Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

Tagged: cost, expense, Year 1

This topic has 28 replies, 17 voices, and was last updated 13 years ago by sheraz.

Viewing 14 posts - 16 through 29 (of 29 total)

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August 12, 2009 at 6:06 pm
missingtheshire
Member
One thing that I found a true blessing to me, is that as I came from a book and literature loving family and a family that never got rid of any books – I had a lovely stash to start with when my children were born 17 years ago. I had also kept all the books that I had read through highschool and college and all my notes, and all the books that I have purchased in adulthood – so along with my husband’s books, we have a vast library. For all those of you starting out, keep your living books, look out for bargains and second hand books that fit the bill, and see them as a treasure. My daughters are now 17 and said how lovely it is that they will have books from my childhood for their own children. I know that space and money is a consideration, but personally I always made sure to have room for my books, to me they are all good friends and I love each and everyone of them. Even when we were not homeschooling the girls, they had a vast library of books to read, and I think that is why they love reading so very much, plus there father and I read avidly. My mother collected books for my sister and I when we were tiny, as money was tight, and she had a collect a bit at a time, but I am so grateful now that she did that. So if you can collect some through the years, and I still get a lot of secondhand books and out of print books when I can afford it, I always consider it an investment. I am quite sad when I go into a home, and see few if any bookshelves, they really are a treasure and an investment. So buy and take care of what you can, and keep them for your children’s children, one day they will thank you. I have some old reader’s that my English grandma used when she was in primary school, they are of such good quality and so lovely to look at, perhaps future generations will look at our books and think the same thing – I do hope so. Blessings, Linda
August 12, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Cindie2dds
Member
Linda,
Thank you! I didn’t read very many classics or great literature as a child, so I am making up for lost time now. I am so excited to give my girls the education I could have only dreamed of, but I am a little overwhelmed at present. Your suggestion about collecting the books for our own library is one I think I’m going to try to do if funds are available. I would love to be able to reread these books with my girls; or, if I am so blessed, with my grandchildren. I am also very fortunate to have a husband who prizes education above other material possessions, so most likely I will be able to collect some great books over time.
Again, Thank you!
Cindie
August 12, 2009 at 9:21 pm
crazy4boys
Participant
I’ve found the following to be helpful in buying books for our home library.
1. Library book sales. You can find amazing, wonderful books for 25 cents or so. They are often hardbound too.
2. I keep a “wish list” on Amazon and anytime I’m placing an order I flip through my list to see if anything used has become available. With patience I have found many a hard-to-find and expensive books for very, very cheap.
3. I try to review a book as much as possible before buying. I read reviews here (at the Bookfinder), on Goodreads, Amazon, etc. I’ve found that some well-liked books aren’t a good fit for us and reading lots of reviews have helped me determine that.
4. Admit a mistake. If I can return the book, I do so. Otherwise I donate to my library or a friend I know will like it. If I were really ambitious I could re-sell it, but I’m not. By getting rid of mistakes I have more room for books I do like.
5. Start looking for books you’ll need early. If I know we’ll be studying American History or Rome or whatever the next year I start planning and buying months in advance. Then I don’t feel the pressure to buy a book at full price.
Recently I’ve been working on cataloging them since I have a bad habit of buying the same book twice. And because I often can’t remember if I have a certain book on a certain subject. I’m getting too old!!!

