Inexpensive Homeschooling Ideas
To Stretch Your Homeschool Dollars Further!

With a little thought and some creativity, you can provide a quality but inexpensive homeschooling education for your children.

Homeschooling in itself, is affordable because you control how much you spend and decide what to spend your money on.

You can spend as little or as much as you want.

Since most homeschooling families live on one income and need to stay within a budget, here are some inexpensive homeschooling ideas to stretch your homeschool dollars further:

Inexpensive Homeschooling Tip #1:

When schooling your children at home, it really doesn’t matter what you wear. There is no pressure to wear designer clothes or worry about getting noticed in “that outfit” again.

I know when I went to public school, I had the pressure to always wear a different outfit and wear the latest styles. It was not cool or hip to wear the same thing too soon or the same pair of jeans the next day. You had to rotate your outfits, being careful to space them apart! Remember those headaches?

One way our family saves money and cuts expenses is by purchasing our clothes through local resale shops or thrift stores, like Salvation Army. Often you will find brand new garments from high end clothing stores, with the tags still on them!

Many of the items we buy are new or barely worn and no one knows (until now! :) that most of our clothes are thrift store purchases. (Shhhhhhh…)

(It may be a little awkward, though, when someone loves your outfit and asks you where you got it.)

With a little creativity, you can buy used and still look stylish!

(You can save even more with your homeschool student id card! Participating Salvation Army Stores around the US give students 50% off purchases on select days! Click here for more details!)

Inexpensive homeschooling Tip #2:

Your kitchen table and chairs are the solution for inexpensive homeschooling furniture. Look around your house. With a little reorganization, often you can find a way to make better use of baskets, drawers or bookshelves or free up a cabinet to house your school supplies and notebooks.

If you do not have a spare bookshelf, cupboard or storage container, to organize your supplies and books, then you will need to make a small investment. Keeping your things organized is a key to successful homeschooling. Disorganization wastes your valuable time and money.

Make use of your back yard, local parks and free area attractions. Many times you don’t have to go far, or pay a lot of money to find fun, interesting or educational things to do.

Inexpensive Homeschooling Tip #3

At the end of the school year, local public schools get rid of desks, tables and chairs for free or for only a few bucks. Many are still in great shape.

Keep your eyes and ears open for a notice or ask a neighborhood friend or teacher to notify you when the sale or give-away takes place.

My husband and I were out one day treasure hunting and found an antique double wide science desk, complete with two drawers – perfect for our schooling area. I stripped, sanded, and refinished it, with a deep red stain to match my kitchen, and applied a couple coats of polyurethane.

Our antique desk gets compliments all the time and the best thing about it? It only cost me $10!

A warning about used curriculum:
Buying used home school curriculum isn’t always a good idea. You need to take extra care when purchasing teacher’s manuals, answer keys and student workbooks.

Many home educators waste money purchasing curriculum only to find out items don’t match or it’s the wrong edition. Also, a deal is never a deal, if it’s not exactly what you need!

Inexpensive Homeschooling Tip #4:

If you haven’t found out yet, the library, next to the internet, is a home educator’s best friend. From reading groups to internet access, from story time to enrichment classes, you are sure to find many resources, besides books to supplement your home education.

When deciding to homeschool or living on a fixed income, you may want to invest minimally in homeschooling resources until you know for sure you will make a long term commitment.

The first year I homeschooled I spent around $150 the whole year on school supplies and homeschool curriculum. We got almost everything we needed through our local library to keep our home schooling costs to a minimum.



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