Homeschooling: Cost

First: wow would my life be different if the kids were gone everyday from 8:30-3:30. I know that’s an obvious statement, but after having them gone like that every day this week – whoa. Wow. It’s so quiet. I can get so much done. It actually stays clean. Of course if they were gone like this, I’d be working and/or volunteering and would find eleventy-billion other things to do, that’s just life.

I am very much enjoying the recharge this week has been, while I am also glad that it’s not the norm, and I get to be with the kids most of the time. I’m also getting excited about the schoolyear – now that curriculum decisions have been made, and I’m waiting for everything to come in. Yay!

Anyway, I’m going to tackle an easy question today as I have to go get them in an hour.

Q: How much does it cost?

Short Answer: That varies as much as the price of a car or house, or even clothes and cheese. Some people spend almost nothing, and some people spend A LOT.

Long Answer: The biggest cost is that I’m not working for pay more than 10 hours a week. Let me just be up front about that. It’s hidden, but still important to note.

There are a variety of factors that drive the cost of homeschooling. Some people to choose to buy all new curriculum, and/or a packaged curriculum (like Sonlight or Oak Meadow etc). The packages can be very expensive, multiple hundreds of dollars, especially once all the reading books etc. are purchased. If a family has enough money, but not the time or interest or expertise to devise a curriculum, the packages can work very well. Adding a lot of classes can definitely add to the expense, as can tools & technology.

There are some blogs I read that show a family with a beautifully decorated school room, well-stocked in every way, from art supplies to science equipment & multiple ipads/laptops etc. It’s fun to peek into that world, but it is certainly not my experience, nor do I think it necessary to provide all that in order to educate children at home.

I have spent as little as $200-250 or so on curriculum and art supplies some years, even homeschooling two kids. (Not this year, btw – this year we’re entering a new time period for social studies and Madelyn is starting middle school, so we needed more than usual. I’m hoping this will be offset over the next few weeks/months as I sell the huge stacks of early elementary items we’re done with!) The most I’ve spent is around $400-$500. This does not include the kids’ extra-curriculuar activities, as we’d be doing those wherever they went to school. It also doesn’t count field trips during the year, but the ones we do generally aren’t very expensive at all, or are free. Finally this doesn’t include school supplies, as these would need to be purchased wherever the kids did school. As it is, I buy much less than the huge lists I’ve seen some parents have to deal with.

I keep our costs under control several ways:

I don’t buy books unless we’re going to be using them extensively, or over a period of years. Instead, I get books related to units or for reading out of the library through inter-library loan. This is free, and relatively easy to manage online. It does take discipline to make sure things are returned in a timely way, and teaching the kids to put library books back in a certain bin. Occasionally there’s the mad scramble to find a missing one (almost always between the bed frame/mattress and the wall or under a bed). This also helps with space – our house is small, and the kids & I are major readers. There’s no way we could host that many books here. We have hundreds as it is.

When I do buy books, I try to get them used from Amazon (or occasionally Abe Books), so I pay under $1 for them plus whatever shipping – usually $4-$5. When I can’t get it used, I shop around – usually between Amazon and Rainbow Resource. I literally will take a pen/pad to the bookstore and browse, writing down titles to get out from the library. I only do that a time or two a year though, because someone(s) always manage to jump into my arms and get bought/brought home.

If I think Owen will use something that Madelyn is using (math, for example), I have her keep the book clean – either doing her work on paper, or photocopying the pages (like lab sheets). Same with if I think I can sell it later. I keep the things she will hand down to him in a spot I can find them. I only have to buy math and spelling once this way, for example.

I just discovered another potential for savings – downloaded e-materials. I chose Madelyn’s science curriculum, Real Science Odyssey Bio Level 2. It’s just under $160 for the student and teacher materials on Amazon. At Rainbow Resource, it’s $140. I went to the website, and found that it’s only $103 for the e-books. Yes, I can’t resell them then, but being able to read it on the ipad and only print what I want (I’d have had to photocopy the student lab sheets, etc. anyway, if I wanted to resell it), makes it worth it. So, e-books can be a good option, plus they’re available immediately and have no shipping costs.

Which leads me to another topic: check the scope and sequence of whatever you buy online VERY carefully. I’ve found that the hardest thing about choosing curriculum (other than that there is so much to choose from) is choosing it without flipping through it, like you can at a real store. There’s no place anywhere near me to buy curriculum, so all the purchases I make are online. It is so important to check the pages they offer for preview to see if you think the curriculum is a good fit, and then also the scope/sequence to see which level will work the best. Amazon and Rainbow Resource often have preview pages, and the curriculum’s website often has even more information. Turns out, when I looked more closely at the biology curriculum and read through their “try before you buy” pdf’s, I don’t think I even NEED the teacher’s manual. So I’m going to start with just the student text, for $65 (instead of $160 or $140!!).

At the early levels, or when the teacher knows the materials well, a teacher book is often not necessary. Or sometimes, the student book isn’t. I only get the teacher’s manual for their spelling program, for example. The worst thing that will happen is you’ll find out you DO need the other book after all, and will order it – have to wait a bit and maybe pay a few dollars for shipping.

So, homeschooling can be reasonable inexpensive (not much more than cable tv for the year, which we don’t have) or very expensive. Some depends on the parents/teachers comfort level with developing their own programs – picking one thing from one source and another somewhere else and to what lengths they are able to/want to find used or free materials; other variables are time and how many children are being schooled. I’m sure there are people who spend even less than I do (though I don’t know how)… I can tell you one thing for sure – the library is our home away from home, and we could not do what we’re doing without it.

If you made it this far, feel free to ask other questions.

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