Vacation Bible School money saving tips

For the past few years, I've helped out at our parish's Vacation Bible School program.  One year, I taught Kindergarten.  That week was enough to tell me that I definitely didn't want to teach when I grew up.  Another year I watched other kids so that other parents could help out with the program, and last year I ended up taking over the crafts.  This year will be a repeat performance as I will head up the crafts again.  It seems I have finally found my niche!

In order to save money on VBS, we plan our crafts out as early as we can.  This year, we are repurposing plastic containers that we've collected for the past few years and making a giving bank. Reusing plastic containers definitely keeps the costs down as we have between 50-75 kids each year.

We also divide and conquer.  If we know ahead of time what supplies we'll need, we can start getting them well in advance using those 40% off coupons from Michaels.  Timing our shopping for a Tuesday might net us a 50% coupon off one item, so we'll buy the most expensive item that day.  We share those coupons and even joined AC Moore's rewards program and spread out the card and keychain so that we are keeping our reward money all on one card.


For drinks, last year Capri Sun had a coupon out for $1 off 1.  This was an awesome coupon since it coincided with a super double sale at Shoppers Warehouse.  I got several boxes of Capri Sun Sunrise for tax only.  I'm hoping for another coupon coming out soon.  Kraft released a Back to School coupon/rebate booklet last year and I still have some of those.  We'll split up the shopping to match the rebate to help save money.

Of course, there's always shopping out of the clearance bins and none of us are strangers to that.  Grabbing that ribbon now for .29 a spool saves later on when you might need to buy it at full price.


Dollar Tree stores are also a saving grace.  Things there are $1 or less, though it can be easy to spend a lot of you don't watch what you are putting in your cart.  However, they tend to have VBS themed decorations and stickers, which was a main component in one of our crafts last year.  Picking up several booklets of stickers there and then just cutting them out in twos and threes was perfect for our crafting needs.

Though the prices have since risen, I did get a bunch of St. Joseph's books for $1.50 a pack of 10 on Amazon last year.  The price jump was recent as I had been monitoring them just in case we'd need them for this year's program.  

Of course, there's also the free Magnifikid!  I ordered those in early April for our parish Vacation Bible School, though if you teach CCD they may also be quite useful.  Our theme this year is "The Holy Mass" so the Magnifikid! fits perfectly into our lesson plans. 


Do you have any VBS money saving tips?  If you do, please share!