How I Make Homeschool More Affordable | Mom of 5
Hello friends! As a mom of five who has always dreamt of homeschooling her children, I feel like I'm officially living my dream! However, after my first year of homeschooling, I noticed how quickly I could enthusiastically rack up a big tab for buying “all things homeschool!” What can I say? There’s just so much beauty in this season, and the desire to make it physically beautiful can quite literally break the bank! This second year of homeschooling I made a decision to forego my focus on the exterior beauty of homeschool, (fancy books, beautiful notebooks, expensive signs, etc,) and find ways to save money while focusing on the inward beauty of homeschool, and memories FREE for the taking. I hope you enjoy learning the ways I make homeschool more affordable for us!
(This post contains affiliate links to items I have purchased with my own money which means if you order from these links you will be supporting my blog in a small way that means a lot, at no cost to you! Thank you!)
1. Use Free Online Resources
As an Ambleside Online homeschooling family, we have the great opportunity to have FREE access to our curriculum picks HERE! Ambleside Online offers free lesson plans, digital books, and educational tools. This is extremely helpful for mapping out our entire school year!
If we ever want to find an educational video to further our interest on any topic imaginable, YouTube makes it easy with just one click away!
2. Make the Library your Bestie:
I know, I know, we all want those beautiful bookcases to fill with our own personal vintage books, and curriculum, but this year I decided to put on some humble pants, and borrow as much as I possibly could from the library. Libraries provide free access to books, learning kits, online courses, and even educational events! Many libraries also have free access to educational software or databases like Britannica or World Book. I especially love using apps like Libby and Hoopla to sync up to my local library so I can borrow and read library books for FREE! Let’s not forget Libraries don’t just have books! They have CDs, DVDs, and many other resources that would be excellent for teaching your children, for example, another language.
3. Join Co-ops and Community Groups:
Homeschooling co-ops allow families to share teaching responsibilities, and reduce the cost of hired tutors or additional classes. (I personally have not joined a coop, but I thought this worth mentioning!) Instead, I joined a local homeschool community group, and have weekly nature play dates with other moms and our 40+ children ranging from newborns to 16 years old! We get to experience life together in the great outdoors, at our self-made public speaking events, Market Mondays, or take group field trips where we can split the costs like the time we learned how to make maple syrup from scratch! I have gained so much wisdom from making friendships with other homeschool moms; especially more seasoned homeschool moms that have poured their knowledge into me, and pointed me in the right direction to save me both headache and money!
4. Prioritize Used or Digital Materials:
My BIGGEST flex for making homeschool affordable this year was buying as much reading curriculum as was available on my Kindle as I possibly could. Really! I must've saved hundreds of dollars because every book was pennies, or dollars! This has worked so wonderful for conserving space, saving money, and being able to bring it with me to do school from anywhere. Again, I know most of us love having a physical book between our fingertips, but I actually loved having as much of our readings as I could on my Kindle. It was so convenient to have everything in one place, and I didn’t even have to flip through a book to find my page since Kindle automatically saves your place. If you’re trying to save money, this is absolutely worth a try!
You can also find used books at thrift stores, or online sites like Thriftbooks, Ebay, or Amazon. Stores like Ollies or 2nd & Charles also have cheap homeschool resources, or books that are highly discounted!
I personally joined a sell/swap/trade homeschool curriculum community Facebook group where moms sell, or swap their used curriculum at a huge discount! Some moms are so generous that they even give this curriculum away for FREE! I don’t know about you, but I'm not too proud to get curriculum this way. :-)
On Pinterest, or websites like Teachers Pay Teachers, you can find affordable, printable worksheets and lesson plans.
For Nature Study, I purchased a complete year-long curriculum, Exploring Nature With Children for only $20! It’s a printable PDF that breaks down a whole year of Nature Study according to the rhythm of the season, and includes mountains of resources.
For Copywork, I’m using Penny Gardner's curriculum: "Italics, Beautiful Handwriting for children." I’m very pleased with this straightforward italics curriculum, (which includes italic print to italic script, and countless copywork). I love how the mother who created it made it so affordable (only $10) for big families as it is a one-time pay for a PDF that you can print over and over with permission granted!
Websites like Project Gutenberg offer thousands of classic literature books that can be used for reading assignments without spending a dime.
5. Strategize the Use of Museum Memberships
There are so many places to explore such as museums and science centers for an educational hands on experience, but sometimes the bill can really spoil the fun. An amazing homeschool mom friend of mine shared that certain museum memberships have reciprocal benefits that can include other exciting places such as science centers and museums for FREE!! If a science center membership is too expensive for example, be sure to see if it’s included in a museum membership that may be even cheaper, and include visits to way more places! So, be aware, and get memberships at places that include FREE passes to other educational hotspots! Libraries also do this if you are in their district. They too have free passes to a number of amazing educational places for FREE!
6. Focus on Learning through Experience:
Don’t underestimate how field trips, nature walks, and practical life experiences can be valuable learning opportunities, and are often free or low-cost. These lessons can be incredibly valuable and don't require special curriculum purchases. Nature walks, hikes, and gardening can provide lessons in biology, math (measuring growth, counting), and even history (by studying local ecosystems). These free experiences can be rich sources of learning!
