No Homeschool Budget? God Provides!

Marcy, one of the Review Crew Leaders, hosts the Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog Cruise each week.  This week she reminded us that the topic is “Budget Friendly Homeschooling.”  I didn’t think this was a topic that applied to me.  For many many years I had a very LARGE amount of money allocated to spend on home education.  I didn’t really ever worry or think about how to cut corners or make “budget friendly” purchases.

But in the last few years, I’ve not had that luxury. With my husband taking a significant pay cut a few years ago, the economy going south and some financial mistakes we’ve made, well, there just isn’t any money for home education.

Seriously, my home school “budget” for the 2012-2013 school year is “whatever God provides.”  Yes, I have a $0 budget.

But lest you, dear reader, think this is a whiny post about not having all the money I want to buy all the curriculum and supplies that I want, let me share with you some of the amazing ways God has been providing for our home school.

Nearly everything we are using for school has been supplied either by the Schoolhouse Review Crew (home school side of things and the new Molly Crew side of things) or through friends sharing their materials with us or the public library.

My daughter is a senior this year.  Our (that would be hers and mine!) plans for this final year include a year of English, a half year of Psychology, a half year of civics, a half year of sociology.  She’d like to do another year of science and another year of math as well as finish up some business courses and her music courses.  Oh yes, she also needs a credit of physical education. 

For English she is using Lightning Literature’s Shakespeare: Tragedies and Sonnets.  We received this as a review crew item.  Psychology, sociology, civics and math are courses we’re creating using Zane Education, the public library, and/or materials we already owned.  Zane is another product we received as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Both of the business courses (which we started and then put aside) were provided by the Review Crew.  And physical education?  Well, we just started a curriculum called Family Time Fitness.  (Review coming of course!)

Oh I guess I do have some money for education.  I have budgeted money for BooBear to take another year of private music lessons.  Those lessons are part of the music credits she has been earning.  We’ve been doing piano lessons now for so many years that I don’t really consider it as part of our homeschool budget.  The lessons are a category in their own right <grin>.

But the blessings and provision do not stop with the oldest.  The twins are very far apart developmentally and academically yet both of them are using curriculum we received for review purposes.

Turtlegirl has started her sophomore year of high school.  She’ll be getting back to the fabulous Algebra 2 course from Pearson.  She’s utilizing Zane education to create an Art History/Art Appreciation course and to supplement her biology studies. She’ll also pick back up and dig deeper her studies of the British Middle Ages with the Heritage History curriculum we reviewed.

Supergirl gets to study Spanish.  For reasons beyond my comprehension, she’s been wanting to learn Spanish.  She asks for her videos to be played in Spanish.  God must have understood her, because we’ve been provided with a 6 month subscription to SpeekeeTV (review coming!).  She loves it!  Her math has been provided through both the review crew and a generous friend who is letting me borrow some curriculum.  She also has a writing curriculum (Write Start Primary) and a reading program (Reading Kingdom ) both provided by the crew. 

Tailorbear has not been left out. Her math program has been provided by Schoolhouse Review Crew (do you see a pattern here?) She also will be doing some geography and other social studies using a couple of unit study products that, you guessed it, were provided by the Review Crew.

I am close to tears as I type this because I am just blown away by how rich and full including “basic core subjects” and “fun supplements” God has provided.  I know that prayer is an absolutely necessary component.  It’s not that God doesn’t already know what we need, or even the  desires of my children’s heart (Spanish??!!) but when I pray, I have to humble myself before the King of Kings. I have to acknowledge that there is a need that I can’t meet but He can. The amazing part is He goes above and beyond!

I am so grateful for the review crew (and the nameless friend who has let me borrow so much this year!) God has certainly used the Crew to meet our needs in ways I could never have guessed and He has provided (on more than one occasion) a product for a need I didn’t even know we had (did I mention Spanish?).

It is possible to home school with a zero dollar budget, but only because God the Father meets our every need!

“Budget Friendly Homeschooling” will be live on Tuesday 8/21.  In the meantime you can enjoy past Blog Cruise Topics.