your child to sit in the lunchroom. Lunch is part of the school day and should be treated as such. For a school to charge you for supervision of your child is just nuts!

I'm not in Calgary, but not far away, and in the public elementary schools here in this city, it is expected the kids can go home for lunch and must pay for the privilege of staying at school. The school ds went to did this because they hired people to supervise lunch hour, the teachers didn't do it. But that was the only fee besides field trips we had to pay.

My girls go to Catholic school, they have no lunch fees. We do have a school fee at the beginning of the year. It ends up being the same. They monitor the classes different, grade 5 and 6 volunteers monitor the younger kids and 2 teachers circulate.

But the girls school has some fantastic teachers that truly love teaching, where ds school had teachers that should have retired years before, they were resentful of being there, so they wanted nothing more to do with the kids than absolutely necessary.

[MomToTwoBoys]

I'm not in Calgary, but not far away, and in the public elementary schools here in this city, it is expected the kids can go home for lunch and must pay for the privilege of staying at school. The school ds went to did this because they hired people to supervise lunch hour, the teachers didn't do it. But that was the only fee besides field trips we had to pay.

My girls go to Catholic school, they have no lunch fees. We do have a school fee at the beginning of the year. It ends up being the same. They monitor the classes different, grade 5 and 6 volunteers monitor the younger kids and 2 teachers circulate.

But the girls school has some fantastic teachers that truly love teaching, where ds school had teachers that should have retired years before, they were resentful of being there, so they wanted nothing more to do with the kids than absolutely necessary.

Yeah this whole school fees thing is new to me because I grew up in NYS where the only thing we paid for was supplies and clothes. There were no school fees and our school lunches were subsidized. DS5 and DS10 are both in public school but DS5 has an all-year school that he attends with a modified calendar. I figured that by paying the school lunch room fee, he'd get time to unwind with his friends while still in a learning environment. I'd be able to get things done around the house and still have the luxury to go to appointments and such by myself.

We got DS10's bus fee forms and all that on Monday. It's still $165 for the year and I can post-date the check until September 1st. I imagine that the school will send him a list of things that DS5 will need for Grade 1 and I'll have plenty of time to talk to his new teacher.

We're saving pretty much everything that's in great condition that DS10 has outgrown. This includes boots, coats, backpacks, etc. If it isn't tattered and torn, it gets saved for DS5. At the most, he can wear the older clothes to school and save the newer clothes for when he has special things like picture day and such. DS10 isn't so lucky though and he outgrows things so fast! I always look for clearance clothing that I know he can wear, buy it at that time and then put it away until he needs it. He's currently wearing between a size 12 and 14 and has shoes bigger than what I wear!

I'm still hunting for a list of the fees that Grade 1-6 paid last year and I'll put that in my low number area to save for. I guess it's a wait and see thing.