budget for homeschool?

Question:
What's a typical budget for homeschooling? Or, what are the budgets of some people here?

I don't want too many personal details, just someting like this: * Roughly how much money (per child per year) is spent on books and related curriculum? * Roughly how much money (per child per year) is spent on other things, such as: science equipment, sports equipment, music lessons, software, etc?

Answer:
-I don't know. I just buy things as I need them. I just trust God to supply the money, and if he doesn't then it can wait. I do plan for HSLDA dues, local group dues, and some basic supplies like paper and stuff at the beginning of each school year; usually $200 or so. I also budget another $300-$500 for the yearly conference, for conference costs and things I buy from the booths. Other things I try to spread out the purchases over the course of the year. Of course, my kids are still quite young and don't need much right now, however I'm spending lots on putting together a library of classic books for all of us, plus all the best homeschooling and education books for myself. -It's a great question Ted. Unfortunately the answers will vary widely by family. I've known people who could home school 4 kids on $100 for the whole year. Obviously they didn't do a lot of extras like art or field trips or music lessons on that budget. And then there's people like me who have spent over $1000 a year for 2 children not including piano lessons or dance classes.

There are the yearly expenses of curriculum, which will of course vary based on what curriculum you are using.

Our basics for each child for the year include: EASY GRAMMAR (approx. $20-25 per child)

DAILY GRAMS (approx. $20-25 per child)

MATH-U-SEE (Approx. $20 teacher manual, $15 for each child student text, $40 instruction video, plus the one time purchase of manipulatives for $110.00)

SPELLING POWER (1 time purchase of $50 +$30 for the optional activity cards - can be used with multiple children and goes up through college level spelling)

And then we use a wide variety of other books, workbooks, resources, science supplies, art supplies, plus field trips and outings ... couldn't even guess what we spend on all of that. Piano lessons are about $90 a month per child. Dance classes are about $40 an hour.

I'd say that a home school budget is mostly related to how much money one has available to spend and the academic needs of the children in that particular home.

At any rate, I'm sure there are as many different answers as there are people who home school. -I don't know what is typical, but I'd guess that I spend more than 'average'. We have a 2nd grade girl that we homeschool.

We use Calvert, which costs about $600. Plus I spend about $500 per year on other books, magazine subscriptions, paper, marker, art supplies, etc. Probably another $500 on field trips and activities thru the local park & rec. Dance classes cost us about $1000 per year.

So the total that I spend for 'homeschooling' is somewhere around $2600 per year. HOWEVER, virtually all of it (except for the Calvert stuff) I'd still spend even if she was in public or private school and not homeschooled, so I guess that doesn't really count toward a 'homeschool budget' -If the science equipment or software is curriculum related it comes from the homeschool budget. Usually, we make gifts of sports related items. The rest of the categories depends on our current financial situation, but many "educational" items come from other areas of our budget because of our educational philosophy of "All life experience is educational."

It's kind of like our tithing. We have budgeted 10 percent, but we put more than that toward giving to God and the church and take it out of various budget categories as the opportunity or need arises.