August 12, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Doug Smith
Keymaster
That’s a good list of suggestions, @crazy4boys. We’ve done well with library book sales too.
Most of the sales in our area tend to be in the Spring and Fall, which means book sale season is coming up again soon. You can find sales in your area through through Book Sale Finder, although they don’t list all of the sales here. You can also sign up to get e-mail notifications when there are sales near you.
August 13, 2009 at 2:56 am
mommix3
Member
We are building our library by using paperbackswap.com This is our first year homeschooling the cm way with my four kiddos. Ages 13,11,9,and 6. We purchased Genesis through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt. Most of the books in the history module 1 I have found at paperbackswap and I am awaiting others that are on my wishlist. I’ve saved a ton of money using them. I also have a stash of books from a library book sale a few years back that I thought about getting rid of,but the more I look at them the more I see that they will be used at various times during my children’s schooling. I can’t bare to part with them now.. I LOVE books too. We have so many classics and I had a bunch of older books given to me. I also use our library. I can search their website for what I’m looking for and what they don’t have I look for at paperbackswap. Depending on what the books are I could get them through interlibrary loan. The library has been a $$ saver for us.
As far as nature notebooks go, I purchased our books from Walmart for under $4 each. We’ll see how they work for us this year. We may find something better next year. I’m in the process of scheduling for our year and entering it in the CM Organizer. I don’t know why I didn’t do CM earlier. My kids would’ve loved their studies so much more. I like the wide range of topics that will be covered in a year. And the short lessons that will help them stick better..
August 13, 2009 at 2:58 am
Rebekahy
Participant
Doug – that website sounds deadly! I’m afraid to pass it along to my hubby who’s even worse than I am. One thing I DID want to mention though – regarding those “mistakes” Crazy4boys – you MUST try Swaptree.com   It does have a lot of romance novels!!! BUT you can get good trades! It’s a one for one trade – you enter the books that you no longer want and enter lists of books that you do want and they come up with the trades, you can also browse through the books that are available for trade with books you’ve posted. THEN – the BEST part, you print out postage right from your computer, pack up the book, tape the postage on (billed to your CC) and stick it in your mail box – NO TRIPS TO THE POST OFFICE! AMAZING! Generally postage has been right at $3.00, which is more expensive than a book sale, but considering I dont’ have to leave my house to get it – if it’s a book that I really want, it’s well worth the $3 plus book I didn’t want. hope that’s helpful.
Rebekah
August 13, 2009 at 3:21 am
meagan
Participant
While I do love to buy books, we are a family of five on a tight budget and in a house with little to no storage space, so buying is not always an option. I have come to love our local library. We make a trip into town once a week to go, stopping by the park in town as well, if the weather permits. I’m doing Genesis thru Deut. this year, as I think many people have mentioned they’re doing too. I wanted to just mention to those that are, if your library doesn’t have a copy of a book you are looking for, and you can’t/don’t want to buy it, ask your librarian if you can put in a request for books. I put in a request for 4 of the required books for this study, and my library bought them all! When they come in, I’ll be the first to get my hands on them! You can also check about an interlibrary loan, getting books from other libraries in your state, but I figure that putting in a request for the book ensures that other people who want them will have them, too. We’ve gotten 2 or 3 of the Jennie Fulbright books in our local library system because of local homeschooling familes requesting them!
December 10, 2010 at 7:51 am
Rebekahy
Participant
btt – for question recently posted about cost
March 31, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Rebekahy
Participant
As people are planning for next year, I thought it’d be helpful to revive this topic again. It’s been SO helpful to me!
March 31, 2011 at 7:00 pm
amama5
Participant
I just found SCM a few months ago, and have been doing a mini-greece unit until we fully start Mod. 5 in June. I agree with the other posters that it seems like for us it will be between $200-300 per year (for all my 5 children together), although some of that will drop off because many books will be repeated when we start the history cycles over again and build up collections of Pathway readers, grammar books, etc. I like owning books, and our library only allows 8 weeks total (only 1 or two if it’s an inter-library loan). I buy them all at used book sales, craigslist, ebay, half.com, abebooks.com, and amazon. I agree about the amazon/half.com wish list, you enter your maximum price and they email you once one is available. We do borrow a lot though, especially some of the historical fiction books that are shorter, and aren’t “favorites” yet. I also borrow the Apologia science series from the library and just switch to another one if we have to return it earlier than the 8 weeks, and we borrow large art books for picture study.
Get a list ready and look for sellers who have more than one book you need, that way you save so much on shipping. Also, with math curriculum (we use MUS), we use transparency sheets and dry erase markers, that way I don’t ever have to buy another workbook, I can use it for all 5 of my kiddos(the left handed one has to work backwards though so she doesn’t erase her work:). If I want written math work to put in a portfolio that I have to keep, the website has sheets to print, or I make up one for them. That saves a lot each year.  It’s working fine right now, maybe it won’t be so cheap when they older, but for now my husband and I are pretty happy with it! Adrienne
May 22, 2012 at 12:20 am
Rebekahy
Participant
BTT for planners!
May 23, 2012 at 12:41 am
TailorMade
Participant
I’d suggest keeping a list of books with you as quite a few can be substituted. But, you never know when you’ll find exact titles, even OOP books very inexpensively. I recently purchased Yellow and Pink (listed earlier in this thread for $35) for $0.25 at a library book sale. It’s in very nice, hardbound condition!
You might also utilize inter-library loan over the summer in order to determine which books you truly want to search out and purchase, or find a reasonable substitute.
Becca<><
May 23, 2012 at 2:56 am
Carmen
Participant
I would like to know what grade was Sonya’s list for?
May 23, 2012 at 3:46 am
sheraz
Participant
Glancing through her list, I would think that it is the first year with books for grades 1-3.