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Homeschooling Notes: 5 Ways to Save on Homeschooling Costs

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Please welcome Gary to 3 Boys and a Dog!  Since we are doing a Back 2 School Blog HOP Bash this month, I went out and searched for some guest posters that could help us with that. 🙂  Gary has some great ideas to help cut homeschooling costs. ~Kelli

School Time   day 117/365The costs of homeschooling can add up. Things like supplies, activities, and curriculums are not cheap but there are ways to make this form of education more affordable.

There has been research in the past that shows a successful homeschool education has nothing to do with how little or how much money you spend. Here are 5 ways to help you save on homeschooling costs.

1) Seek out low cost extracurricular activities

If you’re going to take your child on field trips then schedule these trips to take place on free admission days or arrange for student discounts. You can also find homeschool groups in your hometown and work out group discounts with other those parents.

If some of the other parents in your group teach dance, art, or music then you could have them give your child those lessons to save on education costs. Perhaps there are areas that you could reciprocate by teaching their child another subject.

2) Buy Used Homeschool Books

There are lots of places to find deals here: used book stores, Craigslist, eBay, garage sales, and even other parents of home schooled children.

There are websites that offer great discounts for people that are homeschooling. The Scholastic Book Club can also be a great way to find deals on current fiction and non-fiction books.

3) The Library

There isn’t much point buying a book if you’re just going to read it once. This is where the library can come in handy. Instead of purchasing every book you need for English class, you can just take them out of the library and return them later.

The cost of books can add up when you homeschool your children so any way to alleviate these costs will be welcomed.

Libraries also host great events such as reading programs, writer’s groups, book clubs, story time, field trips, and volunteer opportunities. Lots of ways to learn and save money here.

4) Budget Time

This is an important one. Before the school year starts you should make sure to set a budget for the year. Sticking to this budget will be difficult but the budget will help you from getting your finances off track.

Consider every cost related to home schooling: supplies, books, support group fees, legal association dues, field trips, and other extracurricular activities.

5) Deals, deals, deals

Many of your favorite retail stores will offer you an educator’s discount – all you have to do is ask.

Some stores will even let you qualify for teacher’s discount programs so keep that in mind next time you’re shopping.

Certain stores may require you to bring in an official letter or identification card so have that on hand for those situations.

If you’re committed to a frugal education you can significantly reduce homeschooling costs. The more you work at it, the better you will get.

This is a guest post by Gary Kohler from the Canadian life insurance website LifeCover.ca. He enjoys writing about personal finance and frugal living topics.

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Phillis Skordahl

Sunday 6th of May 2012

Thanks a whole lot! I merely added your weblog towards the blogroll. Meow!

AprilS

Wednesday 1st of September 2010

This is such an important and great list! Thank you for sharing. I will say that I know for a fact we offer discounts on our curriculum through our YouTube channel. There is a code that you can enter to save 20%. Just search for ThinkwellVids to find us.