School Shopping Extravaganza and Bitch Session
 

So, another year of Back to School bullshit is upon us. This thread is for any steals, deals and bullshit you need to bitch about.

I have a 16yr that’s going into his Junior year. He worked his ass off this summer with the oil well service outfit. Little shits sitting on a small fortune for a kid. He’s a miser and won’t buy shit. So, 5 pairs of Ariat Jeans, $650 pair of Tecova boots, $175 Nike Vapor football cleats and we’re just getting started I think. I am balking on the $200 Sitka backpack he wants, he can buy that shit. Any of you sick of the Back to School season and just wish they’d get their ass back to school?

Wish school was year round with exceptions for fishing and hunting days, ****…

Lol, you bought your son $650 boots? For school? My dad would be laughing his ass off right now.

Just a reminder, you may have to clothe your child, but you don't have to clothe him with a $650 pair of boots. A $20 pair of Walmart shoes covers feet just fine. Hell, they have pretty solid work boots for $70 bucks.

There's a difference between necessity and want.

If I wanted something specific, it was on me to pay for it (Or at least a big part of it). Taught me responsibility and to take care of my shit better.

And then complains and seems oblivious to why it is that his kid won’t spend his own money.

My Dad would've said, "I'll buy you the Sitka gear because we'll use that hunting this fall and will last you 10+ years, but if you want to spend a fortune on a pair of boots that probably will need to be placed in less than 5 years, spend your own $$$, son."

This shopping list makes Scho's $100 lunches look like a bargain.

Yup and that's exactly what I did. I bought the expensive CK and Tommy jeans and the Polo shirts with my own money (I was a 90s teen). My mom bought the Doc Marten's boots for me because she knew they'd last forever. I bought my own special expensive soccer cleats. She also bought me a nice Jan Sport backpack, but it was at the beginning of sophomore year and it was expected to last through the rest of school (and it did). Aside from that (and stuff like underwear and socks), I bagged groceries and refereed soccer to buy that kind of stuff on my own.

So was this started as some kind of humblebrag?

I'd be suprised if my parents spent $650 on shoes for the school year for me all through k-12

Smells like humblebrag.

I didn't know what Tecova boots were so I went to their web page. Nice boots but holy cow. $650 puts them in the top 5 boots for cost.

The prices are pretty insane.

I have a niece with the same disease your son has and the marketing machines have her stacking up quite the bill trying to keep up with the crowd she wants to hang with. Luckily, she does do a really good job of taking care of what the people around her buy for her. I caught her complaining about her car being ~10 years old, which her parents fully paid for, the other day while putting a new battery in it and had to make a little bit of a corrective comment. The school parking lot being half filled with high priced vehicles doesn't help the issue.

Her younger sister, who is very financially conservative and had a part time summer job, told her if she didn't quit eating so much it wasn't going to matter what fancy brand she puts on her ass because no one was going to be looking at it anyways. Middle child for the win.LMAO

Yah. I still remember the time I asked my dad if he could buy me a pair of Jordan's. I didn't even play organized ball, so he was like "what do you need those for?" In the end, he said absolutely not after seeing the pricetag, lol. He just laughed in my face.

I worked in HS, but I turned every paycheck over to him and he gave me $20/week. Turned out later that he put all that $$$ into investments for college, and towards a car.

But man, was I unhappy I couldn't get those Jordan's at the time, lol.

Kid is not working in 650 dollar Tecovas. This is for stepping out and looking good for the ladies. We are looking at Caymen or Ostridge in that price range. Gaytor in the 1000.00 range.

They will last you a lifetime with proper care if your foot has stopped growing.

If you want to be shocked check out custom-made western hats. Quality western wear in general is costly. Join a country band and you will go broke looking the part lol.

https://www.chazhatz.com/photo-albums

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IN 6th grade I got my first pair of Vans sneakers, was $16.99. Mom acted like it cost a million dollars. Brown slip-on Vans.

I would wear them to school, walk home, take them off, wrap them back in the tissue and put them back in the box in my closet. Every day.

Lasted the whole school year almost looked as good in June as they did in September.

Not judging because I don't have kids yet, but are feet done growing at age 16?

depends on the person


not for me

Summer vacation = recovery

Ughhh....just got back from buying my kid a new Porsche. I mean, he had a BMW last year, but new school year means new car of course. Can't have my kid showing up to school driving the same shit he drove last year. That's for the poors, lol.

Freakin' back to school shopping man, got me bent over a barrel.

I bet they wont want ankle socks. Since kids don't go outside anymore they no longer have to worry about tan lines.

That's because ankle socks means you aren't down. The higher the sock, the downer the foo'.

Everybody knows that.

