<p>so my mom is trying to get me to start shopping for my dorm already..I have a basic list of all the stuff i'll need but wanted to ask everyone what is the one thing you were most glad you brought or wished you had brought with you that might not necessarily be on a generic list?</p>
<p>It's officially July, so stuff will start going quickly in the coming weeks. I wish you luck trying to find a GOOD XL mattress pad on the 31st. Things that you may not think of... sticky tabs for posters, a door-stopper, 1-2 lightbulbs, hand towels, asprin.</p>
<p>I'm nowhere near even starting dorm shopping...
the thread "A-Z list of what to bring" posted at the top of college life should be helpful.</p>
<p>Look through the lists available online and make note of the things you'll need. Try <a href="http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/bts01_Checklist.asp?order_num=-1%5B/url%5D">http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/bts01_Checklist.asp?order_num=-1</a> and <a href="http://www.rentaldecorating.com/whattobringdorm.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.rentaldecorating.com/whattobringdorm.htm</a> Also google is a wonderful thing.</p>
<p>Last year, The Container Store had an "off to college" night where everything in the store was either 20% or 25% off. It was a great way to stock up on good hangers, over the door hooks, desk stuff.
The store was PACKED, but if they were out of something they put it on backorder. D got nice stuff that sent her off to school organized.
Make sure you are on their mailing list.</p>
<p>Yea, the CC list for dorm shopping is pretty good. Check out this too. <a href="http://www.thedormitoryonline.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.thedormitoryonline.com/</a></p>
<p>I would recommend getting the essentials, and then gtting the miscellaneous once you get to college.</p>
<p>I got the invite from the Container Store but I'm wondering if it's really worth going.</p>
<p>Get the stuff you need to sew. Just a needle and a little thread. My roommate a little $3 or so packet thing that saved two of my shirts.</p>
<p>My advice:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Don't try to bring everything/buy everything ahead of time. We brought the essentials (i.e. anything I couldn't survive without the first couple days if the stores were sold out: sheets, pillows, a fan (no air conditioning in the dorms), etc.), anything that we really got a great deal on, and left the rest for when we got there. Almost everyone brings way too much stuff, and it was a lot easier to move in with fewer items. My mom rented a hotel room (I go to school 1600 miles away), and stayed for a couple of days to help me purchase the rest of the stuff from the local BB&B. This might not work if your parents aren't planning on staying or you're going to school in a rural location without many stores nearby, but it worked out really well for us and helped to avoid buying things I didn't need.</p></li>
<li><p>One of the best things I bought all year was this:
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Proctor-Silex-K2070-Automatic-Electric/dp/B00023XCWS%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/Proctor-Silex-K2070-Automatic-Electric/dp/B00023XCWS</a></p></li>
</ol>
<p>It's basically a cheap electric kettle I bought from a hardware store for like, $10. It has an automatic shutoff, so it was allowed at my school, and came in handy so many times. I didn't have a microwave, but used it to make ramen, hot chocolate, tea, instant coffee, soup-at-hand, and to fill my hot water bottle. </p>
<p>Also: having medicine on hand. Mom stocked me up on aspirin, tums, cold medicine, etc. I've always been pretty healthy, but for whatever reason, everyone I know has been sick several times in college. And it's miserable to come down suddenly with a common cold and have to walk all the way to a drug store to buy cold medicine. I later purchased a cheap digital thermometer so I could tell when I was sick enough to go to the health center and when I was just sort-of sick.</p>
<p>About The Container Store invite -- take a recon trip and look for the stuff that you really want from there, compare prices, then decide. I'm not kidding when I say the store was packed. You'll have to decide for youself if you can deal with that kind of crowd.</p>
<p>Medicines. Cold medicine with psuedoephedrine (sp?) if you can find it, and some basic tylenol or something. Yeah, you CAN get it there, but when you need it you'll be glad you don't have to take a trip to the store.</p>
<p>Just be advised, all of those types of medicines (cough syrup, sudafed, etc) are sold behind the counter now and not only do you have to be 18 but you need ID because they record your name. The 18+ is due to the sudden surge of little middle-schoolers getting drunk off of cough syrup. The name thing is due to the meth brewers who need the chemical in these types of medicine (the decongestant, whatever it is). Frankly, they keep taking the main things out of all of these medicines that they barely work anymore (Robatussin is taking the main suppressant out of there stuff, Dimatapp re-formulated a few years back, etc etc etc). It's all due to the stupid FDA, but we ended up just stocking up on stuff and only using it when someone's really sick in our house.</p>
<p>Also, include band-aids, TISSUES, allergy medicines (even if you don't have allergies, if you move locations you might be exposed to something new that you're allergic too), guaze/tape, neosporin, anti-itch cream, q-tips, instant cold pack, icy-hot cream, or anything else first-aid-ish you use. You only need a small amount of everything above, but the last thing you need is to be bleeding everywhere all over the dorm's carpet and be trying to smash your notebook against the wound to keep it from going everywhere, or be having sneezing fits and can barely function.</p>
<p>i just got a mag from target for dorm room necessities. it was fantastic. im not one to usually do this, but i actually took a marker and went through the whole mag and circled what i wanted, then did the total. it came to less than 200 for a TON OF STUFF.</p>
<p>where did u get that mag?!</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend starting to shop now. Some colleges (like mine) start back in about a month, so even if yours doesn't, there's probably people where you live that go to colleges that do. You don't want them to get all the good stuff! July is College/Back-to-School month, all the stores have their junk in all ready to purchase, may as well go on and get it. Personally, I found it easier to go ahead and bring everything I needed, because there's not a BB&B in my college's town, just a Target a few miles away and it was PACKED. That's not to say you should bring a crapload of stuff, because less is more, but bring everything you need. If you end up realizing you want/need something else, wait a few days after you move in (unless it's absolutely essential, like... toilet paper or something) so the crowds in the stores die down.</p>
<p>i got it in the mail; i mustve been on some list of awesome ppl (haha)</p>
<p>Get those 3M Command sticky hooks. You can use them for just about anything. Towels, coats, scarves, picture frames, etc.</p>
<p>i got the target magazine thing today too...and those hooks were in it..they do seem like they'll be handy since i can't nail anything into the wall</p>
<p>Yeah they're amazing. I used them this year and when May rolled around and I had to take them off the wall, they came off no problem. No ripped up paint or anything. I think the package even came with extra sticky pads so you could reuse them</p>