The heat of summer fades, the days become shorter, and one can hear the jubilant cries of parents and whines of children.  What do all of these things mean?  School has begun!

Of course, with the return of school comes the back to school shopping trip. If you are the lucky parent of a preschooler or lower elementary student, you can shop wherever the bargains are.  However, if you are the parent of any child the age of 10 or older, you know how difficult back to school shopping can be.

The other weekend, my husband and I took two of our children to a local mall to purchase new clothes for this school year.  As these two are 10 and 12, they had their own ideas of what their new wardrobes should look like.  While we, as parents, recognize the importance of being “cool”, we also recognize the importance of not being over-indulgent.  So, we explained that the price limits with which we were comfortable but started our shopping in the stores the kids deemed in style.  We decided it was better for them to see pricetags there and then shop at more reasonably priced stores.  Otherwise, we would hear, “There might be a sale at Cool Store A.”

So, with this thought in mind, we entered Cool Store A.  At this store, we found no clothings items for either child due to a lack of sizes and styles.  When we entered Cool Store B, each child found 1 item reasonably priced in the clearance section.  Each also found a non-sale item, which were the “splurge” items.  (See our sister site, Your Parenting Info, to read why we bought these items.)

Next, we went to Cool Store C, and there we hit the shopping jackpot!  Almost every item in this store was on sale!  Both of the kids found numerous clothing items to stock their wardrobe. The kids were pleased with their trendy clothing items, and we were pleased with the excellent prices.

When our next shopping season arrives, we will follow this same shopping plan.  The kids understand our spending regimen but also understand that we are willing to dedicate an afternoon to finding clothing that pleases their senses of style and our budgets.

Even when shopping is pliable, most men know what they want, when they want it, and know which store to find it in. The latter can rarely be said about the shopping tactics of a woman.

Ladies, I’m sorry. As much as you believe your shopping experience is crisp, quick and clean, it simply isn’t compared to the standards of men.

Women love to browse while shopping, and sometimes every store available is their playground. One of the worst things for men is wandering aimlessly around a shopping center spending hours looking at nothing but new purses, a new pair of shoes, or a “few” new blouses

Here are some quick tips to make your next “forced” shopping encounter even just a little better.

• The biggest thing to keep in mind is that if you are not happy, no one will be and there is nothing worse than being dragged along by a woman that is not in a good mood. It will serve for a very unnerving experience, trust me. The only thing you can do is try to enjoy yourself and make your outing as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.
• As much as you hate doing so, offer to hold the bags for your feminine counterpart. Chances are she doesn’t like having to juggle a bunch of bulky shopping bags while browsing shelves and clothing racks. The more you help her out, the more likely she will find what she needs faster; even if sometimes she really doesn’t know what it is she wants.
• Playing games is fun, so make up a little game to play with yourself so you can remain occupied. I find it fun to look around and watch the other men forced into the same type of situation and rate how their shopping experience stands compared to my own. It is actually quite comical sometimes to see how others react to the same exact situation you are in.
• Don’t be afraid to speak up. If you see a store you would like to browse in-between travels, then just bring your female companion along with you. Sometimes even though spending more money is not an option, browsing products you are interested in helps keep the mood positive.

My family members are foodies!  We love to cook and eat.  And even more than that, we love to talk and think about cooking and eating.  So when our family gets a chance to go to William-Sonoma, we jump at the chance.  We play with the gadgets.  We eat the samples, and we talk about what we want to make at home.  We talk about our favorite Food Network stars and the gadgets that they use in the kitchen.

On a trip there recently, we picked up two gadgets: a single egg poacher and a meat tenderizer that has retractable spikes.

The short feedback is that the egg poacher looks cooler than it is.  It has to be sprayed heavily or coated in butter to prevent the egg from sticking.

The meat tenderizer was something that we saw on Emeril Live.  With a great number of sharp spikes, Emeril even joked that you should keep it away from pets and children!  The spikes are cool and did a great job tenderizing a flank steak when I tested it.  This was our winner from that day’s shopping adventure.

Food gadgets and my family are a great combination.   What shopping sparks excitement in your family?

I have traveled over 1,000,000 miles in my life and have been on planes, trains, and automobiles on almost every continent on the globe.  With that much time on the road, I long ago imposed a simple rule on myself: buy cheap, disposable luggage.  Luggage always gets beaten up, lost, stolen, run over, rained on, and generally neglected.  So spending a ton of money on bags to hold my belongings is not something I was going to sign up for.

