Back to school sales.

I'm looking over the flyer for my local Wal-Mart and it lists 1-inch "Economy" binders for $0.92. I believe they only come in black or white, but in any case, it's a very good price for binders for the study journals. (The economy binders don't have the plastic coverings that allow for cover sheets, if that's important to you.) 1-inch binders are a little on the small size for a full-year course, but you could consider buying one per semester, if the $1.84 price for two is still less than anything you can find in a larger size.

Just to note: Spiral notebooks are $0.20. Of course this may be a regional thing and vary by area/state. In any case, I'm pointing it out because the pages are perforated, so your student can remove the paper (70 sheets per notebook) as he uses it, to place in his study journals, if you want to save a little bit more money. Notebook paper is selling at $0.75 for 150 pages, so $3 = 600 pages. On the other hand, if you buy 10 spirals, at $2, you'd get 700 pages. This may be getting a little too penny-pinching for some people, but it can be an option for those on a really tight budget. Also, the cheap spirals make good scratch paper for working out math problems.

Speaking of spirals, there is a reason I do not suggest simply using them for the study journals. As your child builds his journals, working around an exam outline, he will find information for individual topics in more than one place. By using binders, he can add notes on each topic to any previous notes he's already written, to keep everything grouped together. For instance, if he's studying biology and has a section of his study journal devoted to the topic "Root, stem, leaf, flower, seed, fruit," as listed in the CLEP outline, any time he comes across information pertaining to this topic, he can add it to his study journal in the appropriate spot.


Side note: The flyer has 3-shelf bookshelves for a "roll-back" price of $12.48. They aren't terribly fancy or anything, but they do make a good place to keep study journals and any books you purchase for the year. We don't have space for a dedicated school room, so each child has a bookshelf where all binders, books, and supplies like pens and pencils (kept in dollar store baskets) sit. There's also a box on the top of each bookshelf to hold library books. The rule is, you can take a book out to read it, but it goes back in the box when you're done. This way there's never any scramble to find all the books the day we go to the library to return them.