Sprout School Supplies - worth it?

[Anonymous]

The headphones that come with those boxes are crap. Many of them break during the year. I suggest you at least buy your kid a really decent, tough pair of headphones and clearly write their name on it with a sharpie. They still might break but probably not, especially if you talk with the kid about how to take care of them, like don't leave them on the floor or cram them in your desk, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. The schools have plenty of supplies, for one thing, and should only be asking for what is needed. Find out what your child needs and re-use folders, notebooks, etc for the next year.

We haven't received any supplies back.

I like Sprout. I'm paying an up charge for the convenience and for not having to store the rest of a multipack until next year. Totally worth it to me. I get that not everyone feels that way but I glad the option exists.

I find it depends on the grade level. For younger classes where its a community pot, we don't get anything back, other than the composition notebook, folders, and headphones. For my 5th grader, she brought back anything she did not use during the year because they got to keep everything at their desk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. The schools have plenty of supplies, for one thing, and should only be asking for what is needed. Find out what your child needs and re-use folders, notebooks, etc for the next year.

We haven't received any supplies back.

I like Sprout. I'm paying an up charge for the convenience and for not having to store the rest of a multipack until next year. Totally worth it to me. I get that not everyone feels that way but I glad the option exists.

I find it depends on the grade level. For younger classes where its a community pot, we don't get anything back, other than the composition notebook, folders, and headphones. For my 5th grader, she brought back anything she did not use during the year because they got to keep everything at their desk.

I hate the communal supplies. I have no issue donating for communal supplies but prefer my child to have their own especially with cold and flu's going around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been buying it myself for more than 8 years. It is at least 2/3 more expensive than if you did it on your own, including buying all name brand items while doing it on your own. You have the list MONTHS ahead of time so the, “I’m too busy...,” is crap. Also, teachers generally don’t even pick the name brand so the person who said her teacher friends want certain brands - that’s not true. I’ve filled out the form for this many times and we aren’t picking the brands. I prefer Ticonderoga and Crayola, but this year our supplier (Staples) has their generic brand inserted in the lists for most items. We do care about folder colors because we will tell the kids to get their blue folders to get ready for science, but not the shade of the colors.

+1,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just bought mine through Sprout. I have no idea if my school uses it for a fund raiser or not, I am thrilled to have it done and sent to the school. It makes my life easier. I have one child and both my husband and I work in good paying jobs. Could I save money by going to Target? Sure, but is saving $10, maybe $20, worth digging through the piles of stuff to find what the teacher wants? Nope.

There are times I will worry about saving cash and then there are times I worry about convenience. This is a convenience issue for me.

Finding crayons, paper, and other supplies at a regular store is really not hard and you don’t have to dig through stuff. Lol.

You do when the teacher asks for a specific composition book, and folders with specific colors, and specific types of pencils. And it might not take too long but I know my patience level and what I am willing to do. We go to target sporadically, I don't want to make a trip to look for the very specific items the teacher puts on the list. Yes, some of it is easy to find but some of it is very specific.

My teacher friends are clear that they ask for specific types of pencils because they are stronger and less likely to break, so they don't want the kids bringing in whatever pencil pack they can find, but a specific type of pencil. They have success with specific products and know some of the other versions don't work as well. So they are putting specific types of supplies on their list and that is really what they want your child to bring in. They don't want folders with characters of different colors because it causes problems if one kid has the pink folder and the other kids have red. And it might sound stupid and easy to deal with to me but I can only guess that my teacher friends hate when parents send in things that are different from the list because they know it will cause problems.

So my desire to make my life easier and my teacher friends life easier and desire to not dive into my OCD like tendencies to make sure I am getting the exact correct type of dry erase pens means I happily pay the extra $10 at Sprout. And I don't have to carry the stuff in. Or take the 30 minutes to an hour to go to Target to find the stuff.

For the parents who are cool with doing that, you could start your own services. Charge $5 less then Sprout and do the shopping for the people who are using the service. You make some extra cash while doing the shopping that you were going to do any way. It is a win-win. Advertise on the neighborhood apps and boards.

News flash - they have all types of colors of folders at most office supply stores. And the comp books -there’s two kinds: wide ruled and college ruled. Elementary schools always want wide ruled. I don’t care how mnah pages are in them (some have 80, some have 100). Most supplies become community supplies anyway. The teacher is not actually checking if you got the exact specific one. Chill out.

I don't get responses like this. Why do you have to be so nasty. I am sure the PP is well aware she can buy this stuff at an office supply store. However, that is how she chooses to spend her money, not yours. Nor is she asking you to do her shopping for her because her time is more valuable than yours. Her decision has absolutely no bearing on what you do and in fact, may make things easier for you as that is one more blue composition notebook at the store for you to buy. So, maybe you need to chill.

Really? And you don’t think it’s nasty at all that she suggests I start a service to buy other’s supplies? GTFO.

It wasn't meant to be nasty. If you are out buying your kids stuff and find it easy and could make some extra money, why not? I would bet that someone who did this and under cut Sprout by a little bit would be able to make enough to pay for their kids school supplies and a nice dinner or two. It is a bit of a side hustle that probably isn't inconvenient because you are already doing it. The reality is that Sprout and other such services started because someone did just that, they developed a side hustle for the neighborhood that made them some extra cash and realized it could be something bigger. My Mom did that type of thing when we were kids, not school supplies but we had some kids who would come to our house before school and have breakfast with us and ride the bus to school. It was less expensive for the parents and my Mom was already getting breakfast ready for 2-4 kids so adding another child or two wasn't hard. She made a little extra money, the parent saved money, no big deal. (shrugs)

My apologies if it came off as nasty.

My DS sprout box was $40 this year, no headphones included but we have a set that he has been using and will send those back in.

[Anonymous]

We got back a pencil box filled with colored pencils and the like yesterday, it will be great for travel.

[Anonymous]

My school was$100 for kindergartener. I did waste time on two trips because one store didn’t carry all.