But recently, I met the love of my life, and we are now a happily married couple.  So even though I still have to travel, now frequently I will have a partner in my travels. I have a simple rule when it comes to my wife, she should have the best.  So to make packing simpler, we decided to buy a new piece of luggage that could hold both of our travel clothing needs, and we decided to go with a less disposable piece.  We spent an afternoon shopping for various items, with luggage being one of the items.

At the Rockingham Mall in Salem, New Hampshire, we found a Macy’s.  In their luggage section, we had about 50 large luggaage pieces from a  variety of manufacturers to choose from.  So we practiced rolling them around, zippering and unzippering, and generally simulating using them.  After about 30 minutes of playing we decided on a grey Samsonite 29″ Spinner Upright. It was big and deep and had four easy-rolling wheels on the bottom.   It was on sale for the price of $220.

In the coming weeks, my beautiful bride and I are going to be doing a three week trip to California and Hawaii.  We will be excited to see how our luggage does.

There are always ways to cut costs when you go shopping for practically anything. The key is to know how to find bargains and to learn how to make every dollar and every cent count for a lot. Read on for some shopping suggestions that can save you money, time and energy.

-When you are writing up a grocery list of items that you need to purchase, flip through the sale flyers for your local stores. Compare prices in the flyers and jot down items that are the best prices. If the stores are in different areas of your community, go to one shopping mall for some of the items on your list one day and go to the other stores the following day.

-If there are stores that are reasonably close, combine your errands with your exercise for the day. If you only need a few items at the store, then bring a shopping bag or backpack with you and walk both ways.

-If possible, shop for clothing and the accompanying accessories in the off-season when prices tend to be lower. Another option is to wait for the sales that happen at the end of every season. Buy a swimsuit for next year at the end of the summer season, and you will pay a great deal less than if you wait to buy it the following spring!

-Don’t turn up your nose at second hand shops or thrift stores. These stores have much to offer in terms of clothing, furniture, household items, etc. It is not unheard of to find items at these stores that are practically brand new. For example, if you have spent a fortune decorating your home you might decide to decorate the recreation room, the extra bedroom or your children’s playroom with items purchased at thrift stores. No one has to know where you bought your stuff!

-Refrain from using credit cards, debit cards or checks whenever possible. Instead use cash. Why? Cash is much more difficult to part with it because you can easily see how much you have spent. If you buy with cash, then you are less likely to waste your money on things you do not really need.

-When fruits and vegetables are in-season they are cheaper. This is when you should stock up. Freeze a good portion so that you will still have lots to choose from when the prices start to rise!

Want a great place to shop with excellent prices, a plethora of stores, and tons of name brands? One of the best places in the sunny state of Florida is the Prime Outlets shopping center located in Ellenton. It is located just off of Interstate-75, and close to Bradenton, St. Pete, Tampa and Sarasota.

The entire shopping center houses over one hundred thirty stores and includes some of the biggest name brands: Polo Ralph Lauren, Saks Fifth Avenue, Coach, Stuart Weitzman, KB Toys, Aeropostale and many more. The shopping center is located outdoors, so you can get that great exercise you need. It is even covered along all the major walkways, so you can remain sheltered in the rain or shaded from the sun.

With exception to some of the more expensive stores, almost everything is priced cheap compared to normal malls; some of the stores even have wholesale prices. It is great for those back to school wardrobe visits, updating a personal wardrobe, or even picking up some much needed household items. My significant other enjoys visiting Kirkland’s, they sell excellent name brand decorative items for the house at pretty cheap prices.

The outlet is open Monday through Saturday 10am-9pm, and on Sunday 10am-7pm. It is closed, however, on all the major holidays. So, the next time you’re looking for something to do and the weather outside is beautiful, why not take a trip to the Ellenton shopping center with some friends and family?

Whenever we go shopping with our kids we try to give them the opportunity to buy something. It is never a big dollar figure thing, but allowing them to make their own decisions serves multiple purposes:

• The kids stay engaged during the day because they know they will get something
• The kids learn how to work with a budget

This past weekend, we went with two of our kids to the 75th Annual Craftsmen’s Fair in New Hampshire. The fair is a sprawling array of artisans demonstrating their crafts and offering them for sale. There are glassblowers, blacksmiths, painters, and sculptors working in every medium you can imagine.

