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How to Afford Homeschooling: Avoiding Consumerism

April 24, 2013 by Selena Robinson 6 Comments

Hi everyone! Welcome to the final installment in our series “How to Afford Homeschooling”! We hope you’ve enjoyed our posts so far! Our last topic is “Avoiding Consumerism”.

We live in a country whose economy is based on consumerism. Everywhere we turn, there are commercials and advertisements that encourage us to buy, buy, buy. But for the homeschooling family on a budget, that kind of mentality can be damaging. If we want to afford homeschooling, it’s critical that we avoid consumerism.

How can we resist the temptation to buy more and more things? Here are a few suggestions:

Prioritize

If homeschooling is the way we intend to teach our children, then it has to become an important part of our life plans. That means that homeschooling has to take precedence over other things we might also like to do. For example, I got a chance to go to England as a teenager and it was an incredible experience. I’d love to go back with my family so our kids can see it as well, but the cost of six airplane tickets is prohibitively expensive. Now that doesn’t mean we won’t EVER go, but it does mean that right now, it’s just not feasible. And that’s okay. If I have to choose between homeschooling or going to England now, I’ll choose homeschooling every time. England will always be there later. This opportunity to homeschool might not.

Recommit

We opened up this series about the need for couples to have “The Talk” when it comes to finances. But this can’t be a one-time discussion. We need to have ongoing conversations about budgeting, financial goals, and money management. When both spouses continue to commit themselves to living simply, it’s easier to avoid tempting purchases that could derail our homeschooling journey.

Focus

One of the main reasons we homeschool is so that we can spend more time with our children. Personally, I’ve found that when I’ve been drawn to buying something that we can’t afford, I’ve also been preoccupied with things other than my family. Of course, that’s going to happen at times, especially to a parent who works for a living. But, when I center my life around my family, I am far less interested in buying things. I also find that the more time I spend with my husband and our children, the more contented I feel with my life in general, which stops me from wanting more things.

Have you all dealt with the buy, buy, buy attitude? How do you keep it from invading your home and family? Let us know about it in the comments!

Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

How to Afford Homeschooling: Finding Free Homeschool Resources

How to Afford Homeschooling: Making Friends with Your Local Library

How to Afford Homeschooling: Saving Money Around the House

How to Afford Homeschooling: Cooking Cheaply

How to Afford Homeschooling: Generating Income

April 17, 2013 by Selena Robinson 12 Comments

Hello again and welcome to this week’s installment in our series “How to Afford Homeschooling”! We’re coming down to the end of the series and I hope you all have found something that you can use in your homes! This week we’re discussing ways to generate income in the home.

Finding a way to bring in additional income to the household is always helpful, but the problem many homeschooling moms run into is finding legitimate work at home opportunities. There are work-at-home scams plastered all across the Internet. (I know this because I fell for a couple of them a few years ago.) So, I thought I’d share a few of the legitimate websites that I’m familiar with.

*Disclosure: I am currently employed by some of these companies. I do not, however, receive a commission for referrals, so you don’t have to worry about me making the job sound better than it is. 🙂

Freelance writing work at home jobs:

LME Guides – This is the company that I work for the most. The owner is a mother of three who started the business after leaving the corporate workforce and I’ve found her to be very understanding of the time demands of homeschooling moms. The company operates five websites about topics such as pharmaceutical drugs, career information, and valid coupons for travel attractions and restauarants, among others. Writers earn monthly revenue on their work, which means that you can write articles now and earn money on them from now on. You can apply here.

Content Current – This website often has articles available for writing, but it’s usually a feast or famine situation. So there are weeks where there’s more work than you can handle and there are weeks where there’s practically nothing at all. The good thing about this company, though, is that when there is work available, it’s very simple to do. Apply here.

Textbroker – I’ve been writing for Textbroker for the last three years off and on and they consistently have assignments available. The only caveat here is that you will be asked to take a writing test when you apply and the jobs that are available to you are based on how well you do. If you’re new to web content writing, I’d advise practicing extensively before signing up. Apply here.

Pure Content – Pure Content is a UK-based content company, which means that you’ll be asked to write in UK English on some assignments. If you write well, though, they’ll send you regular assignments. They also have openings for editors. Apply here.

Non-writing work at home jobs:

Leapforce – I worked for Leapforce a few years ago and I liked it a lot. Basically, you’re evaluating the quality of websites that appear in Google search rankings. The job itself was pretty easy, but it does require following a very detailed list of evaluation standards. When I worked for them, they were paying $13.50 per hour, but I don’t know if that’s still the pay rate today. Apply here.

