Anyone else's school use Scrip?

[The Disney Bunch]

The person who did it before in our PTO has resigned so a friend & I are thinking of taking it over - it seems an easy way for our school to earn some money - I was wondering if anyone out here has any experience with it? Is there a minimum you have to subscribe to? Do you need a minimum to order? What are the drawbacks? Their website only offers the pros not the cons! Thanks!!

I am going to cross post this in the Budget board- not sure if it is allowed but I figure it is a money saving idea!

 

[Stephres]

I don't know anything about it but at a budget meeting at our PTA someone with experience with it said it was a lot of work and record keeping. For the amount of work you will have to do she said it wasn't worth the tiny bit of money made. I hope you get someone with some experience with it.

 

[pixidust1976]

Small private schools benefit the most from this. My sister went to a Catholic elementary school and it was almost perfect for them.

One class room for each grade. Parents with enough money to afford the tuitions, and hence didn't mind that Scrip was not always the most cost effective means of doing things.

In recent years, though, our local Scrip at this school has been suffering. A local grocery store started selling gift cards. If you had that store's super saver card, and bought those gift cards at that grocery store, you could earn free tanks of gas. As there was no incentive for Scrip and a free gas incentive at the grocery store, NOBODY was buying Scrip.

The vendors that used the non-giftcard Scrip also didn't like giving cash out of the register as change for purchases. They wanted the FULL sale of the Scrip, so they would give Scrip cards as change, but only in whole dollars. The paperwork for this was a NIGHTMARE!!!! Even on such a small scale.

You may want to pilot it small... like select one grade to pilot it....

Best of luck!

 

[mickeymouse1017]

The school where I work does it and we made $19,000 last year with it. When our parents earn $100 for the school, the school starts to split everything over that with them and it comes off of their last months tuition. I would love to know what the actual amount earned was before they gave the tuition reductions. I have personally been using it faithfully since my DD3 started preschool. Last year I got a credit on my personal account and only did scrip occasionally. I have been using it to order cards to pay for my upcoming Disney trip. I have heard the lady that does it say that it is a lot of work but it is basically free money for your school. I would try to talk with the lady that did it in the past. She could give you more info as to the amount of time that you would need to give. Good luck!

 

[AMaloy314]

We are starting a program this year with a website that I found last Spring. www.simplifiedscrip.com This organization really does it all for you. They sent out order forms and postage paid envelopes for each student in our school. All our PTO had to do was to distribute the forms.

The reason that we went with this group is that we are a small school with an extremely small PTO. We just do not have the resources to tackle another big project. Also, our school system seems to send home fundraisers for something or other every week and parents just can't keep up. This group has a rewards program which our PTO set up that parents get 70% of any merchant rebate and the PTO gets 30%. That way it is a win-win situation. Parents might be able to actually save a little money and PTO earns some, too.

We do not have to keep track of anything or keep records other than the check that will come in each quarter. With the rewards program, the rebate to the parents is sent directly to them from simplified scrip quarterly also. I just couldn't see any down side to this

We just sent out the forms on Mon (the 10th) so I can't tell you how well it is going to work, but it sure sounds good!

And just for the record, Nope! I don't work for them.

 

[LaurinG]

I nanny for kids in Catholic school and we use the scrip program...it use to be just the main 3 grocery stores in the area, and each family was required to meet a $200 min. (which meant $4,000 in gift cards.) Now they've opened it up to everything under the sun...disney trips included!!!! so the new minimum is $400 to the school. That $400 is much more difficult to figure out because it's not a simple 5% per gift cards...some are 12-14%, and some are 1.5%, but it's close to spending $8,000 a year in gift cards.

The way our school runs it is that we log in to the website, place our order, print out the reciept and send it in to the school with the check. The parent volunteers then match the printed reciept to the online record, order the gift cards, and then divide them up and send them home with the kids within a week of the order.

I do all the shopping for the family I work for and I buy almost nothing without a gift card...groceries, gas, clothes, school supplies, movie rentals, etc.

Now if a family doesn't meet the minimum then they just write a check at the end of the year...and it would be so much easier to just write the check and be done with it, but I've made it a personal challenge this year to meet the $400s, it's are 3rd year and it hasn't happened yet.

 

[LaurinG]

Our program is shopwithscripdotcom.

 

[Whosemom]

I nanny for kids in Catholic school and we use the scrip program...it use to be just the main 3 grocery stores in the area, and each family was required to meet a $200 min. (which meant $4,000 in gift cards.)
...
I do all the shopping for the family I work for and I buy almost nothing without a gift card...groceries, gas, clothes, school supplies, movie rentals, etc.

Wow! They require it? That's a bit much! DH and I were considering getting some disney cards, but the amount back to the school was so small, it didn't seem worth it. I guess every little bit adds up, but still.

I'm still debating it, because there are many retailers in the area on the list. We frequent them anyway, so it wouldn't cost me anything. DH points out though, you have your money tied up in the cards. So you have $100 Lowes card, what good does that do you if you now are short on cash and the car breaks?

 

[LaurinG]

The way the school looks at it is that it's part of your tuition...either you pay it off with gift cards or you just write the check yourself. So if you buy enough gift cards (for stuff you would buy anyways,) then you save $400 off your tuition. But $8000 in giftcards is definitely a bit much!

 

[sharlon]

Our school does one Scrip sale a year. We are a public school of approx. 700 students, and our sale is at the holidays. We use Great Lakes Scrip, which is the only one of the main scrip companies that has not faced bankrupcy issues lately. It is not difficult at all to run the sale. I did the last one and was PTA President for the first two. Primarily, you have to keep good records and remember scrip is just like cash, so keep it under lock and key!
Go to the PTO Today website and search for scrip. You might find some articles about the programs.
Good luck and PM me if you have any questions.