Just price checking some spiral notebooks here in Canada, and at walmart, cheap 80 page ones are +$5USD, and there's lots in the +$15-21USD range. I thought amazon was expensive with packs of 180pages, 6 for +$36USD

Was paper always that expensive ? Do kids use paper anymore ? I pitty the parents and uni-students paying for that. I'm waiting til I find some on sale.

 

I wait for back to school sales and buy them for around $0.17-0.25 (for 70 pages).

Kids still use paper in school. I used to buy the loss leader supplies and put some in the donation bins at work.

There are local organizations that take the donations from companies (who collect it from their employees) and make it available to certain schools. Unfortunately, the last company I worked for donated to a group that didn't cover my local schools, so I split my donations between the bins at work and the local schools.

Paper prices have gone up. Office Depot use to sell 100 sheets of 3 ring filler paper for a penny (limit 2 or 3, but rarely with a minimum purchase requirement). Haven't seen that deal for several years now. I also stock up on pens. Office Depot usually has 4 packs of gel pins for $1 (limit 3 or so); regular price is around $6.