Primary or secondary? OMG, that's $$$ for primary! As a primary teacher, whenever we did up booklists, we were very conscious of what we asked parents to buy. We kept the texts and 'specialty' stuff to a minimum. I used to add up my booklist and it never came over $60 if you went through the school supplier. If you did it yourself, you could do it for under $50, including pencil case, dictionary and folders and things that are generally reused from year to year. I don't know of any cheap online book suppliers, but if you look out for specials, you should be able to get exercise books etc cheaper (though beware, the 'cheap' pencils, sharpeners, glue etc usually don't last anywhere near as long, you end up buying more throughout the year and it ends up costing more in the long run). It just means lots of running around!