Latest / Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court & Jess / Episode 35 Money, Income, and Homeschooling: How Families Really Make It Work

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Episode 35 Money, Income, and Homeschooling: How Families Really Make It Work · Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court & Jess

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess, where Real Talk meets real life.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Court and Jess are two friends, fellow moms, and business partners who live in different time zones and juggle homeschooling alongside motherhood and entrepreneurship.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Jess is a mom of eight and Court is a mom of seven, and together they're raising 15 kids and navigating the wild, wonderful world of homeschooling, each in completely different ways.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Every week we invite you to pull up a chair for honest conversations, practical tips, and uplifting encouragement.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: You'll hear from moms across the country who are homeschooling in a way that works best for their families.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're a veteran homeschool mom just getting started or somewhere in between, this is your space to feel seen, supported, and inspired.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because no matter how different our past may look, we are all in this together.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, welcome to homeschooling on Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Today we are gonna talk about the question that gets asked, I think probably almost more than anything else, is how can you afford to homeschool?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Homeschooling is expensive.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start with that.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's no joke about that, but there's also, you know, how can we do it affordably, right?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so many of us do it as a one-income family.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I, we were a one-income family for well, I don't know, forever, it seems like, right?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Forever.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now we have two incomes, but um, we're just gonna talk about how we did it, right?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like how did we homeschool seven kids, you know, all under the age of 12, and not on a salary that was not huge.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we my husband is just a you know, working class person, like nothing like he doesn't have, he's not a lawyer, he's not a doctor, he's he's done quite a few random things actually.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's changed his professions quite a few times.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Our husbands are very similar.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, just you know, we're you know, normal everyday people, right?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so and but I just I don't want to like shortcut it.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Home schooling is not cheap, right?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it can be done.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are ways to do it that are you know easier than others.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we're just gonna kind of give some ideas of like what we did, what we've done in the past.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Does that sound right?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's just start.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so um when we first started, one thing that I decided like many moons ago, and I think I've talked about this before, was that I invested in myself a little bit.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like I always went to the homeschool conference, right?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's it's time that this right now is homeschool conference time, like in the summer.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're kind of re-pre-recording this, but every summer I would um, and it was you guys, it was this like I think it was$60 to go and then like$30 for like your your API membership or like our whatever the membership was for the state.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean it was almost$100, which was a ridiculous amount of money for a very long time.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they had ways where like if you went and volunteered, you could get your your$60 thing waived, right?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was like$30.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it makes it way more affordable.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to go to the classes anyway, so why not be the person in the back that like flashes the signs that um you know says five minutes, 10 minutes, right?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I did that.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: You guys, I volunteered one year.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's I volunteered a lot because for a lot of years I had no money.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't volunteer the years we had a baby, but like any other years we didn't, or sometimes he would take the baby.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how we work that out, but um, I was working the registration desk, you guys, and Sarah McKenzie from Read Aloud Revival was our our night speaker, and I got to like check her in.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we I have a picture of a Sarah McKenzie.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had a little fangirl moment.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but so that's like one way, like so you know, if there's something that you really want to do, there's often ways that you can do it a little bit cheaper.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So volunteering my time um was like a huge way that I did that.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I made that a party because one, it it filled my bucket.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's very motivating to be around 5,000 people that are doing the same thing as you, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I learned something every year that I would go home and I would, you know, put forth into our homeschool.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: I even started, I you guys, I went the year before I homeschooled, like the summer before Sydney was going into kindergarten.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that that's what I wanted to do.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I I did it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I there was a lot of years I had a baby in tow.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And boy, life is a whole lot easier.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I get a lot more out of conferences now that I'm not taking little kids.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I always like try to help out somebody that has little kids just because I know how hard it was.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can't even go to the bathroom without, like, you know what I mean?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just so hard.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, I was lucky that my husband went with me a lot.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that he would go, like that was his contribution to homeschooling was like, and we'd make it an anniversary weekend a lot of the time.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we would our my anniversary is in the summer, and so we would go and find a very cheap and expensive hotel and spend the night and because it's just our ours is a Friday and a Saturday, so it's just one overnight.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that that's tip number one, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: For me was where there's a will, there's a way, but there's always a way to find the little workarounds and things like that.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And using your time is a huge way to save some money, right?