More Valentines Clearance: Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Stockpile Saturday ~ 3/5/2016

I stopped at a couple CVS stores on Sunday and was able to get some Valentines items for our Operation Christmas Child shoebox stockpile at 90% off-hard to beat that!

Then I swung by a Dollar Tree to get the 6 packs of socks I'd read about on the Clip with Purpose and Shoebox Shoppers Facebook groups for $1 of course!

I ran to a nearby Dollar General to take advantage of the reported 50% off clearance.  Trying to figure out exactly what everything cost can be hard with DG receipts, but it was less than $8.

I was happy to see the brain games were all individually packaged:

 I always like to include plain pads of paper for the kids to draw on, but it seems to be something that's hard to find at a good price, so I finally decided to look on Ebay, and found these: 

Bulk Scratch Pads. Unruled 3 x 5 White, 210 100-Sheets Direct From The Factory!

-ended up being about $0.25 a pad.  The best part was I was able to use Ebay giftcards my family had earned through Swagbacks, so nothing out of pocket, and went through Swagbucks to Ebay to buy them, so got bucks back on them, too!

I actually ended up with more like 400 pads (so more like $0.12 a pad) ranging from 50-75 sheets a pad, which was great with me-gives me more flexibility.  Say, maybe tuck a 50 sheet one in with a big coloring book and notebook, and two 75 pads if the only other paper is lined.  I think they'll also be great for putting IN pencil packs.   They are nice, normal weight paper, not the thin, shiny paper often seen in cheap paper pads!  Only drawback is they seem to be salvage pads from the printer/paper mill, so a few pages have some marks on them as you can see below, but certainly something I would have enjoyed drawing and coloring on as a kid and maybe something you'd like to look into if you pack a lot of boxes, or have enough money to put out to get ahead-these should last us a few years!

Spent from shoebox packing budget: $10.69

Spent from gift cards earned or won online: $53.88

Added to stockpile:

• 2 stuffed animals
• 120 smal packages temporary tattoos 
• 18 pairs socks for 10-14 boy boxes
• 5 coloring books
• 1 pack stickers
• 3 games
• 1 Lego type kit
• 400ish pads of plain paper

See Why We Include a Stuffed Animal in Each of Our Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes.