Saving on Schooling

It's the time of the year when the store aisles are filled with crisp composition books, fresh-scented crayons and bins of index cards. I am a sucker for cool school supplies. But I have found a few ways to make our money stretch (at least enough to get that cool TI solar scientific calculator).

Homeschoolers are eligible for most teacher discounts. SOME employees at SOME stores seem to feel the need to interogate homeschoolers on their eligibility. Typically they reveal their own ignorance in the process. Usually it is big box bookstores who seem to cause the most problems. Ironically, the reports of rude salespeople harrassing homeschoolers over access to discount programs seem to come from states where homeschooling is least regulated. Generally you seem to be able to trump beaurocratic entanglements with most any type of laminated homeschool id card. If you don't already have an HSLDA card or a support group card or a form letter from your school district, you have my permission to create your own school id card to show.
There are generally two different types of programs, discount and buyer reward. A discount program give a percentage off at the time of purchase. With a buyer reward program, purchases count toward a future gift card. Here's some of the discount programs that I know of.
Office Max (buyer reward) There is a minimum level per quarter to trigger the gift card so it pays to stock up once or twice a year. There are some bonuses for buying Office Max brand items. They also have a teacher appreciation week (Here it runs 2 -4 August) where they may have extra discounts or a goodie bag. They also have an ink cartridge recycling program where they give a discount for used ink cartridges.

Office Depot (buyer reward). [Correction: 6Aug07] This program combines a 5% discount on qualifying purchases and a points toward a gift card program. To be honest, I find this program rather confusing in its details. My local store refered me to their website. The best info I could find is here. Go to the asterix at the bottom of the page for the fine print.

Staples I know that Staples has a program and that I have been enrolled, but since there's not one on the island, I'm not familiar with the details.

Borders (discount and buyer reward). Borders has a teacher discount card that is good on items purchased for classroom use. They also have a buyer reward card. I often ask to have purchases rung up separately so that discount items get a discount and everything else goes towards a gift card. Magazines are not eligible for the teacher discount. A couple times a year they have a teacher appreciation weekend where teachers can use their discount on anything in the store, not just classroom items.

Barnes and Noble Similar to Borders

Half-Price Books (teacher discount) I have to give a huge thumbs up to this chain. Not only do they carry a great range of books at great prices, but they have a teacher discount program and frequent coupons (via emails and on their annual calendar). They have teacher appreciation weekends with extra discounts on books. They have carts!! We have actually been known to plan our vacation time around Half-Price Books locations. Thank goodness that both sets of grandparents and one aunt/uncle all live in towns with stores. This store has given me the least hassle over discounts of anywhere. Once we were visiting from overseas and it hadn't even occured to me to bring homeschool ID (who would claim to be that who was not). The cashier looked at the pile of kids books and at my kids (who were swiping books of the counter to continue reading them) and issued me my card. I even had one manager give me a gift certificate, just because she enjoyed talking to my kids. If you are anywhere near one of these stores, you've got to check them out.

Scholastic offers their book club flyers to homeschool families and support groups. Sales earn points that can be used to purchase books and other classroom goodies.
The Economist has an academic discount.

I'm sure there are other programs. What favorite discount have I missed?