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another one that I did is we always utilized like presents strategically, right?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: So same, I have it on my list too.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So like if it was coming up on Christmas time, I'd be like, hey, we want a membership to the zoo, like a family membership to the zoo.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or you know, like we had what are those passes called?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even remember now what they're called because they don't even exist.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're get out passes, but that's not what they used to be called.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: They called were called something else here, but it was like a year full of field trips for free, right?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I didn't need more stuff.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wanted the we wanted those excursion-y things, like those field trippy things.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that that's a great way to utilize the grandparents and something that will be a gift that gives you all year long, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um, because it's amazing how many times you can go to the zoo.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's like and do different things, right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we did that for a really long time.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: We had that for a few years, and that was some of my kids' best memories.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, Oh, yeah, remember we would we'd take a picnic to the zoo for breakfast, and then we'd go feed the birds and then we'd go home, or you know what I mean?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have those year passes, you can do those, you know, go for an hour.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was really close to our house too, so that was kind of cheating.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will also own that you guys, I never didn't do something.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we were definitely a one-income household, but I always found ways to earn a little extra money.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I had little side businesses, or I taught preschool out of my house, or I I worked at a grocery store as a checker for a long time in the evenings.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would do it two or three nights a week after he came home, um, just to have a little bit of extra money.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was like a guilt thing for me.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like I felt guilty that like I wasn't helping, or like I was always spending money, you know, like we needed new crayons or we needed new markers, or I wanted to go on a field trip, or I wanted to like just to have a little bit of extra um things.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I've I've literally always had something going on the side, just a little bit, just to and I think it's a great example to our kids, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like to show that when we're living on a budget, we can't say yes to everything.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there are ways to you know find money for things like that, right?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely um, yeah, utilize the library a lot.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like we never bought books, except unless they were like at Goodwill or the grocery store or um, you know, something along those lines, or people gave us books.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's another way to utilize grandparents in presents, um utilize books, especially like used books.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: But we never really like now I have we actually so I heard my my son said that he read somewhere that if you have a library like to officially call it a library, it has to have a thousand books.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so my niece is here and she was like, Oh, you she's like, I love your library.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And Grady's like, Oh, well, in order to have a library, you have to have a thousand books.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, how many books do you think we have?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, I don't know.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's all but I'll count them if you pay me a penny a book.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, if we have a thousand books, that's ten dollars, that's really worth it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Oh, totally, why not?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he's gonna count our books, so we'll see if I ask him to have a library, but challenge accepted, I really want a library now, but yes, no kidding.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, it's amazing.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought it was so funny.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, but utilizing the library, right?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things like in now, so a long time ago when I was homeschooling, like I'm old now, but I've been doing it for a long time.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: There was no such thing as like Pinterest, or I mean, it was kind of in the later years.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: We had like the parent magazines.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the parent magazine that had like the fun craft ideas.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love the parent magazines.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but that's where we got those ideas or the books in the library.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was saying, do you remember the funny like parent bloopers in the back of those parent magazines?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, they were my favorite.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's funny.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I mean, now I feel like it's even easier to homeschool on a budget and cheaper because there is like a wealth of information on Pinterest.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have a topic that you want to do medieval history, you do not have to go out and buy a medieval history curriculum anymore.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to Pinterest and they'll have all these picture books and they'll have all of these craft ideas, and somebody's already done it and created it for you.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I really wish I'd have had that a long time ago.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I definitely um that would have been I like the crafty fun things, and so like that makes your brain hurt, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: To think of all those things.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so that was one.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Another one is we I we know as friends, so we would all like trade curriculums.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, if I'm doing this art study here and I bought this art study, and then we would trade.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have one friend that she loves spreadsheets and she made a spreadsheet of all the things, like we have all of the picture study, you know, these things are I have one looking at me.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: They simply Charlotte Mason, there's like a million different artists, and so we all bought different ones and then we could trade and share.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, having a little like co-op of curriculum, you know what I mean?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and we would do, you know, hey, I did medieval history for story of the world, like and somebody else said the next one, and so we would just kind of pass them along, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, share and say with like Saxon math work math books, like textbooks, we'd use those and we would trade them around and just utilizing your friends, like having that's why the community is so important for so many things.