Share-a-Cart: Stop Spending Your Own Money on School Supplies!

Share a cart sponsored article - Bored Teachers

This article is sponsored by Share-A-Cart, allowing you to make and share the contents of your favorite retailer online cart with anyone.

Time for some real talk, teacher friends! Why are we being gaslit into buying classroom supplies year after year after freaking year? I mean, do doctors buy their own stethoscopes? Do firemen buy their own hoses (I mean, equipment, I mean… you know what I mean)? That would be absurd, right? Well, why is it standard practice for teachers to spend their own money on necessary school supplies?

The answer is that teachers are believed to have chosen their professions because of their altruistic nature. Well, educators are ready to throw that label out the window and happily watch it fly away like a stack of ungraded papers in a windstorm.

Sure, we are nice, but do we have to be “spend our own money when we don’t have it to spend” nice?

Why teachers are fed up

Multiple surveys done by the NEA indicate more than 90 percent of teachers spend their own money on supplies.

Educators spend upwards of 700 dollars a year on paper, pencils, snacks, furniture, and other items that should be a given in the classroom. Some teachers even use their own money to buy entire air conditioning units because school air systems are about as reliable as a Wi-Fi signal during a Zoom meeting.

Prices on consumer goods are going up, up, up, and our salaries are not, not, not. So, yes, we are fed up, and rightly so.

This is sad and frustrating for educators. We deserve better and to be respected enough to have our basic classroom needs taken care of. Unfortunately, our state legislatures and school budgets are not coming through for us, and this is why I and every other teacher are looking elsewhere for ideas.

Share-a-Cart is honestly the best answer I found. Here’s why.

We have tried everything. We have GoFundMe and Donors Choose accounts, but these aren’t always appropriate or successful. Share-a-Cart is the easiest and most productive way for teachers to get their resource needs met.

With just a few clicks, we can create and share our shopping cart with parents, office managers, administration, community members, or anyone else who seeks to help educators. Believe it or not, there are many that WANT to help us.

Office managers, administrators, and purchasing departments love this tool, as it streamlines ordering supplies and resources by having everything in one place instead of teachers writing down product numbers and links from various catalogs and websites.

Also, FREE is a word that teachers love to hear, and Share a Cart is exactly that.

Getting started on Share-a-Cart is really rather simple.

Sign up: Visit Share-a-Cart’s website and install the free browser extension which supports all the popular browsers. It’s quick and easy.
Shop for supplies: Although it’s not as fun as shopping for teacher clothes, retail therapy applies to supplies, too.
Create your cart: Once you’ve filled your cart with all your must-have supplies from all your fav places… Amazon, Walmart, Lakeshore etc , simply click “Create Cart.”
Share your cart: Copy the link to your cart, and share it with parents, your school’s community, or social media.
Receive supplies: Watch as your classroom supply needs get fulfilled without spending half of your paycheck.

To make the most of Share-a-Cart, here are a few pro tips:

Sign up for Share-A-Cart+: Create an account to get access to many more features. It’s free and lets you easily manage carts by naming, tagging, searching, and exporting them.
Be specific: When creating your cart, add a description or note about why you need each item. It helps people understand the importance of their contribution
Leverage social media: Share your cart everywhere. There are options for sharing on social media, as well as a QR code that can be placed on a newsletter, email, or any communication app.
Involve your students’ parents: Let parents know that helping with the cart directly benefits their child’s learning experience. It makes it more personal and increases buy in.
Update regularly: Keep your cart updated with new items and remove the ones that have already been fulfilled. This keeps your list fresh and relevant to what you are teaching.

Honestly, this has helped us so much at our school. We don’t have to worry about stopping after work to buy new Ticonderoga pencils or running out of copy paper because we only get one ream every few months.

We create our supply wish lists with our grade levels, put everything into our cart and share with our office manager to purchase. The items that are not within our school budget, we reach out to parents and the community for assistance.

It really has eliminated the need to spend our own money on school supplies. We can now engage in that much talked about buzzword, Self Care.

Thanks, Share-a-Cart!