MYTH: Homeschool is Too Expensive! (13 Reasons This is False)

Hello, friends! Today I am starting a new series of shorter blog posts, in each of which I hope to address a common myth, misconception, or negative stereotype surrounding homeschooling and provide some reasons why these myths may not be quite as true as you would assume (like today’s topic: why homeschooling is affordable!). I hope these are helpful for you, or your concerned mother-in-law, or your not-quite-on-board-spouse, or whomever you might be discussing this with! And please let me know if you have more ideas for future MYTHBUSTING – just leave me a comment at the end of this post and I’ll do my best to address it in the next few months.

And, as always, here’s my disclaimer so that I don’t get Tarred and Feathered by Angry Mobs: I do not believe that everyone should homeschool. I do not want you to homeschool if you do not want to. Every family situation is different and I know many amazing moms who send their kids to all different kinds of schools and hold down many different types of jobs themselves. Homeschooling is only one of many different ways to be a fabulous parent. What I hope to do in this series (and my blog as a whole) is simply to give a more accurate picture of homeschooling than what is sometimes portrayed by the media, and also to encourage anyone who wants to homeschool that YES YOU CAN.

Whew. Hope that’s clear! So today, to start us off with our homeschool myths, is the following idea:

Homeschooling is expensive. I can’t afford to homeschool. Both my husband and I need to work full-time.

First off, let me say that the third of these statements is none of my business. It very well could be true for your family, and that is entirely up to you and your husband to decide. I only mention it here because often homeschooling means that one parent (usually mom) cannot work full-time, so it has an indirect bearing on our discussion.

Can we make a case that homeschooling is affordable, or must it be expensive? Is it only for the privileged few? Is it out of reach for the average middle-class American family?

First off, it is absolutely true that homeschooling can be expensive. If you want to, you can quickly and easily spend thousands of dollars per child on expensive curriculum, materials, co-ops, games, desks, decor, online tutoring, and extracurricular activities. I don’t think I need to explain to you how to spend more money on your homeschool, so I will leave that discussion right here. If you’re really struggling with too much money on hand and not knowing how to spend it, please leave me a comment and I’ll send you my Venmo.

However, for the rest of us who do not have thousands of extra dollars lying around, can we still homeschool without spending oodles of dollars? Can we homeschool two, three, even four or more children on one income without breaking the bank? Can we claim, with truth, that homeschooling is affordable? I would answer a resounding YES, and here is why.