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then having so like we did right, like I I kind of talked about how I did it with friends.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like we somebody did art and then somebody did science, and like we'd go to friends' houses.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so buying supplies in bulk is a lot cheaper.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: But so then we would pull together and we would do like a big, you know, blick art order so that we could all order cheaper watercolor.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Shipping, yeah.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, split the shipping, and if you buy more than 10, you get it, you know what I mean?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So doing those things together um helps a ton.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it just being super resourceful, yeah.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like when there's a wheel, there's a way, I've always said that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like it shopping clearance, like back.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we never ever bought back to school, never bought school supplies until like the end of September when they were on clearance because they're all still there, but they're a whole lot cheaper at the end of September.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we never started the school year with our new school supplies.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: We got them like end of end of September always.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's when Target put them on, you know, 75% clearance or whatever it is.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think of other things that I know that I did, but those are probably the biggest ones.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um that and I I was a big like maker.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like if it was something that we wanted, I was like, well, I'm gonna figure out how to DIY it, right?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think you do a lot of that, a lot of us do that, or finding.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I had a friend that was really good at it and I wasn't this good, but she would like drive around, you know, like do you have bulk pickup in Minnesota?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or like um like Azure standard bulk pickup?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um, so like once a month, people could put like big items that don't fit in the trash, like bulk pickup, like a big trash pickup, like a bulk.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, once a year.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so like it where I used to live, it was like once a month.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had a friend that would drive around and she would pick up all the stuff that was like fixable or usable, and she would DIY it and then resell it or use it for her house.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or um, so she and I because I she helped me do some things like that, you know.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm like, I really need a book shelf, but bookshelves are not cheap.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: But like, let's find this and we can jimmy this and we can fix this.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Oh, well, this we can do that.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this shelf isn't broken, we can just make a new one.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like super handy with things like that.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, being creative, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, creative.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is probably the way to do it the best, the easiest way, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: To just get creative, and it doesn't have to be like a one size fits all, like you have to go to IKEA to buy new things or whatever it is.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not IKEA is not as cheap as it used to be.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I swear it used to be cheap.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we were just there, and it was not there was like a few cheap things.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: They have a lot of things that are much, much higher in.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we also didn't have Amazon as our stuff, like we didn't, we weren't things weren't as convenient, I think, as they are now.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we had to work just a little bit harder.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: But those are probably my biggest tips that I that we did.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just to not be afraid of you know, a little bit of extra hard work, but it totally is worth it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: My kids will talk about it, like how we didn't, you know, like we like the big splurge was to go to McDonald's and they split burger.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no one ever got happy meals, and they'll talk about it like how my younger kids now they'll get like happy meals and things like that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, You guys have such a different childhood than I had.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, But you all turned out just fine, it's okay.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think of that often too.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: My little kids have such a big, such a different experience than my big kids.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And some positive and some that I mean there's trade-offs, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I work now full-time, and um so they have access to more things, but less access to mom as well.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we were actually not very similar on this one.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not a big DIYer.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh I would say so.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the very specific things we did to save money.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I did utilize, I was strategic with Christmas gifts, not really with birthday gifts, but with Christmas.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So um we just education is is a hobby for us too, in addition to like it's real schoolwork, but it's also just our passion as a family.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like we just love to learn and and do things.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, a science experience to my experiment to my kid is like video games.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like they love it, they love all those things.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was easy for me to say, oh, I really want you to have this really cool scale we need for science.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a Christmas present, and they loved it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or books, right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's a big part of how we built our a part of how we built our library was giving, we always give books for gifts for Christmas, but also for birthdays, because I love to read.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um another thing that we did, I always bought used curriculum.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I very, very, very rarely in the early days, even now, I very rarely have brand new curriculum.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I almost always buy it used.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am just as guilty as the next homeschooling mom, and we've talked about this here, that I have purchased so many curriculums over the years that we've did, you know, we did a week and we hated it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's still sitting on my bookshelf.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I need to probably just sell it.