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Homeschooling is often stereotyped with rich people here in Indonesia. Many people think that it is a way that many artists or entertainers choose a style of education for their children. Some people also think that homeschooling their children means that it is a rich family since it can live only in single income.

It might be different from other places in the world where homeschooling means choosing to live on one income since in most case, one parent is demanded to be at home or to leave the job. The family has to be frugal in many ways. Today, I would like to share some tips on how to get some Frugal Homeschool Curriculum

First of all, what does the state of being frugal mean? Well, let's look up in the dictionary

fru·gal

 [froo-guhl]  Show IPA

adjective

1. economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing;not wasteful Synonyms: thrifty,chary, provident, careful, prudent, penny-wise, scrimping;miserly, Scotch, penny-pinching. Antonyms: wasteful,extravagant, spendthrift, prodigal, profligate.

2. entailing little expense; requiring few resources; meager;scanty Synonyms: scant, slim, sparing, skimpy.Antonyms: luxurious, lavish, profuse.

Some people might ask if homeschoolers, even if they are rich, still need to be frugal. Homeschoolers don't need to pay school fee already. Why do they tend to be frugal? You might feel losing your tax money as you don't have kids attending their school. My answer is simple, homeschoolers need to save money by attending the college or university. In Indonesia, it might be different from the US as most Indonesian parents still have to pay for their children in university while the US provides credit from the government for the university that can be paid after students graduate.

Rather than spending money for schooling things, it is better to save the money for higher education requirement which is going to be much more expensive. Saving more money can give us more possibility to have a lighter load in paying the debt and the university or college fees later in the future.

8 Ways to Get Frugal Homeschool Curriculum

Well, what do you do to be frugal in getting some frugal homeschool curriculum and equipment? Here are some tips that I wish can inspire:

Be smart to get the curriculum and equipment needed by children

There are a lot of curriculum sale in a certain time in a year both online and in a store. They look very economical and provocative. All of them would say that this is the best curriculum for your children. Do you think it is the right time to do a purchase?  There are a lot of things to consider before you purchase curriculum to give you the most economic benefits out of sales.

1. Discuss what your children interested in learning and the goals. Look at our homeschooling lesson planning and 10 tips to planning ahead. Get priority noted on paper.
2. Think about the standards required for your kids considering your kids level. Although you are not going to use it, you might look up some text books for this purpose. Check the table of content preview
3. Do some research of the curriculum you desire that should be a combination of your children's interest with the standard achievement requirement.
4. Take a note which curriculum you need to purchase. Think about the time your children spend to do the curriculum.
5. Stocking up curriculum is great, but be ware that there might be better curriculum published next time that make you neglect the purchased curriculum. In addition, your children might change their interest and get new interest.

Cheap price can be a trap for you to spend more money. Why? Because you might spend money for something which is wasteful.

Use second hand and lent books

You don't have to purchase new curriculum for your children all of the time. There should be some second hand or used materials that you can use. Get some information about the garage sales and other online book store selling used books which should be much cheaper. It would be wonderful if you have libraries around you so that you can borrow books. Of course you have to keep the trust for borrowing books.

Consider the use of electronic curriculum or materials

Electronic books don't need shipping fee. They really save my money. What do I do with the electronic books? I print them out with my laser printer (for the black and white pages) and inkjet printer (the color pages). The student books will go to three ring binder and the text books will be sent to the local photo copy depot. For English fiction books, I prefer using kindle version.

Work for companies making the curriculum to get some free or discount materials

There are a lot of curriculum companies that offer special price or even free materials for a change reviewing the products. Having good and sincere relationship with them will be really helpful for both sides. As an international homeschooler, we always for electronic material.

Purchase in a bulk

We always purchase the stationery in dozens. Most stationery groceries will be happy to give the customers who purchase the stationery in bulk. Thus, using this special price we can keep and safe more money. What we need to take care about is the storage to keep them safely and the organization of the stationery.

Shopping on the right time and place

Getting information for the great online sales will be really helpful for frugal homeschooling families. However, be careful with your uncontrollable desire to purchase and stock up some curriculum. Think further before you purchase. Since the last three years, I have noticed that the biggest sale for homeschooling would be on May, June, July, and August. Save your money by being smarter in spending hers.

Make the worksheets and resources by yourself

It should take longer time for creating your own worksheets for your children, but it will cut down the expense allocated for purchasing them anyway. You also can modify the content of the worksheets based on the children's abilities and levels. There are a lot of kinds of softwares that can help us creating worksheets.

Use any available resources by tweaking and adjusting

In science, we usually do some experiments that have plenty of materials needed. Unfortunately, they might not be able to find around. Rather than purchase something for the substitution, it is better to tweak other stuff to fulfill the requirement. You might do similar things whenever you need a replacement or substitution in any activities.

If you like our post, 8 Ways to Get some frugal homeschool curriculum and equipment to save money., , you might be interested To read more about the series of 5 Days of New Homeschool Year Preparation, please click the picture bellow: