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In this video series I show you my back to school supplies haul for 2013-14 from three different stores! I went shopping at Dollar Tree, Walmart, and Target to try and find the best school supplies for under $20 or at least see what I could find for less than $20 at each store.

This video is part 3 of 3. Click here to watch Part 1 (Shopping at Dollar Tree). Click here to watch Part 2 (Shopping at Walmart).

Video Details

Hi everyone, it’s Alejandra. And welcome to part 3 of my back to school supply haul. So yesterday, I showed you the best school supplies I found at Wal-Mart for less than 20 bucks. And then the day before, I showed you my favorite school supply finds at Dollar Tree for less than 20 bucks. And today, today is the last video, I’m going to show you all of the coolest school supplies I found at Target for less than 20 bucks. So this goes to show, you don’t have to have a really big budget to find like awesome school supplies. You can still shop on a $20 budget and get awesome stuff.

Let me show you exactly what I found at Target.

School Supply Shopping Haul: Target

So the first item I found at Target was this aqua blue binder. It’s one and a half inches. It’s made by Avery and it was actually on sale for $3. It was regularly $4 I think. But what I like about it was how the rings are on the back spine as opposed to the center spine. So a lot of binders you see especially the ones that are like decorative or have a pattern on the outside, they have rings that are on the middle spine. So you kind of want to avoid that because the papers kind of get caught and stuff and they’re hard to turn especially when you open and close the binder. So look for rings that are on the back spine. So yeah, so $3 was I thought was a great price and I like the color. They had lots of other pretty colors and stuff.

Gusseted Binder Pockets

Target Sells Gussetted Binder Pockets!

Target Sells Gussetted Binder Pockets!

Let me just line that up before we continue. OK. So the next thing I found was a gusseted binder pocket. So I originally showed this in my warranties and manual binder for holding like manuals and stuff. But I feel like it’s a great addition to the school binder for holding pockets of paper or extra paper or your composition notebook or regular notebook or something.

But anyways, Target sells them for $1.19, which is a great price. I forget how much they are at Staples but I think they’re more expensive than $1.19. So Target is the place to get them. But Target sells them in clear, purple, red, green, blue. Yeah, I think that’s it. But yeah, this is great and it was $1.19.

Paper & Notebooks

Notebooks and Paper

The next thing I found was this bright orange notebook. Now, this was a $1.50. It was a little bit more expensive than $0.17 from yesterday’s Wal-Mart haul but target actually had no books for $0.17 also. But I feel like, I don’t know, I really liked this one. It has a nice hard cover and the lines are dark, there’s perforation on the edges and stuff and I really like the color. I feel like, I don’t know, bright orange is just fun and you could put stickers on it to decorate it or you could draw one or something.

So the next thing I found was a pack of lined paper for $0.82. So if you watched yesterday’s Wal-Mart haul, this was the same thing, the same brand, the same amount of paper and the same price. So Target and Wal-Mart are the best places to get lined paper because they have the best prices.

Next thing was a fun black and white polka dot composition notebook for $0.75. So Target actually had composition notebooks for $0.50. Yeah, they are $0.50 but this one had a little bit of a thicker cover and it had fun patterns and stuff. So I was like, “OK. Well, if I only have 20 bucks, I think I’ll splurge and spend the extra quarter and get the nicer composition notebook.” And then I felt like you could always color in these white polka dots with your markers and just make it like more colorful. So yeah, so we splurged and we spent the extra quarter to get the fun composition notebook.

I found these in the dollar bin. These are so fun. They’re sticker labels that say, “Hello. My name is,” and they have them in five different fun colors. And I just feel like you can put like one of them on each thing like one on your notebook, one on your composition notebook and stuff.

And so, if you lose something, people can return it to you because it’s labeled. And these are just fun and colorful and you can like color-coordinate the labels with what you’re labeling. So if I was going to label this orange notebook, I would probably put the purple, “Hello my name is,” because purple and orange look nice together. So that was a dollar and I found them in the bin right when you walk inside Target.