13 Reasons Why Homeschooling is Affordable

1. You don’t have to pay for daycare, after-school care, or private school tuition. I worked part-time outside the home until our third child was born, at which point I quickly realized that the amount I would need to pay for three children – either in daycare or with a babysitter – would be more than the amount I would have made in my work. This is not a discussion about whether moms should work or not (for that matter, I consider this blog to be part-time work and if you’ve ever read Proverbs 31 you’ll see an ambitious woman who had quite the career) but simply an observation on the high costs of childcare. The amount of money I have saved our family by simply being here to care for our children is astronomical.
2. There is more time to make your own food. Making food from scratch is both healthier and cheaper, but it is time-consuming. However, if you are home for most or all of the day, it’s so much easier to fit cooking in to your daily rhythm! I started making sourdough bread last year (yes, I am now one of *those* people, so sorry) and quickly realized that if I was gone all day I simply wouldn’t have time for this. However, I spend a lot of time at home which makes it fairly simple to squeeze bread-making in with our homeschool routine.
3. You don’t have to use much curriculum. I wrote about this when I talked about our Minimalist Homeschool, and it really does save a lot of money when you buy fewer curriculum items! Don’t imagine that you need to purchase a several-hundred-dollar curriculum set for every child you possess.
4. You can re-use materials between children. I suppose if you were really frugal you could erase all your child’s workbooks and then pass them on to the net kid (I would never have the patience for that), but at the very least you can re-use the literature and the math textbooks and the games or puzzles or manipulatives. Each subsequent child will likely be less expensive than the first.
5. You can buy used curriculum. Yes, there will be some things you will need to buy, but another option is to find a homeschool buy/sell/trade group, either in person or online, and find your needs there. You can get some fantastic deals that way, and often the books you want are only lightly (or even never) used.
6. Less gas or transportation money. We do travel once a week to our homeschool group, and of course there are occasional appointments and other activities throughout the week, but if I imagine adding in a “to and from school” commute every single day, that is a significant amount of driving! Theoretically, when homeschooling you could maybe even cut down to just one vehicle in the family – we’ve discussed this but have not yet been able to make it work.
7. There are plenty of free online resources. The internet is a bit scary when I think about my kids navigating it but also a fantastic homeschool resource. Think of all the educational videos you can find on YouTube, or the abundance of free homeschool printables on Pinterest, or the free (or cheap) worksheets and coloring pages you can find to go with LITERALLY ANY SUBJECT UNDER THE SUN. Etsy is another fabulous source for (generally) low-cost printables or worksheet packs.
8. The library is your best friend. It really is. There is the obvious reason: you can find books about anything and everything, for free! But then there are the lesser-known benefits too: they have DVDs to borrow for free, and CDs, and sometimes even games or puzzles or STEM kits or gardening tools or free zoo passes and more! Look into all the options that your local library offers and take advantage of them.
9. Trips and vacations are easier at off-season times. I don’t think we have ever gone on a vacation in the summer except for driving to a grandparent’s house. Anytime we want to do a family vacation or road trip with kids to some place that might be even remotely touristy, we plan to do it during the school year. Hotels are cheaper, attraction tickets are cheaper, and locations are far less busy. It’s a win-win-win!
10. You’re going to buy school supplies either way. Yes, you’ll probably still be buying some school supplies – but that’s true no matter where your child goes to school. And this way you get to choose your own supplies, rather than being dictated by the school’s extra-specific list.
11. You are not paying for backpacks, teacher gifts, class parties, uniforms, and other non-educational costs that come with normal schools. No matter what type of education you choose for your children, there will be some sort of cost involved. Public school could be the cheapest (though I think homeschooling could come in a close second), but it’s still not completely free when you consider add-on costs and supplies.
12. Charter schools are another option. This is an option that is not widely discussed, but many states have a handful of public schools that offer a “charter school” option specifically for homeschoolers. We did one of these programs last year and it works like this: you register your kids with that specific public school district (though you don’t have to live in their area), you have a few virtual meetings with the staff in charge of the program, and then you are given a certain amount of funding per child to be used for curriculum or extra-curricular activities. Our kids were also required to do some testing throughout the year and fill out some progress reports, but on the whole it was “homeschooling but with support + funding from the charter school.” Different schools have differing requirements (some might be more intrusive or take more time), but you could ask your local homeschooling friends or a local homeschool Facebook group to see what options are in your state.
13. Time is money. Speaking of costs, when you consider if homeschooling is affordable or not, you also have to think about your time and your child’s time. This is the area where I personally feel that public school is simply too expensive for our family. I cannot afford the amount of time that public school wants to take from my children, and I refuse to pay that price! When I consider the length of time that they would be away from home and the percentage of their time that would be wasted on trivial busy-ness that does not actually promote true learning, I realize that I don’t want them spending their precious time there.

There you have it – thirteen reasons why homeschooling is affordable, even in this economy, even with only one income! Again, this doesn’t mean homeschooling is the right choice in your particular situation; it doesn’t mean that homeschooling is completely free; but it also doesn’t have to cost significantly more than other educational options, and I hope you won’t let an unreasonable fear about the cost of homeschooling prevent you from giving it a try.

I am not an expert in frugality nor in money matters, but I do know that we have been able to homeschool on one income for almost seven years now, and we are not alone. Many, many families are doing the exact same thing, in all different situations and with all different income levels! There is no one more resourceful than a mother determined to do what is best for her children, so if you decide that homeschooling is best, I am confident that you, too, will find a way to succeed.