Now a craft fair may not sound like a great day for kids, so we employed our strategy and told them they could each spend $20 on a craft of his or her choice. After looking at the hundreds of exhibits, the kids decided on pieces of hand-sculptured pewter from Walker Boyle. Our daughter chose two horse figurines and our son chose an eagle talon talisman. Mr. Boyle was friendly and accommodating to the kids, which made the entire transaction fun.

Each child hit the $20 mark exactly and left the fair happy as larks making it a great day for the whole family.

When I went to college, I set off with a Mickey Mouse comforter, three garbage bags full of clothes and bedding, a boxful of school supplies and a shoebox filled with my favorite CDs and cassettes. Computers were still optional, and cell phones still looked like giant bricks. Now people going off to college have to decide what kind of computer to take and how to furnish or decorate their dorm rooms. Here are a few hints to help you shop for your dorm room décor:

1. Choose a bedspread that is washable! This, above all else will save you tons of money. Your bed is going to be the central piece of furniture in your dorm room. You will sleep in it, sit on it, lounge on it and your friends will crowd onto it. It is incredibly easy to trash a bedspread when four friends are trying to find a comfortable way to sit on a twin bed at the same time. Take a bedspread that is easily washable and hides dirt well. You can always dress it up with fun pillows and throw blankets later.

2. You can never have enough space savers—those drawers that fit under the bed and are made by Rubbermaid—get a couple of them. It might seem superfluous now, but as the semester wears on, you’ll be glad you have a way to store your things that involves more than simply tossing them under the bed and pulling them back out at the end of the year.

3. Don’t worry so much about intricate decorations. A couple of posters and some photos will work fine. As the year goes on, you’ll be taking more photos and finding more wall art that you’ll want to put up. Buying your art throughout the year is easier on your budget and saves valuable packing space.

Earlier this week I walked into my local Fred Meyer and was, well, assaulted is a harsh word but it’s the best way to describe the experience, with the start of the “Back to School” season. Is it me, or does “back to school” start earlier every year?

There were notebooks, binders, writing utensils, backpacks—just about everything a person could need if he were heading back to the classroom in the fall—and a few extra things as well. Since when does a student need an mp3 player for school (or am I just old)?

One of the best parts about back to school season is that there is no rule that says you need to be a student to partake of the school supply sale prices. Is your office running low on pens? Stock up! Do you need more printer paper for your personal printer? Get a few reams of it now to save money! Go a little crazy and buy enough Post-it notes to last you a few months (somehow Post-it notes always disappear more quickly than you think they will).

Back to school sales are also a great time to stock up on art supplies. Markers, crayons, construction paper—it goes on sale as well. Sketch pads, pastels, paint—it’s all available at bargain basement prices.

When I was a kid I loved the back to school season because, well, I loved going to school…and I was the kid who spent her allowance on loose leaf paper and fancy pens. As an adult I love the back to school season because I can stock my home office for the next twelve months for a fraction of the price that it would cost me at any other time of the year. I save money, my office is stocked and the stores still turn a profit. Everybody wins!

The weather is still sweltering, and the last thing you probably want to think about is shoving your feet back into regular shoes, but in just eight short weeks, it will be autumn and you know what that means: boot season will be back. Fall is the best time for shorter skirts and higher boots, but if you haven’t gone boot shopping here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1. Not everything that looks fabulous in pictures will look fabulous on you. Boots are like any other piece of clothing, and in this case, your calves are the body part that will decide whether or not a certain style of boot looks good on you.

2. Pay attention to the size and shape of your calves as they will play as much of a role in your boot selection as the size of your feet. Just because your feet fit into the shoe part of the boot doesn’t mean that your calves are the right fit for the boot’s leg. Some boots will be too tight, and others will be too loose.

3. Make sure the boot gives you some ankle support but does not cut off your circulation. For some reason many boot manufacturers tend to make the ankles of their boots extra narrow. While this can help keep the boot in place, it also can do a great deal of damage if the boot is too tight.

4. Take your environment into consideration when you choose which knee high boots are right for you. If you spend a lot of time traveling from one place to another, choose knee high boots that are comfortable in which to walk. If you spend a great deal of time outside, buy boots that will stand up to all types of weather, like leather or rubber.