Back-to-school budgeting
Reading up on bargains can leave extra credit in family accounts as school starts
Goodwill Industries stocks still-good school clothes and donated school supplies, for families seeking to outfit students without excess expense.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Shopping tips
• Comparison-shop. Check newspaper advertisements and go online to search out and compare the best deals.
• Create a list and a budget — and stick to it.
• Use coupons.
• Join a favorite retailer’s Facebook page for up-to-the-minute promotions and discounts.
• If teens are shopping for themselves, set a spending limit with a pre-loaded gift card.
• If vintage is a teen’s or tween’s fashion choice, consider exchanging old duds — the stuff that’s been hanging out in a closet for 20 to 60 years — for store credit at a vintage store. Urban Eccentric in Vancouver buys vintage duds and offers sellers 40 percent of retail value for store credit or 35 percent for cash.
Scouting the shelves
• The Urban Eccentric
2411 Main St., Vancouver
360-694-2934
Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday; noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
The 1980s and ’90s are hip again — at least for teens and tweens — said Solanah Corell, a saleswoman for The Urban Eccentric, a retail vintage store with designs stretching back to the 1940s. Corell figures a teen can outfit him- or herself for about $100 in vintage clothes. A floral print dress — think grunge or the resurgence of the “Seinfeld” Elaine look — can be had for $20. Leather boots run about $20 to $60.
And if the shopping teen has access to vintage duds to sell, the shop (if it chooses to buy the clothing) offers 40 percent of the clothes’ retail value in store credit or 35 percent of retail value in cash.
Corell’s advice: “Get some really good pieces and a good pair of boots. Don’t skimp on the boots in this climate.”
• Goodwill on 10th and Goodwill retail stores
838 S.W. 10th St., Portland. Other locations, including six in Vancouver: http://meetgoodwill.org
503-595-1040
Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
“Alternative shopping has become much more mainstream,” said Dale Emanuel, spokeswoman for Goodwill.
Emanuel was standing in the boutique of Goodwill stores, the Goodwill on 10th, where a $300 Coach bag can be had for $99, a Banana Republic jacket goes for $24.99 and the walls and racks brim with designer fashions for men and women, some with department-store sales tags still attached.
“You get high-end clothing for a very reasonable price,” Emanuel said.
But even if high-end isn’t your thing — $100 for a purse, even a Coach bag, is still pretty spendy — there are bargains to be had at the retail stores.
Besides clothing, stores carry back-to-school items such as pens, paper, notebooks, binders, crayons and markers, most donated by corporations. Emanuel said a shopper can expect to save half off retail for school supplies. A pair of Imperial jeans runs about $6.99.
Emanuel’s shopping advice: “Go with an open mind. Go with a plan, but also be open to other things.”
And if you’re a boutique fan, Emanuel has this tidbit: A new Goodwill boutique is slated to open by year’s end at 3557 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. in Portland.
• Westfield Vancouver mall
8700 N.E. Vancouver Mall Drive, Vancouver
360-892-6255
Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 to 6 p.m. Sunday
Jessica Curtis, director of marketing for the mall, said shoppers can find deals online (http://westfield.com/vancouver), on the mall’s Facebook page, and at three kiosks in the mall. The weekly Fab Finds flier spotlights the best sales in the mall, like a recent one that offered shoppers a $40 store credit for $50 worth of spending.
Curtis’ advice: Load a mall shopping card for a teen shopper to help him or her learn to budget.
• Nordstrom Rack
245 S.W. Morrison St., Portland
503-299-1815
Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 9 pm. Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday
The Rack offers discounts of 40 to 60 percent off prices normally found at department stores like Nordstrom. Chris Ficco, store manager for the Nordstrom Rack in downtown Portland, said new wares arrive daily. The clothing stock is part vendor overruns and part rotation from the main stores, Ficco said.
But you won’t find children’s clothing here. Figure the Rack into your shopping itinerary if you’ve got ’tweens, teens or college students to outfit.
Ficco’s advice: “A rack store, or our type of business, is really busy. Be patient and don’t let the crowds scare you.” Ficco added that while lines can be 30 or 60 customers deep, crews of cashiers ring up customers quickly.
• Woodburn Company Stores
1001 Arney Road, Woodburn, Ore.
503-981-1900 or 888-664-7467
Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday
Shoppers looking for retail bargains will find savings of 30 to 70 percent off retail at the factory outlet stores, if they make the drive. And the sales will be plentiful during the Labor Day weekend, said Kristy Kummer-Pred, marketing director for the shopping center.
Krummer-Pred said Columbia Sportswear, for example, will have a $9.99 sale on a number of products. And many outlet stores have deep-discount bargains on end-of-season clothing.
Advice from Kummer-Pred: Check for up-to-the-minute sales on the outlet mall’s website (listed under events): http://shop-woodburn.com.
Ah, back-to-school shopping. For the teenage set, it’s all about scoring new duds, new gadgets and a new style — just as a new school year gets underway.
But for the parents who pick up the tab, it can be a wallet-draining excursion into retail purgatory, where wants and needs stretch infinitely and the cash to buy it all melts faster than clinking ice cubes in a summertime glass of lemonade.
The average American family will spend $606 on back-to-school shopping, according to the National Retail Federation. The past two years saw families spending $549 and $594, respectively.
“There’s certainly no indication that families are splurging,” said NRF spokeswoman Kathy Grannis. Shoppers “are still sticking to their budgets.”
Of the shoppers surveyed by the NRF for this year’s back-to-school shopping season, 71 percent said they would hit a discount store and another 17 percent said they planned to pick up supplies — clothing and gear — at a thrift store.
As for the spending increase this year, over the last two, Grannis attributes it to a replenishment of worn-out supplies — those backpacks that youngsters used for an extra school year, or clothing that got its use and then some.
With Clark County unemployment logging in at 13.3 percent and household budgets already stretched, we hunted for Labor Day weekend bargains to help satisfy both the family’s resident fashionistas and the wallets that finance it all.
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