How do you afford HSing? - Page 2

[shershine]

We homeschool through a charter which provides students with $800 per school year for curriculum/materials/classes etc. We also find a lot of neat things at thrift shops such as globes, books on tape, art supplies, a rock tumbler, tons of books, and Muzzy Spanish. Freecycle has also been helpful for craft supplies. Oh, and of course the library! But I'm notorious for racking up late fees so we don't get to use it as much as I would like.

[beanbean]

We follow a free online Charlotte Mason-based curriculum: http://AmblesideOnline.org.

I didn't choose it because it's free, but because I really love it and find it to be rigorous and thorough. You can check the suggested books out of the library or find many of the resources (books, poems, music, art, etc) for free online. If you were radically frugal, I think you could do AO for $20 or less a year.

There's also a very highly regarded math program that's free online, called The Mathematics Enhancement Programme: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

We buy consumable supplies when they're on sale as loss leaders before PS starts (i.e. crayons for $0.20/pack), and everything else is purchased used, on ebay, or when it goes on sale.

I think we save a ton of money by HSing. I've checked out the lists of required supplies for PS when they're posted at the stores in July and the required items are not cheap. Things I don't have to buy:

Tissues and hand sanitizer for the class (on the "required" lists for PS)
Markers, crayons, scissors, glue, etc for the class
Teacher's gifts (unless I buy for myself )
Teacher's Aide gifts
Extensive wardrobe of clothes (we're casual here at home during the week and no one gets teased for wearing the same thing twice in a week, or going to school in pajamas!!)
School lunches
"Convenience foods"
Required snacks for the class (usually have to be individually packaged, commercially prepared snacks due to allergy concerns)
School fundraisers
PTO fees
Misc fees
Gasoline to drive to/from school (I wouldn't put a 5 yr old on a bus with older children)

Also, we save money on clothes because the children change into play clothes for messy or dirty activities - at PS there's no changing for recess (if they even have recess anymore!)

Oh, and you can do a lot of fun activities for free or at greatly reduced prices. We went to Sea World for HSer's day and it cost $8/pp versus the usual $50. The rollercoasters weren't open but it was no big deal.

We also go on vacation during the off-season -- a condo rental in September/October is 1/3 the cost of a rental in the Summer or during a public school break.

Not to mention that we don't have a TV, so my children don't know about all the newest trendy toys, and they likely won't be hearing about them too often (likewise for trendy clothes). Materialism is kept to a minimum much more easily by HSing, which reduces your overall costs.

[2 in August]

We homeschool on next to nothing also. I get 95% of my ideas online. We get tons of library books and movies. We'd buy paper, glue, etc anyway so I stock up during the back to school sales. My parents go to lots of Goodwills and they pick up books for us, usually less than $1 and it's their gift to the kids. We do all free or almost free activities.

[eilonwy]

We're using a fairly expensive curriculum, but we're not paying for it [directly]-- we get it free, through a public cyber charter school. Even though we have this ostensibly complete curriculum, we do A LOT of supplementing. Even so, I have spent very little on school (and most of that has been on gas to get places : ). Crayons, for example, we'd have bought anyway. Likewise colored pencils (and who knew the boy would like using them for assessments? ), glue sticks, and little-kid scissors. Field trips have been free/cheap, again the most expensive part is paying for gas.

This is still cheaper than public brick & mortar school-- no uniforms, no class snacks or classroom supplies, no waking up at an obscene hour every single day (yes, time IS money, even if you're not getting paid!), and I can put off things like buying new shoes until we have the money. I mean, this year I've only got one who'd be "in school," but six years from now I'd have four kids-- that'd be four new pairs of shoes every fall, and I'd have to buy them all at once... : UGH, you know? Just UGH.

Public school is not free. Seriously.

[UUMom]

This is a child age thang, I think. I would absolutely be spedning far less if my teen dd was in public high school. Right now I pay for community college classes, art classes (and materials! Which I would not have to do if she were in the local HS), voice lessons (which she wouldn't need if she were in HS, as she could take voice/ chorus as a daily class (with an audition). She could take two art classes a semester, which would meet 4 times /week. Paying for all of this privately is no cheap thing.

Even if my children attended school, I would still have my zoo, museum, theater etc memberships, no matter.

ETA--As for my youngest...well, I do pay for her attendance at a book club and other various activities. But it's not nearly as costly as the teen activities.

