Welp! School is officially back in full swing for us next week. This means back-to-school shopping and preparation for 2 kids heading back to full days, in-person. This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing to click but does help to financially support this blog.

I’m still not very confident about the whole in-person school year since my kids have been learning virtually for all of 20/21.  I’m sure I could write a whole post about COVID, variants, and mask mandates. But I’ll save my opinions for another day.

Let’s talk about where to find the best back-to-school clothes deals! 

Four Places You Need To Check Out

I’m so glad that my kids’ schools decided to do away with Standard School Attire (or SSA) in their dress codes this year.  This means they can basically wear whatever they want as long as they’re not baring any skin, or showing offensive messages on their clothing. 

I actually find it easier to shop for regular clothing than I do for uniforms anyway.  So that’s was a plus.

When I shop for back-to-school items I like to do my research first. I comparison shop, read reviews and then google the best prices. Since I’m shopping for both my middle school-bound teenage son and my now 6-year-old daughter, I have to stay mindful of style trends all while paying attention to our budget.

So, after research, I narrowed my shopping trips down to these 4 retailers for the best back to school clothes deals.

• The Children’s Place
• Target
• Old Navy
• Burlington

Also, let me go ahead and give Amazon an honorable mention. They had the best deals on hair accessories – ’cause good barrettes are hard to find- face masks, lanyards, AND the best deal on my son’s sneakers this year. 

We’re a big Adidas family, so I tend to shop for sneakers either directly from Adidas, or I sometimes comparison shop at places like Finish Line or Amazon. Amazon beat them all this time around plus free prime shipping. 

Best Back To School Clothes Deals

The Children’s Place

For both kids, ages 6 and 13, I was able to find good wardrobe basics here at low-budget-friendly prices. 

I found a lot of cute graphic tees in short and long sleeves, for my daughter. They were all under $7.

Children’s Place tees are kind of on the thinner side so they’re good for layering and for the still HOT summer temps. These will keep your kiddo cool. 

For bottoms, I was glad to find many bootcut jean styles for my daughter. Especially, since I’m growing tired of the whole skinny jeans trend.  Some are so tight and hard for her to put on and take off. So we’re skipping them this year. 

Then I grabbed some denim shorts, a denim skirtall (so cute!), and some bike shorts that she can wear under her skirts and dresses.

I also found accessories and extras on sale like socks, shoes, and a watch for my son.

I was surprised to see that they still carried a lot of items in my teenager’s size. 

He started transitioning into men’s sizes this year so it was good to see that Children’s Place carried some items all the way up to size 18 for boys. 

Target

Target has been my regular go-to for both kids but they’ve gotten taller so both have grown out of their normal clothing categories this year. 

I’m glad I was still able to find my son some bottoms in his size. Target’s sizes for boys goes up to an 18 and includes boys husky. 

This year, they beat out the rest (price-wise) for hoodies, sweatshirts, girls’ decorative jeans, girls’ and boys’ underwear, and boys’ socks.

Hair accessories were priced right as well. 

I found that Target also had the cheapest prices on kid’s backpacks this year. And the quality was just as good if not better than what I saw at other online retailers. 

Burlington

Burlington doesn’t offer online shopping. This is one of the places where you’ll have to go in to find what you’re looking for.  They carry a lot of designer and name-brand merchandise that has been liquidated from other retailers so you likely won’t find the exact same merchandise between stores. 

Here’s what I found for my teen.

Old Navy

I very rarely shop at Old Navy, but when I do I always seem to land on a good deal. This time around it was tees on clearance with an extra 20% off.  So each one was less than $10. 

Well, I hope this post was helpful in your back-to-school planning. If you’d like to see more of what I found in these stores, just let me know in the comments and I’ll post a few more pics.

Oh, and if you want to see which retailer came out on top for their school supply lists this year, stay tuned for my next post. 

Happy Back To School Shopping!