Lionbridge – I’ve never worked for Lionbridge, but the work is essentially the same as Leapforce. (Generally, if you’ve worked for either of these, then you can’t work for the other one.) I don’t know about their pay rate, but the last time I checked, they were still accepting applications. Apply here.

I hope you all can use these websites to find work at home opportunities! If you have any other suggestions for valid work at home jobs, feel free to post them in the comments. Come back next week for our final series installment “Avoiding Consumerism”. Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

How to Afford Homeschooling: Finding Free Homeschool Resources

How to Afford Homeschooling: Making Friends with Your Local Library

How to Afford Homeschooling: Saving Money Around the House

How to Afford Homeschooling: Cooking Cheaply

Making a World the Ed Emberley Way!

April 15, 2013 by Selena Robinson 15 Comments

Good morning everyone! Time for another week of learning in our family! I thought I’d start off by sharing an art activity we enjoyed recently. I had never heard of Ed Emberley before I started homeschooling. I wasn’t much for drawing as a kid and I never thought about learning how to do it as I grew up. But I found an Ed Emberley book at our local library a few years ago and I was hooked. I had no idea that drawing could be so easy! I ended up buying three of his books the very next week at the dearly departed bookstore chain Borders. (Sniff.)

The kids were partial to his “Complete Funprint Drawing Book”. And why not? I mean, you get to put your fingers on a stamp pad!

See what I mean?

Christopher Robin got to work with the book “Make a World”. And he drew a great schooner that he then erased before I could get a picture of it. *grumble*

And now for the masterpieces…..

Roo wanted to make bumblebees, so I did one for him and then he made a few. Not long afterward, he lost interest and asked if he could make random fingerprints and doodle. This is the point where I reminded myself, “Process, not product.”

Pooh made a fingerprint clown and then added his own touches with an ink pen.

Tigger really took to the little fingerprint people and practiced making them with different expressions and movements.

Even me and Christopher Robin got involved! He drew the really great steamboat above and I did the somewhat disturbing looking animals below using the “Big Purple Drawing Book”. (I promise y’all – the pictures look much better in the book.) Process, not product, right?

How do you include drawing in your school lessons? Have any of you tried an Ed Emberley book? Let us know in the comments! Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Cooking Cheaply

April 10, 2013 by Selena Robinson 6 Comments

Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s installment in our series “How to Afford Homeschooling”! Today we’re talking about how we cook cheaply.

It’s no secret that feeding a family is really expensive, especially since prices continue to go up so often. And just when you think you’ve settled into a predictable grocery budget, the kids have a growth spurt and your food costs double. (I shudder to think how much we’ll be spending when Pooh and Roo are teenagers.) For now, though, we manage to keep our food budget at about $300 a month for two adults, one elementary-aged child, and two preschoolers. Here are some of the ways we make that happen:

Stick to a shopping list.

The night before we go shopping, I sit down with the store sale paper and base all of our meals around what meats are on sale. I write those items down and then I fill in the rest of our week’s menu with meals that I know I can make for about $5. Stir fry, spaghetti, and split pea soup are some of our regulars for dinner. Once I make the list, I total up the expected cost. At the store, I stick to exactly what’s on the list. Period.

Choose generic brands.

I grew up eating name brand foods and I was actually afraid to try generic brands for years. Surprise! They don’t kill you! Unlike what I heard from others, I can taste a difference. But, it’s certainly not a big enough difference to pay two or three times more for the same product. Naturally, buying generic means I can’t use coupons, but I end up saving more this way than I did in my couponing days.

Eat at home.

Okay, this one’s a suggestion you hear all the time, but it deserves repeating here. We used to frequent the drive thru window at a couple of fast food spots near home, because I was just too tired to cook. But, now that we plan our meals ahead of time, I know what we’re supposed to eat each day as soon as I get up. Christopher Robin is a HUGE help in this regard as well, because he’ll jump in the kitchen and cook dinner often. Which brings me to my last tip…

Involve the whole family.

We do almost all of the things on this list together. I ask for family input on the shopping list and if the kids want something we can’t afford, we tell them that it’s too expensive but we’ll find a way to make it ourselves. Now they’ve pretty much stopped asking for sweets altogether, because they know we’ll always have something they like on the menu. (They’re partial to Daddy’s chocolate chip pancakes.) We also shop for groceries as a family. A lot of times family food budgets go out the window, because spouses shop independently. But when we all go to the store together, it helps us stick with what’s on the list and get some ideas for the next trip.

