The Cost of Homeschooling

 
This week as part of the blog cruise, the questions are:

“How do you afford to homeschool?  What are some ways to save money on homeschooling supplies?”

Good question.    Homeschooling can be as cheap or as expensive as you want.    I’m totally serious about it.   I’ve heard of people only relying on free things over the internet and others who spend tons of money on their homeschool.
I am considering myself frugal but for certain subjects in our homeschool, I prefer buying new.    Which subjects?  Take mathematics for example.    We use Math U See for our curriculum.   Each year I buy the full package for my oldest and the student workbooks for the kids that follow.    But this program is multi-sensory and is fun to use so this goes on our priority list even when money is tight.   The other product that goes on the priority list is the Easy Grammar.   What I like from this curriculum for grammar is that it is reproducible.  So I buy once, and can use it for all the kids.   What  I do is that I buy the teacher’s manual which also includes the student pages and then make copies of the pages we need.   
Now for French, I need to buy as well.   At first I used workbooks I had found at Costco but with a math section we never used in it, I was wondering if it was necessary.   They I discovered a publisher of school material that had reproducible rights.   Perfect for us!   

I regularly go to Value Village and stumble on neat things I can use for the homeschool.    For example, I’ve found Canadian geography and history books in a recent outing.   And guess what some of them are reproducible.   Yeah for me!

At a recent freecycle event, we found a coloring book of the human body that Alexandre will be able to use.   He is so interested in it that he can’t hardly wait to start it…  

Earlier this year, I went to a presentation given during a meeting of our homeschool association.   At the same time, there was tons of curriculum available for free given from another homeschool family and a school that was updating their material.    I was blessed beyond measures with a variety of products.  

Garage sales can also be a wonderful place where you can found fun school items, books and workbooks.

The trick is to keep an eye open for specials or sales and to trust God to bless you with what you need.    Not easy sometimes especially when the economy is hard.   I know as we went through it.

Last year, I had no clue how to introduce geography in our homeschool.   I felt it was needed but buying something was not an option.   And I was stressing out a bit.   Then I got asked to rejoin the TOS Homeschool Crew for the remaining of the year.   The first product I had the opportunity to review was…..  are you sitting comfortably before I tell you about ?   Good! …..   so the product was Old World Style Maps from Homeschool In The Woods. I was speechless and touched by God’s providence.    I couldn’t ask for a better product for geography.   Since then, other geography products have been added for free.