By Sally Pyne
By now I am sure you’ve noticed that the school supply lists and merchandise is in place at our local vendors. If you are in the market for these purchases, there is a big blue bird named Max who wants to remind you where to buy your backpacks, crayons and notebooks.
Americans are going to increase their budgets for school supplies by more than 10% this year, according to the national retail federation, pushing total spending to more than $75 billion dollars nationwide. Families with children in grades k through 12 said that they wills pend an average of $674. This includes new clothes, electronics, shoes, and only about 15% of that total on what we think of as school supplies. I recently saw a figure that indicated that a backpack full of supplies would cost an average of $30—that certainly was a more economical backpack than my daughters begged for!
According to “market watch.com” (7/21/16) parents are spending 40% more than they did on back-to-school shopping than they did 10 years ago. While they offer tips on not making costly mistakes and spending too much, i would offer up one more tip: “make your money mean more” and purchase local. Only when you buy your supplies and apparel here in our community will the local taxes go to help our schools and roads. When you avoid on-line sales completely, or use the feature “ship-to-store,” you benefit our community.
Be on the lookout for max, the buy local blue bird, who is around to remind us to maximize our dollars and spend local to support our community. “make your money mean more” is a “buy local” initiative presented by the mc lean county chamber of commerce, whose goal is to educate consumers and businesses about the benefits of spending locally rather than on-line or elsewhere. You’ll see max at local businesses, in parades, and on billboards. He’ll also be making an appearance at the corn crib on August 19 when half of your $10 ticket purchase will fund further educational opportunities. Go to http://www.normalbaseball.com/home grab your tickets, and use the code “mymmm” (lower case) on check out.
While the “make your money mean more back-to-school” special campaign kicks off today, we should remember every day that for every $100 spent locally, $48 goes back into the local economy. That same c-note spent on-line only returns us $14. Jobs are created at four times the rate when you shop in the brick and mortar stores. Shop where you live—it’s really that simple. Then encourage your kids, friends and neighbors to do the same.
Dr. Sally Pyne is a retired educator who has lived in the Bloomington-Normal community all but 5 of her 50-plus years. She is married to Ed who is editor and publisher of the Normalite newspapers and they are parents of two grown daughters.
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