These are just a few ways we save on our cooking each week. In a future post, I’ll share one of our weekly menus so you all can get a detailed look at how we feed our family on $75 per week. If you have any suggestions of your own, please share them in the comments.

Come back next week for our next post in the series: “Generating Income”! Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

How to Afford Homeschooling: Finding Free Homeschool Resources

How to Afford Homeschooling: Making Friends with Your Local Library

How to Afford Homeschooling: Saving Money Around the House

April 3, 2013 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

Good morning everyone! Welcome to this week’s post in our ongoing series “How to Afford Homeschooling”. The topic for today is Saving Money Around the House.

If you’re struggling to manage a home while teaching your kids all day, I don’t have to tell you that staying on a budget is difficult. Kids always want and need new things and somehow you have to find room in the finances to get those things, pay the bills, eat, and eventually get around to buying something that you need. Here are a few tips that we’ve found to be useful when it comes to cutting costs at home.

Household Care

Use homemade cleaners and detergent: Fun fact – I have not purchased laundry detergent in three years. Instead, I use a homemade detergent mix made from Ivory soap, washing soda (or baking soda), and Borax. Tipnut has a great list of homemade laundry detergent recipes. Personally, I prefer the powdered version because it’s much faster to put together and I make a smaller batch as well. I just grate an entire bar of Ivory soap and mix it with 2 cups of Borax and 2 cups of either washing soda or baking soda. Then I use 2 tablespoons per load. The really great thing about this recipe is that it’s very mild, so I can use it on Piglet’s diapers and Christopher Robin’s work clothes. I also make use of homemade household cleaners whenever I can.
Get rid of cable: Most homeschooling families I know personally have gotten rid of cable a long time ago, so this is probably a no-brainer. We have a Netflix streaming-only subscription and I use that plus a regular TV antenna to get our local channels and plenty of TV shows and movies for us to watch. I was surprised at how much our weekly TV consumption went down when we got rid of cable. There are actually days when we don’t turn it on at all and we don’t miss it either.

Bringing Up Baby

Breastfeed (if you can): Breastfeeding is undeniably the best way to feed a baby and all pregnant women are strongly encouraged to do it, unless there’s a reason why they absolutely cannot. One advantage people don’t discuss often, though, is that breastfeeding is so much more affordable than buying formula! I formula-fed Tigger after an unsuccessful attempt at nursing her and I’m here to tell you that buying cans of formula on a regular basis will easily put you in the poorhouse.
Use cloth diapers wisely: Cloth diapering has come back into vogue in recent years, which is great! Disposable diapers are terrible for the environment and may even contain toxic chemicals. However, some people I know who tout the money-saving benefits of cloth diapers will spend $35 or $40 on one diaper without blinking an eye. Maybe they can afford that. I, however, cannot. A good supply of Chinese or Indian unbleached prefolds and a few covers will take you most of the way when it comes to diapering your baby. For Piglet’s overnight diapers, I bought used or second-quality diapers from other mamas at DiaperSwappers.

Keeping Up Appearances

Do your own hair – Both Tigger and I have dreadlocks, which I love because it means no more combs! Combing out hair was truly a traumatic experience in our house. However, natural (that is, un-permed) hair can be rather expensive, especially if you don’t know how to care for it yourself. And that’s where I learned that YouTube was my friend. I have learned how to style, retwist, and wash my hair from watching YouTube tutorials. Which is good, because our budget was not going to survive me spending $75 a month at the salon.
Shop for clothes smartly – I actually have skirts from when I was a teenager. (I can’t fit into them right now, but that’s another story.) I don’t buy clothes often and, when I do, I try to pick items that I know I’ll still like in a few years. Naturally, that means I’m not usually up-to-date on the latest trends, but when is a floor-length circle skirt going to go out of style? The answer is never.

I could go on, but I don’t want you guys to have to endure an entire wall of text, so I’ll save some for another post. What are your tips for saving money around the home? Let us know in the comments!

