Advice About Your Homeschool Budget

Money, oh how I loathe it. I hate having extra because then I have to figure out how to use it. I hate not having it because then I panic a little bit. Money is a necessary evil and when it comes to homeschooling, things can get pricey.

When your kids are little, you don't have to spend a ton. Buy used books. Print free worksheets off the internet. Check out books from the library. Borrow from your friends. Write your own. (seriously, it's not that hard). But when they get older, you have to start making tougher choices. You can't make up a science curriculum... well, unless you're crazy smart, which I am not! You have to do your research, ask around, think of your kids interests and above all, pray. Pray, pray, pray. God will provide. It may not be laid out in your lap easy peasy, but you can work it out.

I posted on here a couple of posts back that my friend volunteered to teach my olders A&P. That is still happening and I'm still excited about that. There is a hitch though.

Upon further examination, the anatomy books Trish and I had in common are not the same. (Hitch #1) Different editions. That makes a difference too. They have different page numbers, different chapter questions, etc. But that could be overcome.

Hitch #2 -  the books are so old buying another copy is expensive ($300!) because there are not that many copies out there for sale.

My dear friend, Heather, gave me her A&P book plus the unused lab manual (she just completed nursing school). Awesome! We'll just use that plus our other books.

Hitch #3- They are too different. Trish would have to go page by page with Mags and Ty to make sure they know what to do. So... We'll just buy more copies of Heather's book and manual.

Hitch #4- The book is 7th edition, the lab manual is 9th edition. Grrr. This is getting ridiculous. I go to my amazon app. I scan the barcodes on the books. Boom. I find the textbook. $6 each. Not bad!

Hitch #5- The 9th edition lab manual is $30 each! So, I ask, can we buy the 7th edition manual to go with the book? Sure! Let's just do that. Even though the 9th has the fetal pig dissection in it. At this point, who cares? We'll deal with that later. And these manuals actually GO with these books.

So. I have 4 items in my Amazon cart. Two 7th edition A&P books, two 7th edition lab manuals. Grand total with shipping is about $50. I haven't bought them yet because, frankly, my head is spinning. I'm going to give myself a day to let the dust settle and make sure I haven't forgotten anything.

I know some of you may ask, "Why not just make copies of the books you have?" That is a good question. It sounds great in theory. It really does. But I discovered many moons ago that it just never works that way. I don't know why, but it doesn't. I'm all about being thrifty and saving money. We usually have zero extra money to spare. But in the case of school, if you need the book, buy the book. Sure look at used book sales, but if you cannot find it there, buy it.

ADVICE: Just bite the bullet and spend the money. Buy your kids their own workbook/lab manual/book. Things will go much smoother. No one will feel slighted and you will not regret it.

This is especially important if you have multiple children and you're buying for the oldest. Spend the money on the older ones and re-use with the youngers. Buy the Biology book and extra lab manuals. Buy the good math and use it over and over again. Buy the non-consumable and then just buy the consumables for the youngers.

I homeschooled my kids through elementary school on practically no money. Seriously. High school is a bit different though. But even then, it's not out-of-reach expensive. For both of my high schoolers this year I have bought: math (books/cd/automatic grading), Rosetta Stone foreign language (new), the A&P books, their required reading books (all used or borrowed), an elective (architectural design), and Writer's inc (used). Grand total: less than $700. That's much, much cheaper than a private school. It's worth the investment to me.

I can re-use everything I bought except the lab manuals and the grammar and comp workbooks I already had.

These are some of the books we'll be using. Some are from the thrift store, some I already had, some I bought at a used curriculum sale. My new ones that I purchased on Amazon should be here in the next day or two.

I need to clean out the small bookshelf off to the right of this pic in order to put these in place.

So there ya go. Those are some of my thoughts on money. If you have a comment or a thought, please post it in the comments!