[lilyka]

we did it on the cheap for several years and then I decided I would rather have a job than waste hordes of time scrounging for sub standard stuff.

so I got a job working for 3 hours once a week. my kids could come with and I was teaching a class my kids could participate in (it was through a church and I know the churches around here are always looking for babysitters for their bible studies and MOPs groups) It worked out to about $75-$100 a month tax free. One year they paid my dd a small stipend to be a helper in the class. bonus! now i actually work full time because I enjoy working. It is so nice to be able to just go buy books or memberships without having to stress out. It also enables us to do lessons for each girl. its nice.

that said. we still only spend about $500-$1000 a year on supplies and classes that we wouldn't otherwise take/need and all of our school supplies (notebooks, pencils etc). which works out to $50-$100 a month (with a couple months off). when you plan it out monthly it doesn't feel like such a burden. If you can't buy your curiculum a litle at a time I recommend doing it as cheaply as possible and putting away that $50-$100 a month so that you will have a stash come August when everything is on sale.

careful buying used too. Know what it would cost you to buy it new (regardless of the price on the back of the book you can almost always find it less), factor in shipping if you are buying on lin, and make sure you are saving enough to make it a better deal (anything less $5 difference is not a good enough deal for me. I would rather just buy it new. it has to last through three girls for us). I recently sold some books online and coul;dn't believe how much i got for them. people couldn't have saved more than a few pennies after shipping and everything. good for me. not so much for them. and to think of the time they probably spent searching for that good deal.

[lilyka]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

I'd have four kids-- that'd be four new pairs of shoes every fall, and I'd have to buy them all at once... : UGH, you know? Just UGH.

oh you underestimate. they would need tennis shoes and dress shoes and our school require snow boots and snow pants. now my kids can wear ridiculous snow pants and snow boots while scumming around with their friends who are also all wearing ridiculous hand me downs (Seriously they look like clowns when they are heading out to play in the snow, we all get a pretty good kick out of it) but if they were taking them to school every day we would have to get them decent ones.

So your looking at 3 new pairs of shoes for each kid every fall and then comes spring . . . . . . I don't know about you but my kids are barefoot most of the time. Imagine how much more quickly they would wear through their shoes if they were wearing them all day every day! Crazy stuff . .

sorry, i just dropped $100 on cheap shoes for my kids because everything conspired against us and none of them gad any shoes. It still stings. 4 pairs at one time and they weren't even great shoes. I just sat their thinking . . . "how do people do this every fall?"

[Ruthla]

I spend almost nothing for HSing. I borrowed some materials from another HS family who don't have kids DD's age (used for older kids but don't need it for a younger child yet.) I have a Hebrew textbook that a friend gave me when the Hebrew School she taught at updated their textbooks, and we supplement with internet resources and the public library.

My parents cover certain field trips that DD goes on through the local HS group- if not we'd simply skip certain activities and only join up with the group for the free activities and some of the cheap ones. My parents similarly pay for school field trips for the 2 kids who are in school- and for whom missing a field trip would be a heck of a lot more awkward (though the last time I tried to keep my child out of a field trip due to inability to pay, funding mysteriously became available.)

[UUMom]

Originally Posted by lilyka

oh you underestimate. they would need tennis shoes and dress shoes and our school require snow boots and snow pants. now my kids can wear ridiculous snow pants and snow boots while scumming around with their friends who are also all wearing ridiculous hand me downs (Seriously they look like clowns when they are heading out to play in the snow, we all get a pretty good kick out of it) but if they were taking them to school every day we would have to get them decent ones.

So your looking at 3 new pairs of shoes for each kid every fall and then comes spring . . . . . . I don't know about you but my kids are barefoot most of the time. Imagine how much more quickly they would wear through their shoes if they were wearing them all day every day! Crazy stuff . .

sorry, i just dropped $100 on cheap shoes for my kids because everything conspired against us and none of them gad any shoes. It still stings. 4 pairs at one time and they weren't even great shoes. I just sat their thinking . . . "how do people do this every fall?"

Saver's or consignments stores don't charge any extra for Circo snowpants or boots pants Vs LL Bean/Patagonia gear. Just in case you ever decide to send your children to school.

UUMom, who just picked up a Patagonia snow jacket and pants for $8, and Lands' End boots for $3. Although you really don't have issues even in public schools by wearing navy or black or pink or purple snowpants, which are on the racks at Goodwill for like $5. Plain , cheap boots are very common as well.

PS I honestly feel my hsers need quality warm clothing even more than schoolers might, as we spend far more time outside daily than most schooled kids. My kids can spend a copuple of hours out in the snow at a crack, and I don't know any public schools where kids would be allowed outside to make snow people or sled for that amount of time. We need warm clothing, no matter, and my kids still need shoes.

[phathui5]

We usually get a membership to the science center for Christmas from my mom, which makes our field trips there free. I got us a zoo membership with babysitting money when I watched a girl who lives near the zoo (we took her there so her mom could sleep after working a night shift).