So next thing I found was this mini size composition notebook. And I saw this and I was like, “Oh, this is so cute. I’ve never seen a mini size composition notebook.” And immediately I was like, “Well, what am I really going to use this for? I only have 20 bucks. Do I really need to spend $1.99 on this?” But then I was thinking, I got everything else I needed and I was like, “OK. I guess I can splurge on this.” And I figured I would keep it, if I was in school, I would keep it in the pocket in the bottom of your backpack for like quick notes like if you just need a quick sheet of paper, you just pull this out and you write your notes.

Post-it Notes

So next thing I got was a 5-pack of post-it notes in fun pastel colors. Now, the reason why I got pastel colors and I actually looked for the pastel colors is because sometimes if you have like a lighter pen like a red pen and you write on a dark bight post-it note, it doesn’t always show up because the ink is kind of light and the paper is dark but if you have a nice light pastel post-it note like any color ink will show fine and it won’t like mask what you’re trying to write.

So this was $2.79. It was a little bit more expensive than the Target Up & Up brand. But they were actually out of the Target brand. So I probably would have gone the Target brand if they had them.

Highlighters & Pens

Pens and Pencil

So next, I found a 2-pack of yellow pen Sharpie Highlighters for $0.88. I feel like $0.88 was the sell price. I’m not really sure. But I think this was the sell price. I don’t think it was originally $0.88 but I feel like that was a really good deal compared to all the other Sharpie brand highlighters. And I love the yellow ones so two to a pack was such a great find.

So next, I bought 2-pack of Pentel RollerGel pens for $3.69. I feel like I totally splurged on these considering this was the most expensive thing that I bought at Target. But like I said in yesterday’s Wal-Mart haul, I feel like you just don’t want to go cheap with the pens since you’re using the pen all day long for taking notes and doing your homework and just writing in general. So that’s why I spent a little bit more on these nice pens.

So the last thing I got was a 10-pack of colorful Ticonderoga pencils. Now, this brand, Ticonderoga is new to me. I’ve always like – recently I’ve seen it in the stores and recently I’ve read about it but it never really caught my eye before until I just keep seeing it everywhere and then I did my own research and tried out the pencil and it’s like the best wooden pencil. I wish I would have known about these when I was in school. I always use mechanical pencils.

But if I was going to school, I would totally get these because they just write really smoothly and they have a nice clean eraser. And this brand makes fun, colorful colors only sold at Target like you can see here. Let me try and zoom here. It says right there. Can you see that? It says, “Only at Target.” So you can’t find them at the grocery store or other places. At least, I’ve never seen them.

And so, this was $2.89. So it was a little bit more expensive than your traditional yellow wooden pencil. But like I said, if I was going to school, I would spend the extra money to get the colorful pencils and then go cheap in other areas like getting the not so nice highlighters or notebook or something. So yeah, so those were the pencils.

OK. So that’s everything I found at Target. The total amount spent was $20.56 so I was over by $0.56. Now, if I wanted to be under budget, I probably would have pulled out the pink mini composition notebook just because I feel like that’s like a nice to have, not really a need to have. Like I could really only think of one purpose for it. And I really don’t need that. So I would have pulled that out to be like a dollar and a half under budget.

Now, the two things that I don’t have here that I didn’t find at Target with dividers and a pencil case. I don’t know if I went at a bad time but they just didn’t have any dividers that I was really crazy about. And the pencil cases, I know they have a good selection. They just didn’t have any that I really wanted to get that was under $2 that if I would have found it, I would have replaced it with this. But I just didn’t see one.

So anyways, that is everything I found at target. I hope you found this video helpful. If you missed part 1 and part 2 of this back to school supply haul, you can check them out on my channel. I basically did the same thing you see here but I spent $20 at Dollar Tree then I spent $20 at Wal-Mart. Anyways, I will link them below and you can check them out.

If you want more back to school organizing videos, you can check out my website at Alejandra.TV and I will see you soon. Bye!

About Alejandra

About Alejandra

Since 2008, organizing expert & certified life coach, Alejandra Costello has taught thousands of students in 132 countries how to get organized through her video-based training programs. Her YouTube videos have been viewed 100+ million times. Named 1 of the 5 most organized people in America by HGTV and “The Decluttering Queen” by Good Morning America, Alejandra’s expertise has been featured in The New York Times, Oprah.com, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Parents Magazine, and CBS. 

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