And come back next week for our next installment “Cooking Cheaply”! Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

How to Afford Homeschooling: Finding Free Homeschool Resources

How to Afford Homeschooling: Making Friends with Your Local Library

March 27, 2013 by Selena Robinson 9 Comments

Hi everyone! Welcome to another installment of our ongoing series “How to Afford Homeschooling”! If you’ve caught any of our previous topics, then you know our focus is to find ways to make homeschooling easier and more affordable. Your local library is literally one of the best places to start finding free activities for your homeschoolers. Here are just a few services that your library may offer:

Free Inter-library Lending – We don’t live in a large county, so our local library system is pretty small. But our branch is a member of a statewide library network, which connects us with most of the other public libraries in our state. What this means is that if I’m unable to find a book that I want at our local branch, I can put in a request for it somewhere else in the state and have it delivered right to our neighborhood location. I cannot tell you how much money we’ve saved over the years, just by using this system to get a copy of a book for our regular lessons. If you have the option to do this at your library, you can plan your lessons in advance and place a hold for the specific titles you need. That way, they’ll be available in time for you to use them in your lessons.
Reading Programs – Another way we use the library to save is by taking advantage of the many programs and events that it offers. For instance, every summer, the library hosts a Summer Reading Program that gives all the kids a chance to earn free prizes simply for reading! At our branch, kids of all ages can participate as long as parents read with them, so our preschoolers don’t have to feel left out since they’re not reading on their own yet. In previous years, the prizes have included items such as free meals at Chick-fil-A, free bowling, and stickers for the kids. There’s also has a huge party at the end of the program that features outdoor games, snacks, and entertainment for the entire family. Why not ask if your library will be holding a similar event this summer? It’s a great way to help your family develop a love for reading and earn some free perks along the way!
Socialization – A lot of homeschooling naysayers whisper their concerns about socialization for homeschooled kids. I personally don’t feel that structured socialization is that important. I prefer that our kids naturally come into contact with people of all ages during their days. But, if you want to give your kids a chance to meet other kids their age, the local library is a great, family-friendly place to do it. During the week, our library holds regular story times and readings for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and older kids. Depending on the month, there may even be visits from local firefighters, clowns, or puppeteers. Giving kids a chance to meet other children and adults in this setting can be a less stressful way to help them become comfortable around all kinds of people.

Do you love your local library? How have you been able to use your local library resources to enrich your homeschool experience? Let us know in the comments! And come back next week for our next installment in the series: Saving Money Around the House. Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

How to Afford Homeschooling: Finding Free Homeschool Resources

March 20, 2013 by Selena Robinson 18 Comments

Hi everyone! Welcome to the second post in our series “How to Afford Homeschooling”! Last week, we talked about why families need to have an open discussion about finances. This week, I wanted to share some of the free homeschool resources that help us teach our kids on a budget.

I was homeschooled myself from sixth grade onward. My mom used two very traditional curriculum providers: Calvert School (Grades 6-8) and American School (Grades 9-12). I got a good quality education during those years, but the cost of those programs was pretty high and they’ve only gotten more expensive since then.

Now that we have the Internet, though, there are more free resources for homeschoolers than ever before! If you’re new to homeschooling, you might be surprised to find out that you can literally put together an entire K-12 curriculum for free. Here are some of the great resources we’ve either used or plan to use to compile our children’s curriculum:

Donna Young – I have used nearly all of the printable homeschool planning forms on Donna Young’s website at one point or another. There are plenty of great bound homeschool planners you can buy, but this site has most, if not all, of the same planning sheets for absolutely free. She also features a few planning pages that allow for more than one child at a time, which is a big help to families that are teaching several kids at once (like us!).
Scholastic – Scholastic has a great library of resources for teachers that includes printables, activities, craft ideas, lesson plans, and videos. Nearly all of the material is free to use and you can sort it all by age or grade.
Khan Academy – Khan Academy is a completely free video portal with tutorials about Math, Science, and Economics, among others. This site is geared toward middle and high school students, which means I’ll be hitting up these tutorials to remind myself how to solve for X in a couple of years.
CK-12 – Most of the resources at CK-12 are for grades six and up, but some are for PreK through elementary ages. I really like this site because you have the option to either view entire textbooks online or download them in PDF format. Free teacher guides are also available for download. Textbooks cover subjects such as Algebra, Chemistry, and Statistics.
Houghton Mifflin EduPlace – EduPlace is provided by the textbook company Houghton Mifflin. It’s actually designed to complement the material in the company’s textbooks, but the online content is so thorough that you could use it without having the textbooks at all. EduPlace has resources and lesson plans for grades PreK through 8 in subjects such as Math, Language Arts, and Social Studies.
Ambleside Online – AO is a complete, free Charlotte Mason curriculum designed for grades K through 12. We’re eclectic homeschoolers, but we implement many Charlotte Mason methods. What I really like about Ambleside Online is that you can pick and choose the aspects of it that you want and just skip the parts you don’t. Everything is laid out in a week-by-week lesson plan, which makes it a breeze to plan each grade. Almost all of the books on the reading list are also available for free and AO provides links to most of them directly on the site.
Core Knowledge – Better known as the company behind the “What Your __ Grader Needs to Know” series, Core Knowledge also offers a downloadable sequence for grades K through 8. This is a huge help when you’re planning your school year, since you can just take a look at the sequence to see which topics you’ll need to cover each year. (Make sure that you check your state’s list of educational objectives as well.)
Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool – We featured this site as one of the Websites We Love last week, but it deserves another shoutout here. Hundreds of online resources arranged in daily lessons for grades K through 8 in one place!

