Resale provides affordable back to school for East Texas families

LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) - Well, they are going back. Back to school that is. And yes, this is the tax-free weekend but if you’re willing to do a little driving around you might save even more money with back-to-school purchases at resale shops.

Back to school tends to leave a dent in the bank account, but there are savings to be had if you’re willing to shop resale. Gifts of Grace in Longview has some back-to-school items, but most of it could interest teachers according to Store Manager Rachael Collier.

“We have office supplies, we have journals, composition books,” Collier said.

They have a pretty good number of children’s books to help that young reader.

“We have a lot of people kind of leaning toward the home schooling, so we get to help them out too,” Collier said.

They even have desks if homeschoolers want more of a classroom feel, which might be attractive to home school mom Elizabeth Marr.

“Well, it looks like they have stuff for home schooling here,” I said.

“Exactly, yeah. Anything that would be great for my kids just to help them each day as they do their schoolwork stuff, yeah,” Marr said.

And her kids will need new clothes since they won’t be learning in their pajamas.

“But we do have a schedule and like we’ll start next week. And we have like a co-op, and we meet together each week and have tutors and that kind of thing so yeah, we definitely have things we need to get ready for and buy books and all those kind of things,” Marr said.

And “those kind of things” well clothing anyway, can be picked up there and over at The Dream Center in Longview. Operations Manager Shae Hight would like to point out that their clothes are not only tax free, but completely free.

‘You can come in with you ID and get free clothing here. There’s no requirements. You don’t have to be from Gregg County. You can be from any county,” Hight said.

The clothes are donated items, and each family is allowed 25 items once a month.

“It’s a great place to come in and get clothing. We have lots of great stuff. Sometimes name brand stuff, sometimes brand-new things. You just have to come by and see what’s available,” Hight said.

So, can you get everything you need at resale shops? Probably not but you can certainly ease the back-to-school pain by hitting a few, tax free or not.

The Dream Center also has a resale shop with some back-to-school supplies. They say if you’re a teacher or a home schooler they will cut you a deal on what they have in stock.

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