Living on One Income in a Two Income World: Part One

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Nov 19, 2001

Part One: Saving Money on Homeschooling

When we choose to homeschool, it seems most of the time we also must make the decision to live on one income. If you've ever stepped out to the grocery store to pick up a few items your family has run out of and come home with the trunk packed you know raising a family today is far from cheap. In a world full of double income families how can we afford to do this? If you are thinking of switching to one income in order to homeschool or are presently homeschooling on one income and finding those dollars you're stretching about to rip, here are some ways to economize.

Saving Money Homeschooling

Be a consumer! You don't have to buy that entire, deluxe, covers it all, curriculum set brand new! If you are a new homeschooler, the option of buying a prepackaged curriculum is great, but not always necessary. I found with my kids that certain curriculums work in certain subjects but we didn't want to stick by those curriculums. We needed more practice in math so we used one curriculum for that. We enjoyed another curriculum for history and yet another for science. Where do I buy all these curriculums? Some from catalogs at top dollar, some at homeschool conferences where I save on shipping, some are found used on homeschool curriculum boards listed on the internet, some at used curriculum sales and some I've found right down the street at garage sales. I recently hit a public school science teacher's garage sale and found an excellent brand new set of Scott Foresman science books Grades 1-5. I paid 50 cents per book for them.

Also don't forget the library! If you are using a curriculum that utilizes a list of novels or picture books to go along with a unit, don't go buy all those books. Go to your library with the list of books and start looking. Our library has an online search so I find them all prior to going to the library, put holds on them and then go pick them up. This is also very effective if you are always reading the latest book on homeschooling. I can admit I'm addicted to looking at every new book on homeschooling that appears on the market, but I rarely buy them (except at homeschooler yardsales). I look for them at the library or make a suggestion to the librarian that ordering that book would really be great for the collection.

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The copyright of the article Living on One Income in a Two Income World: Part One in Homeschooling on a Budget is owned by Kari Lomanno. Permission to republish Living on One Income in a Two Income World: Part One in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.