There's no question that prepackaged school supply kits - tailored for specific schools and classes - are convenient. Just write a check for the total, and presto! You have everything your child will need for the year.

But how do they stack up costwise? The Web site for Educational Products Inc. says its supply kits offer "quality products at a great value - wholesale pricing."

Ah, but most retailers go below wholesale pricing to draw school-supply shoppers at this potentially lucrative time of year.

This year, King Soopers offered list-fillers two options: Buy a custom supply pack from EPI or fill your list from the shelves. To see how they compared, we spent $35.99 on the EPI pack for the first grade at Highline Community Elementary, in the Cherry Creek district. Then we priced the same items - or as near as we could come - on the shelves of the same King Soopers where we bought the packet.

The school list specified Crayola crayons and markers and Fiskars scissors, which King's had. EPI substituted their private-label items for those. However, the list specified Dixon or Papermate pencils, and we found neither, substituting a Kroger brand.

The school also asked for a package of copy paper that's not included in the EPI package; a ream of copy paper was $3.50 at King Soopers.

The bottom line: Even with the paper, the supplies from King Soopers would cost $6.29 less than the EPI supply kit; buying piecemeal off the shelves also comes closer to meeting teacher requests than the EPI kit.

What would buying the kit save you? Time.

Incredible bulk bargains

No one goes to warehouse stores (Costco, Sam's Club) or dollar stores (Dollar Tree) in the hope of filling everything on a normal school supply list. Those retailers just don't have enough inventory to cover such specific needs. However, if a parent who's a member of a warehouse club can buy an entire classroom's paper towels, Kleenex or AA batteries in bulk, everyone might benefit. As for Dollar Tree, it's a treasure hunt. But at $1 an item, it's a cheap, fun treasure hunt. Here's a small sampling of what we found:

• Costco: Eight dozen Ticonderoga pencils, $7.79; 24 Scotch glue sticks, $5.99; 48 Kirkland AA batteries, $9.59.

• Sam's Club: Casio Scientific Calculator, $12.88; 208 Ziploc-brand gallon bags, $9.68; 18 G2 retractable gel pens, $14.76.

• Dollar Tree: 2,000 foil stickers; weekly planner for July 2007 through December 2008; 20 fine-line washable markers; four-pack of dry-erase markers. Each item, $1.