On Thursday night I emptied the envelope taped inside our pantry door onto the kitchen table and counted fourteen receipts, two printed confirmation emails and one sticky note in my own handwriting that said "spirit shirt #3, $18, cash." That was August, the first month of middle school, and it came to $412.
I'd put $300 on the August tab of our spreadsheet for "school start" back in July, which tells you how much I knew about middle school. Here is every receipt, grouped so it makes sense.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| School and class fees, paid online | $55 |
| Band program fee | $75 |
| Clarinet rental, August | $32 |
| Reeds, cork grease and a method book | $38 |
| Gym clothes: two shirts, two pairs of shorts | $42 |
| Combination lock for the gym locker | $9 |
| School supplies, main trip, Walmart, Aug. 1 | $64 |
| Teacher add-ons from the first week, Target | $31 |
| Spirit shirts, three of them | $54 |
| A second water bottle | $12 |
| Total | $412 |
Fees and the clarinet
The school and class fees were the first surprise, because fifth grade had almost none. Middle school has a general fee plus a couple of class fees, all paid online during registration week, $55 together. I paid them at my desk at lunch on an office day and filed the confirmation in the envelope.
Band is the biggest piece. The program fee was $75, and it covers music and the program's own costs for the year. The clarinet is rented at $32 a month, and the rental counts toward buying it if she sticks with it, which is a question for next summer. Then come the things nobody mentions at the band meeting: a box of reeds, a tube of cork grease and the method book, $38 at the music store. She has already gone through three reeds.
Ben read the rental agreement at the kitchen table, set it down and said, "So we have a clarinet subscription now." We do. It's a new $32 line on the spreadsheet starting in September, and it'll run through the end of the school year.
Gym clothes, supplies and the spirit shirt situation
Gym clothes have to be the school's own shirt and shorts, so there was no shopping around. Two sets were $42, and the lock was $9. Harper has opened the lock exactly once without help, and she wants that known.
Supplies came in two rounds, as I expected. The main list was $64 at Walmart on August 1, after we'd reused the calculator, colored pencils, one binder and the pencil pouch. Then the first week brought teacher-specific requests: a particular color of folder for each class, a second composition notebook for science, a pack of dry-erase markers for homeroom. That was another $31 at Target, three days apart, because the requests trickled in one teacher at a time.
Now the spirit shirts. There is one for the school, one for band and one for a theme day during spirit week. Harper explained, slowly and with great patience, that these are three completely different shirts. At $18 apiece, that's $54 in T-shirts for a kid who already owns a drawer full of them. I bought them. I'm not pretending I didn't.
The $12 water bottle needs no explanation if you followed our first week. It stays at school now, and it has come home zero times, which is exactly the point.
What I'd do differently
- Budget $425, not $300. Next August I'll know.
- Pay fees and buy gym clothes in July. Spreading the bill over two months would have made August's tab a lot less dramatic.
- Keep the receipt envelope. Fourteen receipts, two websites and one cash sale. Without the envelope I'd have guessed $300 and been wrong twice.
- Ask about band costs before the first rehearsal. The instrument rental is the number everyone mentions. The reeds are the number that keeps showing up.
We covered the $112 overage by cutting eating out in August, which mostly meant one fewer Friday pizza night and a lot of sandwiches. Every school's fees and lists will look different, so your number won't be ours. But if your kid is starting middle school next year, start with more than $300, and maybe buy the second water bottle on day one.
