Boys School Uniform Wardrobe for Under $100

Each fall, parents everywhere purchase new clothing, accessories and school supplies for their children.  Estimates vary wildly on how much we spend each year. According to the National Retail Federation's Back-to-School Spending Survey conducted in 2015 by Prosper Insights & Analytics, the average family with children in grades K-12 planned to spend $217 on clothing and accessories., excluding shoes.  I recently got an email from a reader that got me wondering if you could get an entire school uniform wardrobe for half of that national average.

Q - "I am on a very tight budget.
Where can I get the best deal on school uniforms for my son?"

I learned her son is a second grader at a school with a casual uniform policy that requires basic khakis and polos in solid colors.  Many national retailers now carry school uniform items these days and all of them have great sales where you can regularity snag uniform clothing items for less than half of their regular retail price.  But if you are pressed for time and don't have time to shop the sales, I'd recommend you place an online order with Walmart.

Walmart offers school uniforms at one of the lowest price points in all of the major uniform clothing items that we track in the Best Bets Series.  If you shop online, you can order only what you need and avoid getting distracted with an impulse buy in the store. While they carry several brands, we've personally had good success with their George brand uniform items.  The quality held up for an entire school year and my daughter found the fabric very comfortable. 

I reviewed the website and mocked up this sample order for our reader's son. Check it out! All of the basics for a school wardrobe designed to last an entire school year for under a 100 bucks!

Sample Boys Uniform Wardrobe from Walmart

Item	Quantity	Total Price
Short Sleeve Polo	4	16.88
Long Sleeve Polo	2	11.50
Sweater	1	14.97
Pants	4	17.82
Shorts	2	16.00
Jacket	1	10.00
Long Sleeve Oxford Shirt	1	11.00
		$98.17

This order takes advantage of Walmart's uniform bundles where the quantity is more than one. I am a big fan of how Walmart offers these bundles. They  allow you to take advantage of the lowest price on items you need multiples of anyway.  The coolest part about their bundling, it that it allows flexibility to vary the items in the bundle with color of the item or even the size.  For example, you can get 4 polos in 4 different colors and 2 pairs of pants (one navy and one khaki).  If you think your child might have a growth spurt halfway through the year, you can order 2 pair of pants in their current size and 2 in the next size up.

By virtue of this exercise, I learned that it is possible to get a full wardrobe of school uniform for half of what most spend on a back to school shopping. You might be able to find a similar items at another retailer if you catch their best sale, but you cant beat the prices for the quality, ease and convenience on this George brand wardrobe from Walmart.

 

 

Pin These Budget Friendly School Uniforms for Girls

If you have a tight Back to School Budget, check out these school uniform options for girls that were selected for the our Back to School Best Bets:

Follow Uniform Mom's board Best Bets on a Budget for 2014 Back to School Uniforms for Girls on Pinterest.

A Year in Reviews-Kindergartner's School Uniform clothing items

School's out!

It seems like just yesterday we were attending Preschool graduation. Tomorrow is the last day of school for our daughter, and I can't believe how fast this school year has gone. During her first year at elementary school, she has made new friends and learned many new things, probably most importantly reading and writing simple sentences and basic addition and subtraction.  Socially, she made new friends and learned how to hold her own on the playground with the big kids at after school care.

Since she started Kindergarten at a school with an established uniform dress code, she doesn't know any different when it comes to school clothes. I've become a fan of the uniform dress code because it makes getting dressed for school each day very simple.  After I learned which stores carry uniform collections, shopping for her clothes is simple.  I've become a fan of several brands that have held up well for her this past school year.  Some items didn't work so well, and we'll skip over those during next year's shopping.  I've learned when things go on sale and learned to spot a bargain on the quality items.  

As we wrap up the school year, I thought I'd look back at the items from my daughter's Kindergarten wardrobe that I've reviewed this school year. Last fall, I set out to buy a week's worth of school clothes and hoped to pick items that would last the full year.  Each of these represent lessons learned- some good and some bad.

• Izod School Uniform Bermuda Shorts
• Cherokee School Uniform Pants
• Izod Flat Front Skirt
• Cherokee School Uniform Scooter
• Izod Short-Sleeve Woven Shirt
• George brand long-sleeve polos
• H&M's Organic Cotton T-shirts
• Lands End Girls Uniform Pleated Twill Skort
• Cardigan sweaters (Land's End, Cherokee and French Toast)
• Lands' End Knit Ruffle Front Dress
• Children's Place Active Skort and Fold-over Active Pants
• Myself Belt's Navy Canvas belt
• Lands End Kiki 3 Strap Skimmer shoes
• Saucony Radar LT LTT Sneakers
• Stride Rite Carla shoes 
• Cherokee uniform shoes (Falda Ballet)

