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Friday, August 4, 2006
Money-saving tips for back-to-school
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Life was a lot simpler when my parents prepared me to go back to school. Cheaper, too. We’d make a family trip to Dew Orr Department Store in Arkadelphia, Ark., and buy $5-a-pair bluejeans as well as shirts for about the same price.
Mr. Orr gave away a pocket knife with the purchase. My guess is that not many stores these days offer knives as back-to-school shopping bonuses.
Instead, there are a bewildering number of items touted in advertisements aimed at the back-to-school crowd. If you believed all of them, you’d need to sell your house and car to buy “essentials” such as an iPod, digital camera and GPS locator.
My goal today is to offer some sensible advice when it comes to technology for your back-to-school kids. I’m going to limit this to middle school and high school students. College-age students offer different challenges.
We’ll start with something I wouldn’t buy, at least as an item to take to school — a laptop computer. The life span of that computer would be somewhere between that of a housefly and a daffodil. If it doesn’t get stolen, it’ll get broken. There may be families and schools where that advice doesn’t apply. If you’re in that boat, congratulations and say hello to all the folks in Mayberry for me.
That said, we still need to talk about computers. If you don’t have a separate computer for a student in this age group, it’s time to think about making that purchase. It can be a stay-at-home laptop or a desktop. There’s a good argument, since it isn’t going to be carried to school, for a desktop computer. You’ll get more for your money that way.
Even in households that already have two computers, a separate computer for your student can save a lot of heartbreak. When homework needs to be done, your student won’t be pushing you off your own computer just when you’re doing something vital … like killing space aliens or browsing the menu at a favorite restaurant.
I browsed through some of the computers from Dell and Gateway, and even the least expensive computers would do a fine job as a student computer. Just make sure you get at least 512 megabytes of RAM, even on a bottom-of-the-line machine.
If you don’t have a home network, you’ll need to start shopping for one. Much of what your future Einstein will be doing will involve research on the Web as well as sending e-mails about the new girl with red hair.
Even if you have a nice inkjet printer at home, you can save some serious money by considering adding a black-and-white laser printer. You’ll spend $200 or so. But the cost of each page printed will be just a fraction of what it costs with an inkjet printer. Anyone who has ever bought replacement inkjet cartridges can understand why. Students tend to print out a lot of their work — much more than the average home user — and a laser printer will pay for itself in a year or two.
I’d add a flash drive memory card to the back-to-school list, too. For $40 or $50 you can get one that plugs into the USB port of your computer and serves as a portable storage device — like a hard disk to go. Since I recommend against carting a laptop to most public schools, the flash drive will be a handy way to transport projects from school to home and vice versa. They’re pretty near indestructible. I’ve used one that had accidentally ended up in the washing machine.
Now let’s move to a few areas where you need to do research, as well as some critical thinking about your own children. Take cellular phones for instance — they can be a lifeline in a time of emergency as well as a distraction. Check your school’s policy on cellphones. Often they can be carried but not used during school hours. Make sure both you and your student understand and obey the school policy.
Another cloudy area is calculators. I’d suggest buying the very cheapest calculator as a starter. Some math and science classes, even at the middle school level, will require or suggest a more expensive scientific calculator. Wait until you know the specific requirement before spending a lot on a calculator.
I’d love to hear from parents who have suggestions about high-tech items for school. In my family, there is just one student left and she is 25 years old and wears $100 bluejeans.
If you know a good place to buy $5 bluejeans, I’d sure like to hear about it.
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