back-to-school maintenance.

in lieu of fall shopping, let's try care.

Today marks the start of the first full week of school in New York City public schools. Over the past week, as our family has reviewed class supply lists and school needs while breathing air filled with back-to-school sales, fall must-haves, and general consumer frenzy, I tried to think of ways that we could—kids and adults alike—get the fresh back-to-school vibes without spending a small fortune and investing in new things we don’t actually need? The average American family spends nearly $900 during back-to-school shopping, a reality that brands and businesses both fuel and exploit. For lots of folks, September is synonymous with getting new stuff for a new school year, but what if it were possible to collectively rebrand back-to-school shopping as back-to-school maintenance and to conjure the same general feeling of excitement and readiness we typically get from buying new things by maintaining what we already have? After all, care for what we have, I’ve argued over and again, has just as much a chance of offering us a dopamine rush that buying something new does.

Below is a list of loosely back-to-school-adjacent maintenance my family’s invested time into in the past week. Not every single thing on the list cost zero dollars to accomplish, but all of it saved many dollars, to say nothing of keeping our belongings in check and in good working order.

Here’s what our maintenance list included:

Sharpening pencils. (Brand-new or just newly sharpened, there’s nothing better than a perfectly pointy pencil for a new year.)

Scrubbing backpacks. (Do they look brand-new? They do not. Are they more or less clean? They are.)

Replacing a broken water bottle cap. (Curse proprietary water bottle lids forever, but props to the brands who at least offer stand-alone replacement parts. See also: replacing scooter handles, &c!)

Relabeling the lunch boxes. (Lean into the office label-maker or put a call-out to neighbors! The label-maker labels I made on a borrowed machine six (6!) years years ago lasted through daily dishwashing before finally needing replacement this year!)

Resoling the clogs. (Ask yourself yet again how on earth you are so extremely hard on your shoes.)

Sorting dresser drawers. (It’s never not the right time to do this.)

Resorting the bookshelves. (See above.)

Washing the couch slipcover. (Without beating yourself up about how filthy you are.)

Patching knees. (Place bets as to how quickly your child will tear a new hole.)

Replacing shoelaces. (A truly underrated sneaker maintenance practice.)

De-gunking last year’s plastic folders. (Coconut oil + baking soda + toothbrush.)

Deep-cleaning the keyboard. (Resolve to stop snacking while typing.)

Polishing the laptop screen. (Resolve to never touch your screen again.)

Rehoming extra pens. (Who wants a retractable multi-colored rainbow pen ohmygod?)

Reorganizing the shoe storage. (Label those shelves if need-be.)

Hanging helmets in a better spot. (If a system isn’t working, now’s the time to find a new one.)

Removing stains. (Who knew immediate stain treatment really does make a difference?)

Hemming pants. (Attack that to-sew pile.)

Making a bike tool roll-up. (Eliminate tool redundancy FFS!)

Deep-cleaning the oven. (Roast fall veggies without smoking yourself out of the apartment!)

Rehousing the water bottles. (We’re now hanging ours in a small canvas tote and I’m VERY pleased not to be wrestling them into a cabinet.)

Rejiggering the bedside lamps. (Anything to make bedtime go smoothly.)

Changing sheets. (Forever and always, the very best low-lift thing to do.)

Now, your turn.