Shopping for School Supplies: Target Vs. Walmart, Which Is Better? - Business Insider

My family has been homeschooling for the past four years, but my kids grew up attending public school, so we're no strangers to back-to-school shopping.

Although most of my kids' schoolwork these days requires only their laptops, we still stock up on essentials such as notebooks, mechanical pencils, and three-ring binders at the beginning of each school year.

My kids are teenagers now, so we also get them new backpacks and lunch boxes since they often do their school assignments on the go.

Target and Walmart are usually our go-to spots for supplies. The discount department stores tend to have a broad selection and decent prices, so I was curious how they compared.

Here's how our back-to-school shopping trips at Target and Walmart stacked up.

Many kids in my county went back to school a week ago, so my local Target's back-to-school section was starting to be dismantled, presumably to make room for Halloween items.

Because of this, the shelves that weren't completely bare were filled with half-off merchandise such as backpacks, pens, and notebooks.

This included cute Barbie and "Mandalorian" licensed merchandise and school supplies from big-name brands such as Elmer's and Ticonderoga.

Walmart's versions of clearance prices — sometimes called rollbacks — were also in effect, with lots of products in its also-dwindling back-to-school section marked down.

Notebooks from Walmart's Pen+Gear brand, for example, were marked down from $1.97 to $1.48.

Most of the items I saw marked down at Walmart were from the retailer's own brands. I didn't see discounts on items with licensed characters or ones from big-name brands.

At Target, the back-to-school inventory was greatly reduced, but I still saw plenty of essential items, all marked at 50% off.

From Paper Mate pencils to Elmer's glue, I found many reliable, tried-and-true brands available to stock up on at an impressive price.

The Paper Mate mechanical pencils, for example, retail for just under $10 but were only $5 as part of the half-off sale. I found 4-ounce bottles of Elmer's glue that are usually $1 but were marked down to $0.50.

Walmart was in full fall mode, and the sections of the store that were back-to-school themed just last week were already filled with Halloween candy and spooky trinkets.

Although I did find a small section where the remaining school supplies had been moved, the pickings were slim, and not everything was marked down — only products on a Walmart rollback.

My teens love personalizing their school supplies and backpacks, so I grabbed a few iron-on initial decals and tech accessories, such as phone wrist straps, for them at Target.

These items would cost way more during the school year, but the 50% discount applied to them as well since they were in Target's back-to-school section.

Finding little gems such as these, which would ordinarily be additional expenses (not must-have school supplies), felt like a great deal and a nice back-to-school treat for my teens.

At Walmart, I spotted products geared toward teachers for classroom use.

From $20 packs of 240 crayons to a $5 door-decorating kit, it was nice to see some products designed to make teachers' lives easier.

These items weren't discounted at the tail end of back-to-school season, but it was nice to see them. I didn't notice products designed for bigger groups of students at Target.

Most of the items I checked, such as an eight-pack of Expo dry-erase markers ($10), were priced similarly at both stores.

A 10-pack of my daughter's favorite Paper Mate InkJoy pens were about $12 at both stores. Staples such as filler paper ($1), plastic pencil boxes ($1), and 12-packs of glue sticks ($6) were all priced the same at Target and Walmart.

I'd have expected Target to be a more expensive place to shop for school supplies since Walmart is famous for discounts. But Target held its own — I saw no huge difference between prices at the two chains.

Prices and availability can certainly vary, but on my trip, Target held the biggest savings because of the 50%-off clearance deals in its back-to-school section.

Although the end of August is a bit late for many back-to-school shoppers, these supplies are rarely purchased once and often need to be replaced or restocked.

So, I recommend taking advantage of end-of-season deals — especially the ones at Target — to stock up on essentials your kids will need throughout the year, such as notebooks and pencils.

Based on my experience, the best time to find these clearance deals at Target may be about a week after school starts in your area.

Just move quickly because spooky season is rapidly taking over at both chains, making back-to-school sections obsolete until next year.