What is your homeschool budget?

[frugalmomof2]

What is your budget? What grade levels and number of kids do you have?

[AbbieJack]

I have two children and our budget this year was $2,500 for all curriculum , supplies and field trips .

[Kristi26]

We have 4 kids and I would say that this year, for all curriculum and supplies, we spent under $400. I plan to stick to that for the coming year as well. At the moment, we're looking at $325 for all 3 big kids (nothing new for the youngest at this point) for curriculum alone. That doesn't include extra supplies like ink and whatnot...so we'll see.

[foggierbard9]

We are budgeting $50 a month for ink and incidentals. Our cost for curriculum was $443 and then our coop/oversight group will be around $135, so our planned budget for 1st grade for 1 student will be $1178. Even when we have more kids we are homeschooling, the expense won't go way up because most of our curriculum is reusable and the coop cost is a family price, not per child. I know we will have some extracurricular type stuff but for now that hasn't been determined.

[AZmommy]

her core curriculm runs around $350 other supplies around another $200 lessons co op fees ect around $1,000 a year paid month by month..

[melissamomof3girls]

I save $1300 a year, which is for curriculum, co-op, and any field trips. . I have 3 who are "school-age". We are able to re-use everything except spelling & math workbooks, so I really am only buying for the oldest every year.

[blondeviolin]

Next year I will have 2 school-aged children. Most of my son's skill subject work will be handed down from my oldest. My oldest will need new curriculum, which will run about $400. We save $50 every two weeks for other expenses. (Books, craft stuff, etc) If I don't use the $50, we roll it over so it can also help pay for bigger items.

[Kätzchen]

I spent $2,500-$3,000 this year for my single first grader. We bought the Oak Meadow curriculum, Time4Learning, Football practice, countless books and supplies, a laptop..lots of year passes for museums, and a year pass to Disney(which can be plenty educational!).

[7mom7]

I think we spend about $650 for Classical Conversations including supplies (they are reusable so it's an investment the first few years). Probably an additional $200 for math/reading/library pass (yes we have to pay for the library!). The field trips etc. come out of our monthly/weekly budget

[iris0110]

We don't really have one. I don't mind spending if I think a curric is worth it but until now I have spent very little on home schooling and it has worked pretty well. I don't know that I have any exact numbers but this year Kearnan will be using Charlotte Mason with a some what altered version of AO which is free. He just completed 5th grade (we school year round) and I just finished laying out his lesson plans for 6th grade (all 36weeks though I'm very proud of myself). We had gotten started for a week with the 3 weeks I had already planned but took 2 weeks off because I think every one was over due for a break. Charlotte Mason is a learning through literature program and most of the books on the AO reading list are available as free down loads through amazon on my kindle or through Gutenberg so honestly it has cost me very little. The biggest expenditure was Kearnan's math program (Life of Fred fractions) which cost about $20 and a few biographies which cost under $20 for all of them. I did have to buy a copy of Child's History of the World and Handbook of Nature Study but they were not very expensive together. I got out for well under $100 for all of the books I will be using with him this year. As for Tharen I was already doing a sort of CM style curric without knowing it. I am just continuing with that. I am using Math to Learn as his math curriculum (I bought it a few years ago for .50$ at a library sale) plus the Teacher Book that goes with it which I think I paid $10 for at Half Price Books. I didn't bother buying more books for him yet though I always do science and history as combined subjects. He is still using funnix but I did it as a free download. His biggest expense would be Roller Derby but I don't really consider it a school expense.