Part 4: The Wrap Party

At the end of any production, the producers like to throw a party for the crew to say thank you. It is their way of making up for the hard work, long hours and or whatever other things might have gone wrong during filming. Despite the best prep and the ideal production manager, things still don’t always work out as planned and back to school shopping can sometimes be just the same.

If you dread shopping with your kids, and if all the planning in the world would still result in an excruciating ordeal, do what the professional shoppers do. Many times, actors and actress negotiate their contracts to the very last minute. Often a cast member would be arriving late in the day, only to be on camera first thing in the morning, giving us no time to shop for them. In those cases we would pick stores that had great return policies, buy numerous items, do a fitting in the morning and return them items that didn’t work later that day.

If your son hates shopping, or your daughter just doesn’t know when enough is enough, go out and buy a bunch of different things. Bring them home for your own personal shopping experience, then later you can return what they didn’t like. My fourteen-year-old nephew hated trying things on in the mall, but when I just bought something for him, he liked it and wore it. What he didn’t like I just returned.

The most important thing about this is that you always respectfully return the garments with all the tags still on, folded neatly or on the hangers they were purchased on. The clothes must look the same as when they were purchased and be in resale condition. The state of the garment will depict the return so take care to keep them looking their best and not make the salespeople resentful for the return. I also make sure I return them as soon as you know they are not keepers, allowing the store the most time to sell them again.

if this isn’t your style, you may just want to think of ways to make shopping more fun for your kids. Try creating treasure hunts where it is up to them to find items for you. Maybe take them to another mall or stores they have not seen creating new interest and different stimuation. Possibly allow them to bring a friend to make it more enjoyable, or maybe by giving them some freedom to choice the direction and pace in which you shop could motivate new interest. Either way, putting a positive spin on how or why we shop will benefit them in the future and make next year and the year after that, super smart shop and save.

Have a great back to school year.

Standing on my Soapbox,

JB