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I found curriculum with that all the time where a mom had really good intentions and she thought she was gonna like it, and she didn't, and they didn't use it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So uh another thing is whenever, right at the beginning of the book, very often, and I love and appreciate this about so many homeschooling authors and curriculum authors, is that it would say, feel free to copy pages for use within your own family.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was always drawn to that curriculum because I just so appreciated that.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when that wasn't an option, when it said that you could not make copies, um, then we would copy the work down to a notebook and then so that preserved the book so that we could use it for many children.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a huge money saver.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was way more work on my end, but um and maybe wasn't as fun for the kids.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, they never complained about it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, or I would put them in plastic sleeves and they would use Yeah, I was gonna say we did that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, put them in plastic sleeves and used a um expo marker, yeah, dry erase marker, yes.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did a ton of that.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, I was just inventorying my books for my upcoming uh school year and today, and I have a book that has made it through several children, and I had to admit to myself today that I was not going to erase this year, and we were just gonna buy the new$38 notebook.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I will be buying a new Lost Tools of Writing student workbook, and it's probably more than$38 now because, or I don't know how much it is, but it was this one lasted me three and a half kids.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I say three and a half because we use it for more than one year, and so my daughter who I'm gonna purchase it for used it for last year, but now not.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm really cheap that way.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's see what else.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I found ways we did not go to the library.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are terrible.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Don't even understand that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: We are terrible at getting library books back.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one year we had a huge fine at the library and and we were super young.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: We had probably four kids, and it was a huge fine.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is probably one of the this is the second to last time that we went to the library.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh third to last time.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they had a food drive where if you brought canned food, they would wipe out your fines.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we brought a ton of canned food and it wiped out our fines, and I said we were done.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then many years later, we tried one more time at a library that said they don't have due dates.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, great.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: But then the librarian got really snarky with me about the fact that we had our books and we only had them for two weeks.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's nothing.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like we use this is a book I intended to use for a month or more, and so we did not go back.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And recently I had a friend take them to the library, so that was our last time.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we are terrible because they get mixed in with we have well over a thousand books, I'm sure, because I am a hoarder of books, and um they just get mixed in.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And because I buy so many, excuse me, so many used books, it's not uncommon for our books to be purchased from a used library, um library sale.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So then they have barcodes on the edges, just like the actual library books that we borrowed.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So all of the keep them in a different place, the bins, nothing.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna say we had a bookshelf, right?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was our library bookshelf.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And now I I have forward-facing bookshelves, and like two were devoted to only library books.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's and like you can't have library books in your room unless you like tell me you're taking it there, and then you bring it back that morning.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm a little bit crazy about it because we have lost some, we've had some fights in this house about finding library books.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're not leaving this house, we're not doing anything until this stupid library book is found.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: They always turn up, but in like the dumbest places.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, things walk away in this house for sure.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, so yeah, now we don't go to the library, and also where I live, um, we have one amazing, amazing library that does amazing activities and events, and I'm just so impressed for with what they do.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: But um not specifically in my town, but just in my part of the country.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's just more and more books that are popping up at the library that are not appropriate either.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just something that reinforces this idea that we don't go to the library to rent books, but we do love the library and we are a supporter of the library.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you do have to um edit or like just be more cautious.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't just go pick up bookshelf anymore anymore off the shelf.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if other people have this.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: One place that we love to go is um we haven't gone for a really long time.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have a university in town and they have a children's library in their basement of their college library.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's cool.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because they have art um elementary education majors that have like different kits to check out and use in their schools and stuff.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you can you can't take the kits out of the library, but you can use them, but you can actually check out books and go in that space for free, and it's really great.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I need to I need to go back there again.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I um used to really enjoy going there with the kids, and they had like this big velcro vest, and you'd you'd velcro on the organs and things like that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um they have a lot of neat things there, so we still utilize and love the library, we just don't bring books home ever anymore.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: So we used to go like sometimes when we need to change the same scenery, especially in the summertime when it's so hot, is we would go and take our school and like sit at the tables in the kids' section, and then they had like iPads and like fun things that the kids got to do too that we didn't have at home at the time.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so once they were done, they could go spend their you know 20 minutes on the computer playing a game or the little iPad.