We are fairly structured in terms of what we use for homeschooling. I buy Singapore Math and Developmental Math, Explode the Code and Pathway Readers for Reading, spelling and handwriting books, Story of the World book and activity book sets, Usborne books for science, etc. This year I sold a Merry Maids gift card that I had won in order to pay for their books.

[Callimom]

Of our homeschooling budget the greatest proportion goes to activities (field trips, lessons, activities etc) We are definitely out-of-home homeschoolers. However at this point we don't do expensive "big" field trips unless I can find a cheap way to do them. So for example we visit the big city zoo and science centre when they have a free day for teachers and families, we ask for memberships to various nearby conservation areas, museums as gifts and make sure we use them for interesting membership events, reciprocal admissions etc.

We live in an artsy university town and so we have the opportunity to attend a lot of free concerts, family gallery events, special events, lfestivals and ectures. We try to take advantage of these as much as possible.

We use our connections as much as possible to find ways to learn and do things inexpensively. For example we recently did a hike lead by a friend of one of our co-op families. The guide is a sahm now, but she's a biologist and for years she ran family outdoor ed programs for a provincial park. It cost me $1 per kid for a 2 hour guided hike on mushrooms and she provided handouts, samples and activity ideas for the kids.

Our co-op also organizes other events which are family and budget friendly. For less than $15 a month/kid we organize a weekly Friday event or field trip plus a family event one Sunday a month. So for example we're doing a star gazing night and have invited someone from the university astronomy club to talk with the kids. A few families will bring their telescopes, we'll have a pot luck followed by star cookies and hot chocolate and star crafts for those who want to do them and then the talk. The families are contributing $1 per person as an honorarium for our speaker. A similar night at the nearby conservation area would cost us $12 per person.

One of the moms in our group is really into fibre arts so she's done lessons with the kids and mums on tie dying and wet and needle felting. Families contribute $1 or $2 per kid for supplies and we hold it in a park (weather permitting) or in the senior's home craft room (free) and we invite the seniors. We're doing spinning and weaving next and have invited members of our local craft guild to come and show the kids and the seniors their art and then we'll do the hands on stuff - again it costs just $1 or $2 per kid for supplies because we pool the $ in advance and buy in bulk.
The $15/month includes a museum field trip, a program at our nature centre, a craft/art day or activity including supplies, some kind of volunteer event and another field trip/hike, and our family pot luck event.

For us the key has been to plug into the homeschooling community and broader community to find ways to do what we want inexpensively. We ask for memberships and big educational items (telescope/microscope/lego mindstorms for example) for birthdays and Christmas and I keep a running list of items that we want or need for school so I can buy on sale/used or ask for them for gifts.

We also prioritize this in our budget. I'd rather shop second hand shops for kids clothes and budget our groceries carefully so we can put the money towards events and activities instead.

hth
Karen

[eilonwy]

Yeah, I was just talking about the regular shoes... nevermind that they need separate ones for gym, and boots (which are very difficult to find cheap for my kids-- they have *painfully* wide feet), and, anything else. I have to do it one kid at a time, or not at all.

[UlrikeDG]

When we had more money, I spent more, but it was extremely easy to cut back (aside from my own book addiction ) when our income went down. I'm easily spending less now than I would if I had two kids in public school. Some of that is because I can reuse materials from my older kid(s) with my younger kid(s), but a lot of it is simply me realizing that finding Really Cool Stuff doesn't mean you have to BUY Really Cool Stuff. (Now, if only I could convince our family that the same is true of Really Cool Toys.)

Most of our field trips have been free. We did pay a fee for the dairy tour (which included SAMPLES of their "Beyond Organic" milk products), but the other 3 field trips so far this year have had no cost at all. We've received zoo and science center memberships as gifts, so even that cost hasn't been borne by us.

Two of my kids take fencing lessons through the local fencing club ($60/semester; equipment included!), and my husband really wants them to take another physical class or join a sports team of some sort, but that would be the case if they were in school all day, too, so that's not really a homeschooling expense.

[Lonibelle]

"Not to mention that we don't have a TV, so my children don't know about all the newest trendy toys, and they likely won't be hearing about them too often (likewise for trendy clothes). Materialism is kept to a minimum much more easily by HSing, which reduces your overall costs.[/QUOTE]


this is very, very true for us. My kids are into birdwatching, lego and building stuff, we "save" a ton of money by not doing Pokemon, webkins, cool clothes, x box or whatever else kids "need" to feel cool at school. I budget $500 per year per kid for everything, all supplies, curricula, fieldtrips, memberships, town sports, and co-op fees. We have yet to spend it all. We will adjust this amount when we add in piano lessons, but we would pay for that even if were not homeschooling. In fact, except for curricula and co-op fees, we would be paying for that stuff anyway. I am sure it could be done for less money, but we get all we ever need or want for that amount. $40+ dollars a month just seems like a good deal to me.

