The last few weeks or so of summer are some of the most expensive weeks of the year for families with school-age children, and if you have school-age children, you completely understand just why. In preparation for the new school year that is about to begin, there are so many things that need to be bought from schools supplies to new shoes, backpacks, and fall outfits, too. Then there are those other things like end-of-year vision exams and updating glasses prescriptions, hair cuts, and so much more.
The good news, however, is that as a mystery shopper, you have the ability to take some of the financial sting out of back-to-school shopping. Here are some ways you can make back-to-school shopping more affordable with your mystery shopping assignments:
Make A List. Before you sign up to do one more assignment, take some time to make a list of what exactly it is that you need to buy. This may mean going through the kids’ drawers and seeing what they have outgrown, checking last year’s backpack for holes, downloading school supply lists from the school website, and more. With this list in hand, you will have a great idea of where you need to do your shopping – and your mystery shopping!
Choose Assignments Carefully. As you peruse the providers’ job boards, keep your list right next to you. Analyze each assignment carefully to determine if the store may have merchandise available that you need to pay as well as what the expense reimbursement offered is. Now, you can absolutely do an office supply store assignment and pick up all of your school supplies with a single reimbursement. However, if you want to really stretch your mystery shopping benefit, you will need to try to purchase only the few items that will be reimbursed with the purchase reimbursement on that assignment. Then wait until you do another assignment to purchase other school supplies. This is the long way to do your shopping, but if done right, you can truly limit your expenses for your back-to-school purchases.
Start Early. As you can see, if you want to get the most benefit out of mystery shopping for your back to school shopping, you will need to do several mystery shopping assignments. In fact, it could take you several weeks to get all of your back-to-school shopping done. Clearly you will want to start shopping as early as you can using mystery shopping assignments as they come available. This may mean stashing away your son’s new sneakers in the closet until school starts, but that’s small potatoes compared to the savings you can enjoy on your purchases. If you have several kids to shop for, you may even want to start shopping many weeks in advance!
Back-to-school shopping can truly cost you a fortune, but as a mystery shopper, you have a great way to get reimbursed for many of your back-to-school purchases. Use some of these tips to make your end-of-summer shopping far more affordable!