Do you have any free homeschool resources that you use to build your curriculum? Let us know in the comments! And come back next week for the next part in our series “Making Friends with Your Local Library”.

Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

Free College Basketball Worksheets for Kids

March 18, 2013 by Selena Robinson 10 Comments

Something interesting happens to my husband and I around mid-March. We go just a little bit crazy. But what would the NCAA college basketball tournament be if we didn’t go a little mad about it? I mean, we’re talking about almost three straight weeks of college basketball with over 60 teams from all the conferences!

This year, we’re going to get the kids involved by adding a few educational activities. And I’m sharingthese free college basketball worksheets for kids with you!

Read on to see how to get your set free! And for more fun with hoops, check out our free basketball skip counting flashcards and our easy coffee filter basketball craft too!

Free College Basketball Worksheets for Kids

To use these worksheets, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

This pack includes three different worksheets.

There’s no specified grade level for these, but they would work best for elementary-aged students.

A history of basketball worksheet features questions about the first college basketball tournament. (The kids can find the answers here.)

Use the college basketball geography worksheet to help kids learn about the cities where the tournament regional finals will be held this year. (Find the list of region locations here.)

Plus, there’s a college basketball math worksheet that helps kids practice skip-counting in reverse from 68 down to 2 – just like the tournament! (Our basketball skip counting flashcards would be helpful here.)

Scroll on down to grab your free college basketball worksheets for kids!

Don’t miss these other fun posts!

To get your free college basketball worksheets for kids, sign up for our email newsletter! You’ll get these printables, plus lots more, FREE in our exclusive Subscriber Library!

Website We Love: Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

March 15, 2013 by Selena Robinson 5 Comments

We have two preschoolers in our home and we’ve been gradually introducing them to reading through phonics and sight words. When you try to find online resources for phonics and reading, though, you might have to visit several websites to put together a comprehensive introduction to letter sounds. Which is why we love Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool!

Lee, the homeschooling mom who put this together, has literally gathered hundreds of educational videos, printables, and activities in one place, so that all we have to do is click the correct grade level and then follow the directions for each day. And since she used all free homeschool resources, her site is absolutely free!

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool isn’t just for preschoolers and phonics either. She’s compiled enough resources to cover ALL of the course objectives for grades kindergarten through eight and she’s hard at work on high school. Lee’s even provided an instruction page outlining how to use her curriculum to meet your local or state homeschool reporting requirements.

If you’re tired of compiling endless numbers of lesson plans, you might just find that this site gives you the outline and resources you need.

Keep on learning!

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

March 13, 2013 by Selena Robinson 8 Comments

Welcome to the first post in our ongoing series “How to Afford Homeschooling”! For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some tips that I’ve found to be useful in affording homeschooling so far. This week’s topic is “Having the Talk”.

What is “the Talk”? The it’s-time-to-get-serious-about-our-finances talk. Christopher Robin (the husband) and I have had that talk several times over the years. Interestingly, lots of couples don’t talk about money. And it’s no wonder. Disagreements about money are some of the most commonly cited factors in marital troubles. But, we didn’t want to risk losing our family’s future over something we could fix together.

During our heart-to-hearts, we’ve literally made a list of things we could start doing and continue doing to save money so that he could be home more often and get more involved in the kids’ schooling. And these are the things that I’ll be sharing with you during the series.

Here’s a breakdown of the topics we’ll be covering:

If you’re facing a financially uncertain future, homeschooling can easily take a back seat to worries about paying the bills. Having “the Talk” may be just what you need to help you develop a practical method for continuing to homeschool, even if you have to make serious budget adjustments.

Have you faced a financial crisis? How did you and your family meet the challenge of continuing to afford homeschooling? Let us know in the comments!

Keep on learning!