Ah, summer! Baseball and sunshine, lemonade stands ... and back to school?

Yep. Summer or not, it's time to think about shopping for back to school.

Hang onto your wallets! With the rise of "back to school" as a two-month marketing exercise for retailers, coupled with cash-strapped school districts which have pushed more of the supply burden onto students' families, it can be a tough job to get the kids outfitted without breaking the bank.

Try these school shopping tips to save money, time and your sanity when shopping for back to school:

Getting organized! For many, that phrase is synonymous with "Buy Me!" Savvy retailers know that Get Organized Fever breaks out at predictable intervals, and tailor ad campaigns to capitalize on the desire to create an organized home. Too often, CEO hears the cry, "But I can't afford to get organized!"

No doubt about it, there are many marvelous products on the market to help achieve better home and personal organization. But getting organized doesn't necessarily require spending money.

Try these tips to get organized without becoming a spendthrift:

Do you know where your tax records are? Chances are, they're swimming in a stack of paper ... somewhere.

Rafts of paper flood into the average home each day. The mailbox discharges letters and bills and bank statements. Briefcases explode with professional journals, pay stubs and calendars. School backpacks unload children's artwork, meeting notices and sports schedules.

Paper clutter costs money, time and stress. A missing permission slip derails the entire family on the way out the door. Hide-and-seek bills lead to late payment fees. Lose the roster, and it's back to the Yellow Pages each time you need to contact the soccer car pool.

Without a plan for paper management, a household can drown in a rising tide of paper. Take back your time with these simple tips to pull the plug on paper clutter:

Who doesn't love commercial cleaning wipes? They're wickedly convenient--but also wickedly expensive and often contain harsh chemicals.

The alternative: make your own!

Homemade cleaning wipes are easy to make, economical, and contain only those cleaning agents you select.

Put homemade cleaning wipes to work for you in your organized home with our easy instructions:

coinsFrugality: a noble value. Trouble is, if you've got a disorganized nature, the frugal life can seem daunting. How do tightwad friends remember all those prices, bargains, shopping bonanzas? Is the warehouse mega-pack a true bargain? When is a sale a sale?

Fight back with a powerful weapon from the frugal arsenal: the price book. First publicized by Amy Dacyczyn, author of the Tightwad Gazette book series, a price book is a tool for tracking prices, products and sales. It's a simple tool to save time, money and supermarket stress.