You know I love a money saving tip. Let me pull another thrifty tip out of my bag o’ tricks.

This combines my method of earning points on Swagbucks (read here to learn how to earn Swagbucks points) and shopping during seasonal deals.

That’s right. I’m talking about BACK TO SCHOOL DEALS.

How to Get FREE Notebooks (Or Other Supplies) from Staples

The Back to School Shopping Season

During 2020’s Back to School shopping season (AKA the Holy Grail of thrift shoppers which roughly spans from July – September), I decided to do a little experiment.

I earned 500 points on Swagbucks and traded those points for a $5 Staples gift card.

Then I perused on the Staples website for a few weeks just to check out how the deals looked like. My challenge was to stock up on notebooks without spending over my gift card limit (AKA $5).

I found that the notebook prices stayed roughly the same throughout this shopping season, though towards the end of August until about September or October, I found that some of the prices started to get raised a little.

Scouting deals earlier will help you probably earn the best savings.

Price Breakdown and What I Bought

As an avid writer and pouring idea generator, I like to have many notebooks around me in case an idea greets me. If you’re a student, you might also need to keep a few notebooks around.

I bought two of each of the following:

Composition Notebook (Wide Ruled) @ $0.50 each         Total: $1.00

Composition Notebook (College Ruled) @ $0.50 each     Total: $1.00

Spiral Notebook (Wide Ruled) @ $0.25 each                    Total: $0.50

Spiral Notebook (College Ruled) @ $0.25 each                Total: $0.50

Filler Paper (College Ruled) @ $0.75 each                        Total: $1.50

Total Cost: $4.50 + $0.43 (tax) = $4.93 (which means I have $0.07 left on my gift card balance)

Unless you’re writing a ton, the above quantity of notebooks and paper should be plenty to tide you over until next year’s Back to School season. Or for the next five years even.

Warnings and Additional Tips!

Be aware, there are item buying limits when shopping during this time of year. If you shop on Staples through Swagbucks, you can also get points back from your order (basically, why not?). *Shipping costs not included in calculation – so basically you’d only be paying for shipping on the products, unless you earn a $25 gift card from Swagbucks, which should cover your order total and shipping costs.

If you want pretty, inspirational notebooks with glitter, this ain’t it. This is for functional usage. They are pretty to me but they aren’t necessarily Instagram worthy if that’s what you’re looking for. These are basic notebooks at dirt cheap prices where I can make them pretty by filling them with my ideas. By the way, the dollar store doesn’t have the best prices during Back to School season, so you have better luck at other retailers. But dollar store notebooks are a good deal when you’re not shopping during back to school season.

Though from the notebooks you accumulate, if you follow a similar order to the one I outlined above, you have enough around for the next year or so.

Oh yeah, and don’t hoard notebooks. These basic functional notebooks prevent me from hoarding (and never using) the pretty notebooks that I’m terrified to ruin with my chicken scratch notes, so that’s my bonus.

Happy writing!

And remember, “Every story is worth the read. Someone (some overworked and ink-stains-on-the-clothes lovely soul) took the time to write it.