Some questions about travel and budgeting

[earthgirl]

DH and I are about 99% certain that we want to home school, but there are some things that have come up that leave me a little bit uncertain. I'm starting to worry that it just may cost too much to home school. As it stands, we are on a really tight budget. We are budgeting DD's schooling and use that money mostly for museum memberships and art supplies and the like. I think as DD gets older I envision having her in some classes and what not, and am also assuming we will need to buy materials quite a bit. If you don't mind sharing, how much do you think you spend on home schooling each year? And do you enroll your kids in other classes or do you find you get enough from just being part of a home school group? Do you have any tips for homeschooling on a budget? We do take full advantage of our libraries, but I'm wondering if there are other things I'm not thinking of.

My second question is about transportation. Do you find you are always on the go as a home schooler? We don't have a car, but I think we may need one if we are going to home school. It seems like other home schoolers I know are in their cars a lot. We do have a fairly decent public transit system, but I wouldn't call it great and could see us spending large parts of our days on the train/bus. That's not appealing to me at all. Anyway, I'm trying to make the case to DH that we should be saving up for a car (of course, DD might be 18 by the time we have enough money ) and think he might take me more seriously if he knows we'll "need" one for homeschooling.

[ocelotmom]

Originally Posted by earthgirl

DH and I are about 99% certain that we want to home school, but there are some things that have come up that leave me a little bit uncertain. I'm starting to worry that it just may cost too much to home school. As it stands, we are on a really tight budget. We are budgeting DD's schooling and use that money mostly for museum memberships and art supplies and the like. I think as DD gets older I envision having her in some classes and what not, and am also assuming we will need to buy materials quite a bit. If you don't mind sharing, how much do you think you spend on home schooling each year? And do you enroll your kids in other classes or do you find you get enough from just being part of a home school group? Do you have any tips for homeschooling on a budget? We do take full advantage of our libraries, but I'm wondering if there are other things I'm not thinking of.

When making your budget, keep in mind which items you would be spending money on regardless of method of schooling. For example, you might choose to send your kid to a sport, art, or music class regardless of where she went to school. In that case, you can't really call it a homeschooling expense!

Also, if there are things you'd choose to accomplish through the school system if your child were going to school (such as school band or sports), check to see whether those things are available to homeschoolers. In some states, they are.

Same goes for materials. Public school kids, especially those who are past early elementary, generally have to provide things like paper, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, glue sticks, calculators, and so forth.

There are a lot of free resources and inexpensive resources out there. It's pretty easy to spend less than $100/year on curriculum, and quite possible to use entirely free resources.

Originally Posted by earthgirl

My second question is about transportation. Do you find you are always on the go as a home schooler? We don't have a car, but I think we may need one if we are going to home school. It seems like other home schoolers I know are in their cars a lot. We do have a fairly decent public transit system, but I wouldn't call it great and could see us spending large parts of our days on the train/bus. That's not appealing to me at all. Anyway, I'm trying to make the case to DH that we should be saving up for a car (of course, DD might be 18 by the time we have enough money ) and think he might take me more seriously if he knows we'll "need" one for homeschooling.

While my family has a car, we're on our bikes for most homeschooling-related activities. If you don't have a car, you may have to be more selective of activities and careful in your planning, but it's still possible. There's no requirement that you sign up for all sorts of classes all over town, even though some people choose to do it that way! Sorry if that doesn't help your case any!

I think a lot of it depends on what sort of resources and activities are available within a reasonable distance, as well as the weather where you live. What would be perfectly reasonable in urban Southern California might be a lot less so in rural North Dakota where most activities are at least 20 miles away and the weather is difficult to deal with for large portions of the year.