Earlier this summer I received an email from Kohls asking if I would like to get some back to school clothes and to report my experiences with you.  The girls always need new clothes, so how could I really say no.  When I said yes, I had no idea how much Kohls would be giving me to shop with, and I confess I would have been giddy with $25.

A few weeks went by and I got a box and a note that it was a $500 gift card!  After I finished jumping, I then panicked.  I’ve never spent that much in one place and I wanted to make sure I did a frugal job of stretching it as far as possible.

I gathered Kohls coupons and we hit the store for our first trip for Kohl’s back to school shopping.  The week we went they were offering Kohls cash back, which means that you earn $10 off a future visit for every $50 you spend in the store.  Plus we had two coupons: $10 off $25 in children’s clothing and a 15% off your entire purchase coupon.

I was worried as we hit the store that I wouldn’t find clothing that made Mama happy.  We are a bit strict in our house with clothing and a lot of what you find in stores these days doesn’t make the cut.  Within 30 minutes though, we had a buggy full of great finds!

They had all clearance marked down to 80% off, so that was our first stop.  Clearance was mostly summer items, so each girl got shorts for $2.50  and shirts for $3-$4.  On fall clothing, most items were marked 40% off or more.  My one Kohl’s rule… a real sale in Kohl’s is 50% off or more.  You’ll see lots of 40% all the time, so wait for the extra percentage, it does happen!

In the end we did awesome on this trip!  I checked out in two transactions.  First was $60 so that we could use the $10 off coupon and still have a $50 balance to earn $10 in Kohl’s cash.  Then we did everything else and used the 15% off coupon.  Here’s our total savings on the second transaction:

After this first trip we spent most of the gift card, but thanks to Kohl’s cash we left with a chunk of money left to spend on a future trip.  Total there was $30 left on the gift card, and we had $80 in Kohl’s cash.

I don’t know about anyone else with multiple children, but once we got home I quickly realized that one of my kids was a little too quiet in the store and ended up with very little.  The other two got every thing they needed.  On our return trip it was decided that she would get the lion’s share of the remaining money to finish out what she needed.

My big concern on two trips within just a few weeks was that we wouldn’t find anything new to pick from.  I was completely wrong.  There were racks and racks of new clothes that we hadn’t seen before and many of them were 60% off which made my day! We grabbed what she needed and headed to checkout armed with another 15% off coupon (by the way Kohls doesn’t need you to print the coupons, just show them on your phone).  At the checkout I was asked the age old question “would you like to open a Kohl’s charge and save 30% off today.”  I gave him my usual no and then said that I was paying with a gift card.  The clerks response through me for a loop: “You don’t have to pay with it”.  Really?  So I charge absolutely nothing and you’ll let me save 30% off and get exclusive coupons?  I am anti credit cards (we have one, but pay it off every month), but I couldn’t resist this.  So I bit signed up.  In the end after saving 30% off and paying with the gift card and Kohl’s cash we only owed $1.27.

My thrill wasn’t quite over yet… turns out that you get a game chip to enter an instant giveaway for every $30 you spend in the store.  Between the two trips we had quite a few of these little scratch off tickets.  Turns out we were lucky on a few of them and ended up with two $5 Starbucks gift cards!!

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