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Living on One Income in a Two Income World by Teresa Higginbotham |
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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. 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. For school supplies, look first to a dollar discount store. I found handwriting paper, crayons, pencils, glue, paints, puzzles, craft supplies, classroom decorations, workbooks and more. Finally, you're on the internet so use it! It is a homeschoolers greatest free resource. All you have to do is check my list of articles to find resources on just about every subject you are pursuing. Need a map of Afganistan? You can print one out. Need to find a phonics lesson? Are you kids studying butterflies? Do you like to design your own unit studies? All of it can be found with a little elbow mouse grease on the internet. Learn to use the search engines and always check the big lesson plan sites like Ask ERIC. Don't be intimidated by " Teacher" anything. You are the teacher and are encountering many of the same things as public school teachers (except overcrowding and shootouts). You may have a learning disabled student, a student with low motivation, a gifted student, or days when you need to break out of the mold and do something fun! The good news is you can do it easier and cheaper than they can. Take a field trip. Visit a community "expert" on a topic. Discuss a topic as a family. One of the most enjoyable things we did was dress up as different sides of the debate of the annexation of Texas. We then conducted the debate as the historical figures. It made this formerly hot topic of annexation come alive in our house. If you have chosen to homeschool you probably think outside the box anyway, so don't be afraid to use your creativity to teach! © 2002 Teresa Higginbotham. All rights reserved. Re-printed with permission. This article originally posted on Suite 101. |
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Teresa Higginbotham is a frugal freelance writer and homeschooling mom from Texas | ||
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