[MyLittleWonders]

I'm in the camp of "most of what I spend, I'd spend if my kids went to school." We do buy some curriculum. These last two years, the total for what we get probably came to about $1100/year. But, after this year, that will go down to about $400, if not less than that. Plus, I have two more boys that will go through the curriculum, so all I'll be purchasing new each year are any comsummables we use (for instance, the handwriting book or the Explode the Code book).

We buy tons of books at bookstores and would still do that even if we didn't hs. We love books. We also would still buy things like the parking pass to the nature center or the aquarium if we could. This year, we haven't yet because we just haven't wanted to put the extra money to those things ... though Christmas is coming up, so we will ask my ILs for a family pass to the aquarium as our family gift (thereby saving on incoming clutter at the holidays too).

We also prioritize our money ... we only pay for one cell phone, we didn't have cable until just this month (dh got a raise so we could finally budget it). We don't buy many new clothes very often (dh gets new shirts and pants before the start of a new school year as needed; the boys get stuff as they grow out - but then again, having 3 boys means I can recycle a lot between them). Our cars are paid for and the only debt we have is our house. And, frankly, we make it work.

For us, public school is not an option. Even though dh still teaches there (I used to), we know it is not someplace we'd want our children as it does not work for our beliefs (philosophically - we are in opposition to the way schools are designed and function). So, we do what we need to do so that I can stay home with the boys and homeschool. If money became so tight that I could not afford curriculums and such, then we'd be at the library each week checking out as many books as we could, and I'd be scouring yard sales and such. I also know others who hs, and would probably barter to gain "new" things when needed. It is very possible to hs, imo. And, if hs'ing is something that is fundamentally necessary for you and your family, you find a way to make it work.

[MaWhit]

Library, internet, TV, thrift stores, back-to-school clearance sales.

[Papooses]

I'm an unemployed college student (still have to pay over $500 for tuition each semester after scholarships + loans) & single mama without any child support.... My income is from my tenants who rent my house: we live with my parents who are often gone for a month at a time now that they're semi-retired (unfortunately, my income is less than my necessary payments out excluding homeschool)

We use various free online curriculums (we loosely follow a month plan for learning objectives & I let kiddo choose which activity when there's more than 1 version of the same lesson) so I pay for paper + printer cartridges.

We have a 20% educator discount @ Barnes & Noble + the Director of Community Relations has given us leftover freebies from last year's Teacher Appreciation Event (she invited us to come this year as well) so I use the Library to preview all homeschool books, then decide if any are worth buying with a dicount. The library is our only source for children's books/movies.

Our "big" supplies (filing cabinets, bookshelves, manipulatives, games, pocket charts, etc.) is all thanks to Freecycle & holiday gifts from friends/family (our wish lists are through http://www.activitiesforlearning.com/ + http://www.learningresources.com/home.do)

My biggest expense was to join the local homeschool learning center -- less than $200 total, including the additional class fees for supplies, etc. although I do spend more on gas (still not as much as I was spending driving her to/from school since we lived beyond the bus route, not to mention other required public school expenditures)

[hotmamacita]

Wow, papooses. I really admire you.

[joandsarah77]

I just love reading threads like this. This is one of the many reasons I love homeschooling, is that there is no one right way to do things. Everyone here spends differently, yet I bet all the kids are getting a great education.

We are in the camp of probably spending too much. I don't actually have a budget. My dh makes a pretty reasonable living working for himself as a locksmith and when I want things I tend to buy them, or just wait awhile till a high paying customer comes up. Lol local ps has to be good for something right. (Nice big fat school jobs ) At least there good payers. Having jobs at the local schools is also good as dh always comes home with stories about this or that, and it lets him see how we avoid those things.

Next year (That starts January over here) I am going to write everything I spend on homeschooling down. Mostly for my own interest, although sometimes it is hard to know if I would have bought the same thing anyway such as glue and paint just as a part of parenting, although I am sure it would be less.

Basically I want to spend less then if we sent dd to school. That would be the local Christian school which is about $400 per term in fees (4 terms a year) plus uniforms, books, etc.
I am guessing I spent about $1000-$1,500 on homeschooling last year, but I am including dd dance lessons and costume in that. If she went to the school I don't think we could afford dance any more.

[J2]

Originally Posted by lakesuperiormom

$10 on books at yardsales
$16.50 on math workbook
$2.12 for gems and a basket to keep them in
$4 for a binder and page protector's
$6 on misc. science supplies
$13 for what your *** grader needs to know
the rest on art supplies and a bag of chocolate.

What about English? Like curriculum or program to learn reading and phonics?