On the cheap

Now that we are adopting two children, I've been trying harder to home-school on the cheap. There are many families that do not spend a ton of money on tutors and lessons, and they do not lack for educational resources. I know it can be done, I just didn't spend enough time trying to save money, and I never took the time to add up exactly how much I spend to home-school. When I add up all his lessons, books, tutors, curriculum materials, field trips etc., I spend as much on Connor as we do to send Austin to a private school. Yikes! We do need to economize now that our family is expanding. Recently, I discovered how much money I can save by taking Connor to the library in Rochester, instead of to the bookstore. Our public library in Geneseo is quite small, so up until last month I would let Connor order books online, or I'd take him to the bookstore every week or so. Well, as I mentioned before, Connor reads constantly, and I'm spending a fortune on books. On Tuesday, I returned 18 books to the library, and I let Connor check-out 9 more. That will get us through the next two weeks. I also took him to the bookstore to buy books for our China trip. I read online that Borders gives its educator's discount (25%) to home-schoolers, with proper ID. I saved $26.00 on one trip to the bookstore with my new educator's discount card!! I'm also starting to cut coupons and shop for groceries at Tops, instead of Wegmans. Last week I entered my name in a drawing, and we attended a performing arts show in Rochester because I won the tickets. That show would have cost us $150.00 or more. Yep, I'm going to cut-back on nonessentials while still giving Connor the best education possible.