Kids don't understand the value of things. There are students at school who get a new pair of $200 shoes every month. It's insane what some parents will do to avoid having their kid be "mad" at them.

Shit my parents bought me 1 pair of name brand shoes. Reebok Pumps in 1991 and it was my main Christmas present that year.

Not really, shits out of control in retail.

Dude.


You can buy perfectly serviceable items that are not like what you described in the OP.

Yeah, it’s so he looks nice for sure. He has a couple pair of Ariat Steel Toes for work. He’s a hard working kid, probably doing a job most can’t. I figured I’d splurge on his boots to reward him for the growth he has shown in the past half year or so. :thumb:

Probably not, but he’s 5’11” a solid 190-195 been working wells for the last 3 months. Only thing he’s complained about is how fast his summer was over because he worked everyday. Now we’re on to football practice and academics.

That’s not rewarding him, it’s instilling money habits that has many Americans in maxed out debt.

Do him the service of teaching him about money and money management.

Yeah, but it’s not the stuff in the OP. You use to be able to get into exotics for about $325. Granted I was buying my own Pepe Jeans at the buckle in the late 80’s for the same price his Ariats were today.

My parents used to make me buy shoes from the 1/2 price store for a long ass time. Thankfully I discovered Van's in 8th grade and they were cheap and cool looking.

I think that’s my big bitch about the whole thing, I bought my own “wants” when I was his age. Kids today are a different breed.

He’s pretty good about it. He’s had a mowing business for the last 3 seasons. He had a buddy mow this season as he worked. He provided the equipment, his buddy mowed and they split the cash.

Hell, this thread could include shit from years gone by, your experiences when you were preparing for school yourself.

I remember when my two daughters each needed a graphing calculators… $149 a piece for the Texas Instruments one. They couldn’t share because they were in the same class. That sucked, because it wasn’t like the graphed all year. That was almost 20 years ago.

Just to be clear, I wasn't being 'judgy,' as my girl likes to call it. It's just that when I read "$650 boots," I practically heard my dad snort and laughingly say, "no boy, just no." Made me smile. Haven't thought about my dad laughing since he passed.

I remember I wanted a pair of Nike Air Revolutions...
https://image.goat.com/transform/v1/...crop&width=240
...and they were like $110. My Dad said I could get them if I paid 1/2, which I did. That's what I will do much of the time my teenage daughter wants something like that, unless its just crazy. She wanted a pair of vintage Jordans that were like $400 and I told her she was crazy. She then decided on a pair of customized Cons (Chucks) that cost $120.

Not boys feet

I mean, it’s clearly it’s your fault here. Don’t blame “kids these days” when you decide to buy the stuff he wants but doesn’t want to spend the money on.

Hate to see what a typical back to school supply list costs this year.

My son who is going to be 12 has insisted I buy him a pair of black and yellow Jordan cleats for football. I refuse to buy them until his feet stop growing. He keeps giving me crap about my Jordan shoe collection and calling me cheap for not buying him the cleats.

I hope he has a similar "a-ha" moment later in life when he realizes his college will be paid for in full and that he won't have to pay for his first car.

Dude, she's playing you. Asks for what she knows you won't go for, but then comes back with something cheaper so you feel like you're 'saving' hundreds.

My niece does it to my brother all the time.:D

He sounds like he works his butt off and is responsible, so I'd be fine with rewarding that behavior. You might want to put some parameters on the spending to teach him more about the value of a dollar..."If you REALLY want these $650 boots, you're gonna need to pay half." Or 25%...or whatever.

I think i dropped like $500 ish.

Most expensive thing being a new pair of Jordan's, of course. $130. And then another, cheaper pair of Nike running shoes for the gym. A couple shirts, some hoodies, backpack etc.

I wish my kid could just be into Converse or Vans. Those are like $60 lol.

Luckily he has a grip of jeans that are still in new condition. I was like, dude, how the **** you have so many nice pairs of jeans, lol.

She would never do that!
https://i.giphy.com/ij8AeeqXKFZm0.webp

My daughter went up 3 shoe sizes in a year. That sucks when she had 7 pair of dance shoes. Grew a foot in JH.


She is almost 5' 11" and 25 years old.

What about school notebooks, etc?

We only got our school clothes at the Treasury. Was a discount store cheaper than Kohls or Target today.

Up until age 11 we only got shoes that were tied together with a nylon zip tie through the top lace hole. We had to try them on with our feet together and couldn't move.

Later, we shopped at Marshall's, back when they carried "IRREGULARS" as noted on the tag. Was stuff with one off-colored thread through the weave, or a tiny hole or stain.

I got an orange Izod sweater that had a yellowish dot near the bottom of the sleeve. I bought that and only wore it with the sleeves scrunched up to conceal the blemish.

