HEM’s Questions & Answers – November-December 2009
My husband and I are still in the discussion stage regarding home educating our three children (still all under 5 years of age). One sticking point is that we don’t know what it costs. School is free but doing it ourselves means we have to pay for everything. It would help a lot for people to let us know what it costs them per child each year. -Terry
About HEM’s Questions & Answers
Tags: cost to homeschool, homeschooling
Information is free. period. Homeschooling can cost as much or as little as you budget. School, on the other hand, has many hidden costs you may not have considered and don’t always have control over.
Meals made at home are less expensive than meals purchased at school or the “convenience foods” often packed in a lunch. Processed convenience foods are often lacking in nutrition and can cause financial expenditures related to an unhealthy body, like illness and time lost from work due to illness.
At home, children can wear clothes they want to wear, inspired by their inner sense of fashion or hand-me-downs or spending the day at the flea market. At home if you lost a coat, it doesn’t end up in the “lost and found” until the last day of school. At home you don’t have to do fundraisers for field trips, you just go.
As far as expenses directly related to education, there are many ways to save money here, too. On the expensive side, you could purchase a complete curriculum. Advantages to that are that as a parent you don’t have to plan lessons. A disadvantage would be that you’re applying a school philosophy of one-size-fits-most education at home. A cheaper alternative would be to follow the child’s interests (unschooling) or choose a list of topics to explore in Science (bugs, turtles, rocks, skin, planets…) and use materials from the library and free online printable worksheets (if worksheets are a learning tool your child responds to, some don’t and that’s OK)
Homeschooling is only as expensive as you make it.
As a homeschooler of three children, using a curriculum similar to the local school district, I budget close to $1000 a year for books and supplies. We use the local library extensively and borrow other items when we can.