Before school started, I was on a quest to make the most of my buck and still be able to get the kids an adequate amount of clothes to get through “fashion week” at school – known by us moms as just “the first week of school”…..or “reason to celebrate”. Thanks to numerous sales, I was able to take part in the “buy one pair, get the 2nd for a penny” jean sale, 2 for 1 deals on t-shirts, and 50% off already reduced clearance prices. The one area that I was not going to scrimp on, however, was shoes.

Because I am frugal to a fault, I have always bought inexpensive shoes for my kids. With growing feet, it made no sense to buy them shoes more expensive than I would buy for myself when they were only going to grow out of them before the end of the year. Thankfully there are such places like Target or Payless that have aisles of cute shoes at a fraction of the price of department stores.

For the first week, the shoes would stay pretty neat. A few smudges would appear, but that was normal wear and tear. My daughter is notoriously good about taking care of her shoes, so hers would remain looking semi-new for months. Smudges were pretty much as far as they got in looking used. My son, on the other hand, is not so careful. By the second week of school, the shoelaces would be untied more often than not. No amount of nagging him would keep them tied. As a result, by the third week the laces would end up frayed at the ends, and coming out of the lace holes. Have you ever tried to re-lace a shoe with frayed laces? Not easy. By the fourth week, the soles would start to wear thin. And then, I kid you not, the fifth week would produce his toes coming out from the bottom and wearing holes in his socks. All that for saving a few bucks.

What did he do to wreak such havoc on his footwear? Got me. Kids’ shoes should be able to handle the normal activities that a kids goes through every day. For my son this means sports at recess, making his shoes talk during class to amuse his classmates, scuffing his shoes everywhere he walks, flinging them off his feet to see if they’ll land on the school roof (true story), and skateboarding after school. Normal activities. I thought I was saving money by buying $20 shoes. In hindsight, I was actually paying more because I was buying $20 shoes every 2 months. And what made really irritated me was the fact that he wasn’t even growing out of his shoes before wearing them out.

This school year I vowed I would not do the same thing. I went to a real department store and let the kids pick out the kind of shoes they wanted. My daughter chose high tops for $50 (seriously? Cloth, laces, and rubber for $50? Whatever…..). And my son chose some sturdy skate shoes by World Industries for the same price, $50. I checked them over, and truth is, they were pretty sweet.  They were black with red inscriptions on the side, and a very sturdy sole.  It was apparent that my son would have to really dig into these shoes if he wanted his feet to poke through. So I bought them.

It is now 2 months later. I am happy to say that there are no holes in the sole of my son’s shoes whatsoever. His shoes are fully intact. Er, that is, if fully intact means that the top of the shoe is supposed to come away from the sole like a convertible.

Did I mention these are $50 shoes?!?!?!?

I can’t keep up. So this weekend, after watching my son lift his toes up and down to create a mini draft for his feet, I brought out the reinforcements.

That’s right. I resorted to DUCT TAPE.  My son is now the proud owner of black $50 World Industries Skate shoes with red inscriptions on the side, a sturdy sole, and silver tips. And he actually thought it looked cool (it’s amazing the things you can convince an 8 year old about – I can only imagine what his teacher must be thinking).

I do, eventually, need to replace these $50 crappy shoes. I know it. I can’t really let my son go to school every day with duct taped shoes, even if it will add to the stories he tells his grandchildren about how poor he was growing up. I’m tempted to just go back to buying cheaply made shoes since they don’t seem to be any worse off than these. Are there any shoes out there meant for boys who are rough on their feet? It would be nice to have him grow out of a pair…..

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