$55. I pay the parent/teacher org and his stuff is waiting on the first day of school in the classroom.

Until high school when I started buying my own stuff, I got 1 new shirt and 1 new pants. The rest came from garage sales.

$650 boots??? They made of gold??? JFC.

Of course not. Gold boots would be cheaper than that.

That stuff is cheap. Not really sure what i spent on paper/pencils/pens etc. But it wasn't much. Not enough to move the needle enough for me to remember lol.

I do believe I'd smack the shit out of my son if he had the gall to ask me for $650 boots

School weeks M-F or M-Th? We do the four day school week. Which is nice to have a long weekend.

My son is only 7, going on 8 so he doesn't care about fashion or anything at all yet. He'll get a $60 pair of Nike/Adidas/whatever shoes and a new backpack with some movie character/cartoon on it.

Clothes are always just sweats/shorts/athletic gear and hoodies so far so that is nice. Nothing too crazy.

I sure hope so. My 15 y/o has size 13 feet. Prices skyrocket at size 14 and above.

Tecova makes some awesome boots. Ostrich Belly? The Sitka backpack is sweet and will last hime years of hunting. Im all about the kid being outfitted right. Put it on the card dad

Same here.
Wonder if their bison Monterrey shoes are any good? They look comfortable.

https://cdn.sanity.io/images/v8kybop...ax&auto=format

https://www.tecovas.com/products/the...midnight-bison

My parents would pay for the Sears tennis shoes. If I wanted the Adidas that were popular I had to pay the difference. The white with red stripes were $19 and the blue stripes were $21.

Thought scho had a kid for a second reading the OP

That’s when it was easy for me. Now we are at the age (16) when it’s about attracting the girls. LMAO

IF it's a "stock" Porsche with no custom upgrades he won't be able to use the HS parking lot.

Not sure. I think those M-TH would be some long ass days.

You say this like you have no choice in the matter. I mean if you have the money and want to buy $650 boots for your kid, that's up to you. But it's not like you just have to do it because "kids these days". This is an incredibly unrelatable OP.

I’m very happy to send my kids to a school with uniforms.

It does save money on laundry. We do not have uniforms, but a dress code. JH enforces it more than the HS

You trying to impress Clay?

No trains, no barking dogs and no curry shit stains

I bought a 600 drone for 12000

I think "Bitch Session" was a clue, because I got classic Prison Bitch vibes.

What is up with the OP? Another brag? Who spends that kind of money on their kid?

Well, ok, you're rich. Congratulations.

When I was a kid, I got Kmart clothes and my mom worked at the Payless warehouse so I got Pro Wings for shoes. Not that I'm proud but I feel that I probably learned a lot more growing up poor than these kids that have rich parents buying them everything.

Why back to school shop at all? Just make your kid wear the shit he had last year.

My mom used to put clothes on layaway.

I still have my Tony Llamas and a pair of Snakeskins from 30 years ago.

I think the M-TH school days are stupid. Our son's school was looking at going to a 4 day school week and I went to the school board meeting and asked the board what they think that means for families that have both parents who work Monday through Friday jobs. Kids don't need a 3 day weekend. It's not like they are working some ****ing 60 hour a week job they need a long weekend to recover from.

I have not ever really looked into it. Either you have to extend the school day or extend the school year to get in the required state hours.

I will agree that the 4 day sucks for parents that both work. Not sure how some do it.


To me, it saves money on buses and utilities, but not really teacher labor costs. Which are the highest costs of a school.

Given how much credit card debt the average American carries I’m certainly not determining someone’s wealth based on their spending habits.

Several schools here went to 4 days. After an adjustment period it's become quite popular in those districts. I don't think the decisions to drop a day had anything to do with the kids needing another day off though.

I'm not sure I'd want the hordes of heathens free roaming the streets an extra day if I lived somewhere like Chicago or St. Louis though. **** that.

I question how much it saves on utilities. The HVAC systems are still going to run on Fridays and water is cheap. You might save a little money if you shut all the lights off. I don't know how much money you save on busses as the busses are either bought outright or leased and that costs doesn't change. You do save a little money on fuel.

Then what is the advantage? More time off for teachers? FFS, they already get 3 months in the summer off if they choose.

As stupid as a lot of kids are getting, they need to have their asses in school as much as possible.

about 10 years ago, we had to make up a day (large public school) it cost about 1 million to run busses, pay drivers, custodians and EA's.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with anything.

I do get mad when schools think they save money by shutting off AC/heat overnight. Last school-would run a chiller from 7:40-2:30.
It would take SO LONG to cool off the building the next day, and just when it gets comfortable, off goes the AC. I dont see how it saves money, when it is running full blast all of the other times.