Homeschooling is expensive, and I don’t necessarily mean the curriculum though those can cost a lot too.  Choosing to homeschool often means giving up income or paying for childcare during school hours. For every family I know, there were sacrifices made to make homeschooling possible.

Today I want to talk about how to make homeschooling just a little more affordable.

Affordable Education Options

People will tell you that you can homeschool for free with a library card and internet access. Even for children who attend public school, the education isn’t actually free. Schools ask parents to send in supplies, pay for field trips and sell various products. It costs money to educate a child, and while I can give you a lot of tips on saving money, expecting you can do it for free is not practical.

That said, if your goal is to be as frugal as possible, your local library is an essential resource. Check with yours to see what programs they offer and look at specifically what your child needs to learn. They may have phonics kits, DVDs to teach foreign language, teacher resources and more. Beyond those, just getting books and reading them with your child is an important part of their education. You can also use your local library to get books needed for a wide variety of literature based homeschool programs.

Molly of Denali on PBS kids

Over the years, I have also found that tons of curriculum companies will offer free downloadable lesson plans. I’m not referring to the very few companies that offer a lot of free programs, but the fact that most of them have something free, if you go looking. A free sample lesson, a free holiday unit, or a blog post explaining how to teach something. This can be time consuming, but math worksheets, reading lessons, and all kinds of things are out there waiting for you to download them. Ask around about what curriculums your friends are using and look up their websites to see if they have anything free available to try.

There are also quite a few websites that offer free programs. Khan Academy and CK-12 online are both ones I have used for science classes. We watched Crash Course history videos a ton. And for younger students, PBS kids is an amazing resource. As my kids got into upper high school level skills we also used Coursera for college level classes in their areas of interest. We used it as a free recourse and I gave credit for the courses on their high school transcripts, I don’t know anything about their paid programs.

House Hold Expenses

Running a home while homeschooling can be messy and feel like a lot extra. One small way I have saved money is purchasing a lot of cheap kitchen towels or even shop towels and using them instead of paper towels. Plus, that weekly load of laundry is better for the environment than the paper towels would be.

I buy school supplies when they go on sale in August. My kids wore a lot of hand me downs. I know some people worry about that- but my youngest daughter looked adorable in her sister’s puffy pink skirt paired with her brother’s Batman t-shirt. I have another post here on other things I did for house hold budgeting and to save money.

Fun Stuff and Field Trips

I honestly think field trips are important, but they can be expensive. One year a relative gifted us a membership for our family at our local zoo. That was amazing and we went often. I called that our science curriculum that year. My kids were small and going repeatedly did give them time to learn a LOT of animal facts. Many museums, zoos and aquariums sell season passes or have special deals for homeschoolers. Always ask about homeschool pricing!

You can also do a lot of free field trips in your community. Visit the library. See if you can tour the Fire Station. Go to the pet store and ask questions. Find out if your local state or national park has any programs that your kids can try. Last year, we spent a lovely day at a local botanical garden for free. Small local museums are also often very affordable. Find out what is in your area and explore things. Every activity is a chance to learn something new.

Finally, don’t feel like you need to do something extraordinary if it isn’t in the budget. My kids have an amazing memory of playing with the hose and having a mud fight. It was cheap fun- even if the clean up did cost some of my sanity.