Whether your children are tiny tots, teenagers or twenty-somethings, back to school shopping can really break the bank. And depending on the age and stage of the child, smart phones, tablets and laptops can really up the ante.

I have memories of walking through stores with both kids randomly throwing “essentials” into the shopping cart and having to carefully filet their selections before we reached the cash. Inevitably, every year after the big shopping trip I also discovered a stash of duplicate items left over from the previous year.

Here are a series of articles with ideas that can help you keep your back to school costs in line.

Money Crafters’ Heather Levin offers 14 Tips to Save Money on Back to School Supplies & Shopping List. She encourages readers to hit up the Dollar Store for some incredible bargains. She also suggests that you start looking for coupons in your Sunday paper, and search online for coupons at sites like RetailMeNot, which even has a special section on their site for back to school coupon codes.

10 Back-To-School Shopping Tips that Save Money on parenting.com recommends that you stick to your list and hold off on buying trendy gear until after the school year starts. She also encourages families to round up a couple of other parents with kids the same gender but different ages, and host an annual clothes swap. “Trade toys and books, too! You’ll save a bundle,” she says.

Tips from RealSimple on How to Save on Back-to-School Shopping by Amy Leibrock include focusing on getting the best price for the most expensive items on your list through coupons, incentive programs, rebates, weekly specials and online-only deals. Also, once you’ve decided where you’re going to shop, she says look for discounted gift cards for those stores on sites like CardSwap. You’ll save as much as 25% on cards recipients don’t want.

Learning how to save money and make smart financial choices is the focus of the blog myMoneyCoach. How to Get the Most Out of Your Back-to-School Budget advocates balancing the purchase of pricier name brands with generic products by offering to pay the first $20 or whatever your budget will allow for the item and letting your child pay for the rest. Younger kids can use gift money towards their “wants” and older kids can use part-time earnings to top up what they’d prefer to buy.

And finally, 6 tips for frugal back-to-school savings on Bankrate reminds readers to comparison shop online first to try and avoid impulse buying.Following the brands you use and the stores you regularly shop at on Facebook and Twitter, as well as signing up on mailing lists, can also net you back-to-school savings.

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Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere?” Share the information on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.

Written by Sheryl Smolkin
	Sheryl Smolkin LLB., LLM is a retired pension lawyer and President of Sheryl Smolkin & Associates Ltd. For over a decade, she has enjoyed a successful encore career as a freelance writer specializing in retirement, employee benefits and workplace issues. Sheryl and her husband Joel are empty-nesters, residing in Toronto with their cockapoo Rufus.

By Sheryl Smolkin

Whether I am giving or receiving a gift, I have mixed feelings about gift cards. I like receiving cash because I can spend it on whatever I want, but often I just deposit gift cheques to my VISA card and don’t buy anything special with the money. Giving gift cards requires a bit more thought than just putting $50 in an envelope, but they are easily lost or misplaced.

The big problem used to be that many gift cards had expiry dates. However, since 2008 Saskatchewan (like most other Canadian provinces) has had legislation prohibiting expiry dates on all prepaid purchase cards and banning inactivity or dormancy fees that reduce the value of all cards bought and sold in the province.

Nevertheless, there are a few exceptions to the general rule:

• An expiry date is allowed for prepaid purchase cards that are issued for charitable purposes, e.g. a charity auction.
• An expiry date is allowed where the consumer has not given anything of value in exchange for the gift card or gift certificate, e.g. a retail business gives employees gift cards for store purchases as a holiday gift.
• Retailers can charge a fee for replacing lost or stolen prepaid purchase cards.
• Retailers can charge a fee for “customizing” a prepaid purchase card by adding personalized elements like names and logos.

So even if you excavate your bottom drawer and find a stash of gift cards that are several years old, chances are they are still useable. But what if there is absolutely nothing you want to buy from the establishments that issued the cards?

Here are some ideas:

• Re-gift the card to your brother because you know he is renovating his house and definitely can use something from a hardware store.
• Sell the card to a friend who frequently buys from a clothing store that doesn’t sell anything in your size range.
• Use the card to buy a wedding present for your cousin who has registered and made a selection at the gift store where the card was purchased.
• Donate gift cards for books, cosmetics etc. to registered charities like women’s shelters and seniors centres. Registered charities can issue official donation receipts for income tax purposes for the eligible amount of gifts of gift certificates and gift cards under specific circumstances.

And if all else fails, you can sell gift cards on several online websites like cardswap.ca. CardSwap also accepts store credits for returned merchandise accompanied by the receipt of purchase.

Here is how CardSwap works:

1. Enter the details of your gift card into the online form. There is a list of over 450 merchants in the pre-populated form, but if you don’t see the company that issued your card you can request that it be added.
2. Mail your gift card to CardSwap using their free pre-paid shipping label. You will receive an email confirmation when they receive your gift card.
3. CardSwap will mail you a cheque, credit your account with SwapPoints or the amount can be deposited directly to your PayPal account. A PayPal deposit is instant, but further charges may apply. If you select points instead of cash, you can redeem your SwapPoints for gift cards from your favourite Canadian merchants sold online by other CardSwap users.

Another Canadian website where you can buy and sell gift cards is giftah.com, developed by several University of Waterloo students. Before selling your gift cards online do your own due diligence to satisfy yourself that the site is on the level and delivers what it promises.

Do you have any other ideas how to use unwanted gift cards?  Send us an email to so*********@sa*********.com. If your idea is posted, your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card. And remember to put a dollar in the retirement savings jar every time you use or sell a gift card that you forgot about before you read this article.

If you would like to send us other money saving ideas, here are the themes for the next three weeks:

17-Jan	Online shopping	Ways to save by shopping online
24-Jan	Home insurance	What does your home insurance cover?
31-Jan	Winter vacation	7 ways to protect your credit cards on vacation

Related:
How to turn unwanted gift cards into cash
7 tips for buying and selling used gift cards
These holidays, put those unused gift cards to work