7. Swap and Share Resources with Other Homeschoolers:
The leader of my homeschool group recently organized a homeschool curriculum swap where everyone could either borrow, keep, or trade curriculum! This can help reduce the cost of purchasing new materials and allow everyone to benefit from shared experiences and resources! It was so fun to “shop” everyone else’s curriculum! It exposed us all to a lot of different curriculum we had never seen before we decided to use it. If this type of meet-up isn’t happening where you live, hop into a local homeschool FB group, and start one yourself! Pick a location for other homeschool moms to meet up, let kids play, and voila, get ready to learn about and take home some new-to-you curriculum. Loads of fun!
8. Use Free Apps and Educational Games:
There are many free educational apps and games that can supplement your child’s learning. I personally use, LOVE, and even became an affiliate for Hoffman Academy which provides the highest level of FREE online piano lessons for the whole family to enjoy! I HIGHLY recommend them for piano, and I have searched both high and low! My 7 year old is absolutely thriving with the Premium Membership which includes many more resources, and is way more affordable than paying a weekly piano teacher for lessons! You can find out more about Hoffman Academy HERE. You can sign up for a premium membership HERE and use my CODE: LEARN for 10% off! I really believe you will love it, and find value as much as we do!
9. Skip the Pricey Fads:
Instead of buying all the fancy homeschool planners, check out how I create a simple, customizable teachers logbook HERE. Organize your goals, term reflections, schedule, everything in one place!
10. Utilize Items You Already Have:
Before jumping to purchase pricey materials such as science kits, shop your own household items to find ingredients, or additional resources that can be just as creative, and yet FREE! There are plenty of online resources and guides that show you how to make your own experiments using things you already have around the house.
11. Combine Multiple Ages in Learning:
If you have multiple children, try teaching lessons that can span across age groups. For instance, a family read-aloud can be enjoyed by kids of varying ages, and projects can be adjusted to suit different learning levels. Teaching multiple children at once doesn’t always require separate curriculum for each grade. Look for materials that can be adapted for different age groups. For example, I’ve been reading our history lessons to four of my children, and helping adapt them to each of their understanding.
12. Use Public School Resources:
I have not done this yet, but a friend recently told me that some public schools allow homeschoolers to participate in extracurricular activities like sports, music, or art classes for FREE or at a low cost. Be sure to check with your local school district to see if they offer any support for homeschoolers.
As far as extracurricular goes, my children all go to the same location, and get a siblings discount! It becomes much more affordable for them to do their extra curricular together, it saves me multiple car rides to different places, and adds to their repertoire of memories together!
13. Attend Free Community Events:
Many museums, theaters, libraries, and community centers offer FREE educational events, such as workshops, science fairs, or lectures. Follow these places on their social media platforms for weekly event updates, or add their website events tab to your phone desktop so you can check what’s available often. These can be great opportunities for your child to learn outside of the classroom setting! We recently did this for a Blue Grass event at our local library! Turned out we were the only ones in attendance, and had the lovely elderly musicians all to ourselves! We watched them play the very instruments we had been studying, and even suggested our recent folksongs which they played! How’s that for a full circle moment!?
14. Explore Virtual Field Trips:
While some field trips can be costly, virtual field trips are often FREE. Did you know that many museums, zoos, aquariums, and historical sites offer virtual tours or educational videos!? For instance, many aquariums and zoos will have LIVE webcams of select exhibits so that those who can’t make it to the zoo, but are wondering what the sea lions are up to, can still have a peak for FREE! Websites like Google Arts & Culture can also provide immersive, virtual museum tours from around the world.
15. Free Educational Podcasts:
There are an immense amount of FREE podcasts available that offer educational content for students of all ages. You can find podcasts that focus on everything from history to science to art. Listening to these can be a great way to reinforce learning during car rides or downtime! Let me know in the comments if you’d like a separate post on these!
16. Free Art Tutorials:
There are many free or low-cost resources for teaching art. Websites like YouTube have FREE tutorials on drawing, painting, and handicrafts, so don’t miss them!
17. Buy Supplies in Bulk
Whether you are thrifty, or a little cheap-o like me, buying in bulk can save you a lot of money down the line! Think ahead for what materials you find yourself constantly running out of, and instead of buying them over and over at different stores throughout the year, buy them in bulk at the beginning of the year to save you time, money, and trouble!
18. Request for Birthdays
If you have family, or friends that look to you for birthday ideas for your children, then this idea is very feasible! I often create a birthday registry list for my child that might include the next free read my child has been wanting, art supplies, or perhaps even handicraft supplies. Additional ideas to consider could be music lessons, museum/zoo memberships, or an educational magazine subscription! This not only allows your family to pour into your child’s education, BUT it allows your child to see learning as the gift that it is!
I hope you enjoyed the way I make homeschool more affordable for us. I know there are many other creative resources that can be shared, and I’m very eager to learn! Please put your best homeschool saving tips in the comment section below. :-) Until next time, happy money-saving!
Cool, Mom, and Collectedly Yours,
