Real Life Homeschool on One Income

Welcome back to Day 2 of my Real Life Homeschool Blog Series!  Today we’re talking about Real Life Homeschool on One Income.  I know a lot of people are in this boat.  Several of those people I’m happy to call my friends!  We’re the mommies that stay home everyday with our children.  We not only teach them how to be kind and share but how to multiply and maybe speak a foreign language!

My homeschool lives on one income.  If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know I’m a representative(or whatever the companies call them) for a few MLM companies.  I don’t do home parties or shows and rarely do facebook events.  I’m not huge on promoting them.  They are for products I love and use that I like to share with people.  I don’t normally share to make money but to say Hey I LOVE this!!!  I don’t consider that a form of income(well maybe I would if I actually made money).

So how does a large family with nine children homeschool on one income?  

Well, we’re frugal.  I love curriculum that isn’t workbook based or that allow for copying of the workbook.  The curriculum we use now is KONOS which is a unit study curriculum.  One book can be used for two to three years and you just use library books to supplement into it for teaching the lessons.  I LOVE this!  Libraries are free guys!  Use those libraries!

Unit studies are a great way to get a lot of subjects together without spending a lot of money.  I’ve written my own unit studies before and made some easy printables for my kids.  Our spelling words come from our unit study.  Our read alouds and reading time books correlate with the unit study.  Our history and science correlate with the unit study too!  And sometimes, if I’m extra creative, we can get math in there too!

Another way to have a real life homeschool on one income is to find free places to go for field trips.  A field trip can be a trip to the grocery store where your children  have helped you write the shopping list, help you find the items on the list, talk about why certain items have to be frozen or refrigerated, calculate how much money you are spending, and then help you count out the bills or change needed to pay for said groceries.

While you’re out and about on your grocery field trip, stop at the library for reading materials, have a picnic at a park, or visit a nursery to look at plants!  We get all of our school subjects in even though we’ve done none of our regular work just by learning as we go!  And we have fun too!   

So the key for me is to find resources that I can use for multiples ages without having to buy a ton of workbooks.  Those workbooks get expensive!  Also, take advantage of free activities in your area.  We live in the country but we go for nature walks on our farm and then journal what we saw, look it up to learn more about it, etc.  Local wildlife areas are great to visit as well.

I’ll share more about our homeschool and what real life is like around here in the next few days!

Don’t forget to check out my Day 1 post about Real Life Homeschooling on a Farm as well! 

Day Three:  Real Life Homeschool Year Round

Day Four:  Real Life Homeschool with a Toddler

Discover real life in other homeschools with the Schoolhouse Review Crew bloggers! Join the blog hop to read more!

Blogs to visit on Day 2!!

For This Season
Unexpected Homeschool
For Him and My Family
As We Walk Along the Road
Growing in His Glory
Homeschool Coffee Break
Daily Life
There Will Be A $5 Charge For Whining
Proverbial Homemaker
ElCloud Homeschool