School photos - how much do you spend?

[Poddi]

We never got into the habit of getting professional pictures of our kids and send them to all sorts of relatives. However after DS1 started school we have bought a small package each year.

Yesterday DS2 brought home a package of pictures - his preschool pictures. I thought it's just a class photo, but it's a whole package of portrait pictures from the 8 x 10" to the wallet sized one. And they ask $40 for those pictures, in CASH. Isn't that bit odd? I thought we would at least have the choice of choosing a pose, but no they all came all done and ready, all of the same pose. We do have the option of returning the pictures if we don't want to pay for them. I just thought that's a bit of rip-off. We chose one from 5 different poses for DS1's school picture and paid just $30. If we took our kids to Sears or Wal-mart we'd probably only need to pay $20 for the same amount of pictures. The picture didn't even look too good. Everybody in the class photo looked kinda ugly. I don't think we'll ever put it up on a wall, though one of their grandmas might.

I can't make up my mind on this. On one hand, $40 cash is not out of our price range for photos; on the other hand I just feel getting taken if I paid for them. I wonder how much everybody else pay for school photos.

[Thystle]

Honestly you can get pics done at Walmart for under $10 in most places and have 3 times as many and no one will notice or care.


School pics are a fundraiser. Period. And waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over priced like all the other fundraisers.

[dharmamama]

We don't buy school pictures and we don't do professional portraits (although my SIL is getting a portrait done of all seven grandchildren for the grandparents and great-grandparents ... but we're not paying for it). We have a digital camera and that serves our needs.

I have a few class pictures left over from when I was in preschool. They are fun to look at, but I don't remember anyone's names.

dm

[UUMom]

I am so evil. I don't buy them. Well, that's not true. I bought some in the past...but they were taken outside. Sometimes the sunlight hits just right and the pix are lovely. There is one particulary gorgeous one of my youngest ds taken when he was in second grade. The light was magnificent, the trees behind him the right shade of golden. But in general, I don't.

[KayleeZoo]

For the first time, I refused to purchase school photos this year, both for my preschooler and 2nd grader. The pictures are rarely good, and I have a good friend who is a photographer, and we bartered for pictures. I think most parents just buy them because it's just something you "do", when your kid goes to school. We also didn't contribute to any school fund raisers this year, either. :

[Blu Razzberri]

We paid close to $70 CDN for our package with a few options. Well...WE didn't pay for it, everyone in my extended family got to choose their package/option and they paid for what they chose....then we paid for our option which was $10.

[CarrieMF]

In playschool we would pay $20 for a class photo & 1 shot of the kid.

We paid $40 for Asha, $40 for Tirza's & then $20 for Nadia's because she's the 3rd kid & they're half price. The 3rd used to be free but they've lowered the price here so it actually works out to be the same.

we got the biggest package for each of them
3 8 x 10
1 8 X 10 collage
4 5 x 7
4 3 x 5
8 2 x 3
16 1.5 x 2.5
1 class picture

To get the same at Sears or Walmart for each kid it would be over $300.

We get an 8 x 10, my parents get one & my il's get one. We'll keep the collage too as it has all 5 poses on it.

Between them exchanging with their friends & giving them out to family/close friends we end up with 1-2 pictures left.

Last year we got to pick between 2 shots. This year we got to pick between 5 shots. They shots were actually the same but they cropped some. We also got to pick whether we wanted colour, black/white or sepia. We got to pick the colour of their background before the pictures were taken.

[annekevdbroek]

We just got the packet options. I think sending the photos and requiring $40 is a bit rigid. We received a large envelope with a digital print on regular paper (printed directly on the envelope) so we could choose the package and pose. The most expensive was around $45 and the cheapest was about $10. I think I picked a $18 packet (ha ha, already can't remember since it happened yesterday....) so I'd have a few wallet size that DS could give to a couple of friends.

IMO the school photos are vastly improved from the school photos from back in the day when I was in school...

[kblackstone444]

We have a scanner on our computer...

[aircantu1]

My kids are only in preschool but I don't buy them. They are way overpriced. I can always find coupons for pictures and get them a lot cheaper than the school.

I remember our school pictures being like $8!

[TiredX2]

We get the smallest package at school. The kids want the class photo and one to go in their photo book (a 3x5).

Otherwise we just go to JC Penney. We got Holiday pictures of the kids yesterday for under $5 including tax--- 1 10x13
2 8x10
2 5x7
4 3x5
16 wallets

[DesireeH]

I got the smallest package just so ds has something to bring home when the other kids get them. LOL It's $14.

I'm a photographer so I take our own but he thought it was fun so we just got the minimum and kept one for us and one each for the grandmas.

[doctormom]

The smallest package for DS preschool pics was $30, and it was for a 5x7 and four wallets - outrageously expensive. Pics were available a la carte for $15/sheet. For that price, I can go to a real photographer, who will take a decent photo of DS; we didn't order any.

I see the JC Penny photo studio in our future.

[KariM]

I wouldn't pay $40 for photos, but that's really because it doesn't fit in with our family budget.

When DS was in school we kept the school photos right around $20.

Now that we homeschool I'm planning to use a low cost photo studio and pay around $10 for photos.

We've also just had copies made of snapshots in the past and sent those to family members.

I encourage family members to take lots of snapshots when they visit us because I can share digital photos with them, but honestly can't afford to send off lots of photos due to postage and developing costs.