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Six ways for teachers to save

Blog
The YPO Team
14 May 2026

Budget Booster 2026: A helpful guide.

Teaching is an incredibly rewarding profession, but with tight budgets, getting the resources you need to create exciting and engaging lessons can sometimes be difficult. We’ve come up with six ways to help you save money without compromising your creative lesson ideas and using our Budget Booster sale.

Planning Ahead

Referring to your long-term plan and planning your purchases for the new school year can help you identify the resources you’ll need for lessons and activities you have planned, ensuring you’re prepared for all subjects, from art to science and everything in between. Planning the year ahead makes it easier to know what products and classroom supplies you'll need for each lesson throughout the year, making it easier to buy in bulk at the beginning of the school year, to save money in the long run.

Being creative and resourceful

Buying for activities often leaves you with spare resources and thinking about what you could use them for or just putting them at the back of the cupboard and forgetting about them. For example, you had a planting activity to show the stages of growing a plant, but you have spare plant pots; you could decorate them and use them as pencil pots. Ensuring you're using every resource available encourages you to be more sustainable within the classroom, which is a valuable lesson to teach pupils, too.

Taking advantage of teachers blue light discounts and Budget Booster

We all love a good bargain. Some retailers offer teacher discounts, especially those in the education sector. Recently, the Blue Light card expanded its eligibility criteria to teachers. For £4.99, you can enjoy thousands of discounts on your favourite brands for two years.

Free educational resources

Free educational resources on Twinkl, BBC Bitesize, and similar websites can help you plan fun and engaging activities without spending a penny. We often partner with Pritt, Roald Dahl, and others to offer free activity packs, so it’s always good to keep an eye on our blog and social media channels to get access to free resources and inspiration from YPO and our partners.

DIY classroom decorations

We love a good crafting activity at YPO (follow us on TikTok and Instagram for fun and educational activities!). During the holiday season, buying festive decorations for your classroom is easy but can quickly become expensive. A free alternative is using recycled paper to create decorations like paper chains and holiday cards. Check out our blogs and social channels for fun activity ideas that you can easily replace with recycled options.

Shop smart

Looking out for sales (Like our upcoming back to school sale, which starts on 2 September) and Loyalty cards can help you get the best deals on classroom supplies. Our loyalty programme rewards customers for shopping with us; we share the profits we generate with our valued public sector customers.

Check out our handy page about our loyalty programme for more information.

Explore our range of classroom supplies that don’t break the bank.

Author

The YPO Team

YPO supplies products and services to a wide range of customers including schools, local authorities, charities, emergency services, public sector and other businesses such as nurseries and care homes. YPO are 100% publicly owned, by 13 local authorities, which means the profits made are returned to public sector customers, delivering even better value for money.