I’ve been homeschooling using CM methods for almost 14 years. When my kids were in elementary school, I bought math curriculum and that’s it. We used the library for everything else. 🙂
We didn’t have much extra money for curriculum so I made do with what we had. Charlotte Mason’s methods are so wonderful because you really don’t need to buy curriculum (thought it’s nice to have the option!) other than for math.
I allowed my children to pick their science topics. My son would choose something like snakes and we would go to the library and check out tons of books on snakes and take our time reading through them, a bit every day. Our library also had the Thornton Burgess books and we enjoyed them very much.
For history, I did buy a used Truthquest history guide to help me choose books. Nowadays, there are so many resources on the internet that make it so much easier to choose books without having to purchase a guide. The Truthquest guides are wonderful but they aren’t a necessity.
Copywork and dictation can be taken from the books you are reading.
I do love SCM’s picture portfolios but I didn’t even know they existed when my kids were little. We used books from the library to study art. I really liked the Come Look With Me series. They aren’t exactly CM but they are nice in their own way. Ambleside Online has a lot of free online resources for CM educators, including free picture study.
There are so many free ways to listen to classical music and Ambleside Online has resources for that as well.
Nature study is simple and self explanatory.
You can also read Shakespeare and Plutarch online for free if you choose to read them in your homeschool. Ambleside Online has free resources for this also.