My oldest is about to start ninth grade, my middle daughter is heading into sixth, and my youngest just started kindergarten last year. That means I've now done nine back-to-school shopping seasons, and somewhere around year four I stopped buying the same brand of everything out of habit and started actually paying attention to which categories were worth the upcharge and which ones were a waste of money.
I get asked this constantly by other moms in my neighborhood Facebook group, so I want to lay it out plainly, category by category, based on what's actually survived a full school year in three different kids' backpacks.
Where Store Brand Wins, No Contest
Folders and pocket folders are the easiest call in this entire list. A folder's job is to hold paper and survive being shoved into a backpack. The store brand poly folders my kids have used for years do exactly that, and I have never once had a kid come home saying a folder failed them. Buy the cheapest ones that meet the teacher's spec (some ask for a specific color per subject) and don't think twice.
Glue sticks are the same story. Every glue stick, regardless of brand, is essentially the same formula doing the same job of gluing construction paper together for a kindergarten craft project. I've bought the pricier name-brand glue sticks exactly once, out of habit, and could not tell a functional difference from the store brand ones that cost roughly a third as much.
Crayons are trickier because kids do notice color quality a little, but for the basic 24-count box that most elementary supply lists ask for, store brand crayons perform close enough to the name brand that it's not worth the price gap. Where I do spend up is on the specialty sets — more on that below.
Notebook paper and composition notebooks are another easy store-brand win. Wide-ruled or college-ruled paper doesn't have a "premium" version that meaningfully outperforms the basic version. My kids have gone through hundreds of these notebooks over the years and the store brand ones hold together for a semester just fine, which is really all you're asking of a notebook.
Basic pencils fall into this category too, with one caveat: buy the pre-sharpened ones or a decent sharpener, because the actual pencil quality rarely matters as much as whether it sharpens without snapping the tip every third turn.
Where the Name Brand Earns Its Keep
Backpacks are where I now spend real money, and I didn't always. Early on I bought a bargain backpack for my son in second grade, and by October the zipper had failed and one strap seam had ripped from normal daily use — not abuse, just a kid putting it on and taking it off every day for two months. I replaced it mid-year, which meant I paid twice. Since then I've bought sturdier, better-constructed backpacks that cost more upfront but have consistently lasted the full school year, sometimes two. When I calculate it as cost per year of actual use rather than sticker price, the better-built backpack has been the cheaper option every time.
Scissors are a smaller purchase but the difference is noticeable immediately. Cheap safety scissors for younger kids often don't cut cleanly through construction paper, which is more than an annoyance for a first grader who just gets frustrated and gives up on the project. The slightly pricier scissors with a sharper, better-aligned blade cut on the first try, and for a kid still building fine motor confidence, that matters more than the dollar or two difference.
Markers are the category where the gap surprised me the most. Bargain markers dry out within weeks, sometimes before the first spelling test is even graded, whether they're capped properly or not. I've had entire store-brand marker packs go bone dry by October while name-brand washable markers from the same shopping trip were still working in May. Markers get used constantly for school projects, and a dried-out marker mid-project is exactly the kind of small frustration that adds up over a school year. This is one of the few categories where I buy the name brand every single time and don't feel any guilt about it.
Backpack-adjacent gear like lunch boxes falls somewhere in between — a mid-tier insulated lunch box has held up better for us than the cheapest option, without needing to go all the way to the priciest brand on the shelf.
The Middle Category Nobody Talks About
There's a third bucket I didn't expect when I started paying attention: items where the name brand isn't actually better, it's just better labeled for the classroom. Highlighters are a good example. My daughter's teacher this year asked for a specific color-coded set for a reading assignment, and while the store brand highlighters worked identically to the name brand ones in terms of ink and tip quality, the name brand pack happened to come in the exact five colors the assignment called for, while the store brand pack came in a slightly different assortment. In that case I wasn't paying for quality, I was paying for matching a spec exactly, which saved me the hassle of buying two packs to get the right colors.
Binders fall into a similar spot. A basic three-ring binder from either brand holds paper equally well, but I've noticed the rings on some bargain binders don't align quite as precisely, which means pages don't turn as smoothly and can tear at the holes faster over a school year of daily use. It's not enough of a difference to call it a hard rule the way I would with markers, but if a binder is going in and out of a backpack every day for a full year, I lean toward the slightly better-made option now rather than the rock-bottom price.
What I Tell Other Parents Who Ask
When a friend messages me in a panic in early August with a supply list and a tight budget, I tell her the same thing every time: don't try to optimize every single line item, because that's how you burn an entire Saturday afternoon standing in the school supply aisle comparing glue stick brands. Instead, know your three or four durable categories in advance — for us it's backpack, scissors, markers, and lunch box — walk in already planning to spend a bit more there, and let everything else default to whatever's cheapest on the shelf that meets the spec on the list.
The System We Actually Use
Every August, I sort the supply list into two piles before I even walk into the store. Consumables that get used up and replaced regardless of brand — paper, glue, basic pencils, folders — go straight to store brand, no deliberation. Durables that a kid relies on every single day for nine months — backpack, scissors, markers — get the better version, because failure there costs more in frustration and mid-year replacement than the upfront savings were worth.
It's not a complicated system, but it took me a few expensive lessons and a couple of dried-out marker packs to land on it. If you're staring at a supply list trying to decide where to cut costs, that's the split I'd hand you: save on what gets used up, spend on what has to survive.