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: That was a good, it's a nice free resource to get out of the house.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for sure.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they often have computers you can use there too.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have some computer work and you don't have a computer at home, um, which is crazy to think.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: There were so many years that we homeschooled, we didn't have a computer at home, and we didn't have smartphones either.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how did we do that?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um guy always had a computer.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, no, we didn't for many, many years.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so uh let's see, what else do we do?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then I found other ways to save money in other areas of the house.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: That was probably the biggest thing that I did.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, cooking from scratch, planning meals according to the sales.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um my mom it my mom always said has said this thing, and it says uh you spend what you make.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: So really, and because I did odd jobs too, right?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I did the VIP kid teaching kids in.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: China and another, yeah, teaching them English and things like that.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you really do, you spend what you make.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So to those moms who are out there thinking, like, oh, well, it's easy for you guys, you work full-time now, and this and that, like we didn't always, um, but also you spend what you make, so you might make more if you go get a part-time job or full-time job, but you're gonna find other ways to spend it, and you're still gonna have to be creative.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but so we did a lot of the meal planning, um, and then we utilized free and we'd like by, excuse me, we also would purchase like our meat in bulk, and we still do that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just little ways to be able to make things uh stretch.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then one of the other things that um that we did a lot in those early years was utilize free curriculum on online.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So like Khan Academy, um I think it was called Easy Peasy.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I do remember that one.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we dabbled in that a little bit.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So um I was always grateful for those free resources.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I never those early years.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I never used a bunch of those, but there were there's more now than there was back then.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's awesome.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: We even use it like now.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean YouTube, you can learn anything on YouTube.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: I wish like that wasn't really a big thing.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's not something I ever utilized.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: We did do like documentaries that were from the library.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, we did not get them on the from the library, but we've never had cable, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was one of the things that we never did, you know what I mean, as like a single though.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: That was one thing.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I also cooked all the time.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I even made my own laundry church in for years.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't do that anymore.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: There are some things that I don't do anymore that are not worth my time.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, for sure.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like I cut all of our girls, I once in a while my girls will go to the hair place.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can't speak because you get it all for free.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I did it though when the kids were little.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: But when they were little, yes.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just teasing Courtney, she just has a daughter who does hair and she's amazing at it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's true.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but like I still I still cut my girls' hair.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I only cut the boys' hair during COVID, and that was an adventure.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do trim up the girls, and then if they want, like once in a maybe once every couple years, they'll go and get it, like for a birthday.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like my daughter for her 14th birthday went and did the salon experience.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we still cut like Grady's hair.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: We cut Jeremy's hair.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: He taught me how to cut it for like when we very first married.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because boys' hair is so expensive to cut because they have to get it cut every like four weeks.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that is definitely that's another one.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good one that we did.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: I need to figure out random things, right?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: They all add up.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: It seems minimal when you say it like that, but that's hundreds of dollars a year.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, I need to I need to figure out how to cut my husband's hair because it grows really fast and it's very expensive.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if anybody wants to send me a great tutorial, put it on the phone.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you can find one on YouTube.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Probably I have to look.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: We still got like so.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, like Rex, like my son-in-laws, will help cut.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: They'll they learned how to cut hair, and so they'll like touch it.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because Sydney does hair, but she hates to do guys hair.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Does she really?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she doesn't like to do guys' hair.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's funny.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes she'll help with gradient's and like do the top with the scissors and then grady, or then Rex will do the sides with the with the clippers.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she doesn't like it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's so funny.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we hope that these budget tips have been helpful how to stretch your budget to be able to make homeschooling work.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, it's totally possible.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, totally possible, but it's not it's not easy.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like that's the one thing that it's not easy, but it's totally worth it.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, everybody.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.