(photo used with permission from Microsoft)

School Uniforms at Walmart - Retail Round Up Series

Walmart is a multinational corporation that  runs chains of large discount department stores.  In the US, they are located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico including over 625 Walmart discount stores,  over 3,000 Wal-Mart Supercenters, and the online store at walmart.com

The online School Uniform Shop offers all the basic items needed to assemble a school wardrobe for girls and boys that attend schools with a uniform dress code.  Uniforms are offered across all sizes: Toddler 2 - 5, Girls sizes 4 -16, Boys 4 - 22, Juniors 3-15, and the Young Men's link which includes Men's and Men's Big and Tall items.   Most items offered are George brand (a Walmart store brand), Dickies, or Hanes.  All uniforms are tagless, treated with Scotchgard, and have reinforced knees.

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The Spend - our actual cost for School Uniforms

So after reflecting on the school uniform items we purchased for our daughter's first year at public school, I wondered how much it all cost.  I tend save my shopping receipts in a box during the year, so I dug through the box to find the receipts for all of the items I mentioned in our Kindergarten Wardrobe post.

According to Statistics Brain, the average annual cost to parents for school uniforms is $249.  Unfortunately, this source doesn't provide any background on what they include as school uniforms.  If I don't include items such as shoes, coat, backpack and lunchbox that we'd need regardless of dress code, I come in right under the average at $234.  If those big ticket items are included, my spend is way above average adding an additional $146 to my annual spend.  So here's how it breaks down:

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Tops:
Izod short sleeve polo $7, Old Navy short sleeve polo $6, George Girls' Long Sleeve Polo Shirt 2/$11, H&M short sleeve t-shirts (2) $6, H&M long sleeve t-shirt (2) $10

Bottoms:
Lands End skort $20, Izod skirt $7.50, Cherokee Uniform Pants (2) $12, Children's Place Yoga Pants $5, Circo leggings $5, Izod shorts (2) $7

Dresses and Sweaters:
Lands End dress $22.50, Lands End sweater $22.50, Cherokee sweater $10, French Toast sweater $10

Accessories:
French Toast Tights (2pk) $11, French Toast socks $7, French Toast bike shorts $8, French Toast belt $9

Other necessities:
Lands End lunch box $14, Lands End Backpack $26, Oshkosh jacket $30, Stride Rite sneakers $30, Stride Rite shoes $46

All items are rounded to the nearest twenty five cents.  In some cases, I could not locate my actual receipt, so I then substituted the retail cost of the item that I could verify online.  In most cases, I purchased items on sale, used a coupon code and/or received free shipping.

(photo used with permission from Microsoft)

Related Posts:

Our Kindergarten Wardrobe
Modesty on the Playground
Building a Boys School Uniform Wardrobe

The Hunt for the Long Sleeve White Polo

When I bought school clothes in the fall, I didn't stumble upon any long sleeve white polos. I instead bought a few cardigans for my daughter to wear over her short-sleeve polos and blouses. As the weather got colder, I kept an eye out for them to show up at the locals stores. As far as I can tell, they never did.

As some point over the holidays, my daughter began asking for "a shirt with sleeves". Even during the post holiday sales, none of the online stores were offering free shipping and I couldn't find any valid promotion codes. Call me a penny pincher, but I back out of an online sale when the shipping is more than the item itself.

I headed out shopping mission to find her a long-sleeve white polo.

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I hit the local Sears to check the Lands End offerings. They were pricer than I wanted to pay. I found only short sleeve polos at Old Navy. Target did not have any uniform items in stock. And the local JCPenney had one, but it wasn't her size. Then I decided to stop in the big box store that I rarely shop at -- Walmart. Our local store was so crowded on a Saturday afternoon in January that folks were circling for parking spaces like it was Black Friday. So I bailed on that madness and checked out their website from the comfort of my couch.

I learned that they carry a small selection of basic uniform items. Since I'm not typically a Walmart shopper, I was not familiar with their store brand, George. The website organized items into a School Uniform Shop. Most items were George and Dickie brand items. They also featured Hanes brands socks and undergarments in the uniform store. The prices were some of the lowest I've seen. The also offer value bundles in qualtities of 2, 4 and even a 7 item mixed bundle. After you add a bundle to your cart, they smartly let you mix up sizes and colors within the bundle. Brilliant!

The item I had spent the day shopping for all over town was in-stock in her size. I ordered a 2 pack of George brand long-sleeve polos for $11 and 97 cents shipping. The item shipped later that night and arrived later that week. At that price, I had low expectations. The cotton is softer than I was expecting, and my daughter is happy with them. We've washed them a few times already and they are holding up fine. I can update this post later in the Spring to let you know ow they hold up after a season of wear.