the cost of homeschooling

So, in my extreme guilt over how much money I have spent this year on homeschooling stuff and over how much I plan to spend this year, I decided to look at how much I have spent each year since Sierra was in Kindergarten. My guess was K -$50, 1st -$100, 2nd - $200, 3rd - $300. I thought this pattern wasn't too bad. Yes, I will probably end up spending $400 next year, etc., but I started out schooling one, then two, and soon three kids, plus each year they should be learning more, so it makes sense that learning supplies will cost more, right?

Here is what I found out. (Amazon has a nifty feature where you can look up you past purchases!). When Sierra was in Kindergarten I spent $45. I bought Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons, 2 levels of Now I am Reading and the Comprehensive Curriculum K. First grade, I spent $50. I bought What your 1st grader and What Your Kindergartner Need to Know, 2 easy readers and Comprehensive Curriculum 1st. Nice and simple. Then I joined our local homeschooling group and found out about the wide world of available and interesting homeschool curriculum...

For Sierra's 2nd Grade and Kali's K year, I spent $175! Purchases included What your 2nd Grader Needs to Know, Comprehensive Curriculum 2nd and K, Story of the World Activity book and CD, The Well Trained Mind, Discovering Great Artists, Usborne Science and History Encyclopedia, and Handwriting without Tears. Still not too bad. Other than the Science Encyclopedia, they were useful and used purchases.

This year is apparently when I go nuts. Although not all at once, I ended up spending $328. I think I started to get nervous. I bought some useful stuff, but, because I was freaking out about Sierra's bad attitude toward math, I also bought 7 math products that I have not really used. And I bought a 2nd reading curriculum and a spelling/phonics reference book that I don't think I really need. I really should just sell some of this stuff, but I wonder if they might be useful for Arwen, so I will wait.

You would think I would have learned from this year and not need to spend as much, but I have $350 worth of stuff on my list already. And that is my pared down list. I have thoroughly analyzed each item and feel they will be useful. I guess it's not so bad if I consider that I could be buying Sonlight curriculum. PreK for Arwen $308. Core 2 for Kali $645 and Core 4 for Sierra $643. And that doesn't include Math...

OK, I guess I don't feel, so bad now. $350 doesn't seem, so bad compared to almost $2000 that some people might spend.

Coming up... My new ebay addiction.