I’ve been homeschooling for about a year and a half now. I shudder to think of the money I wasted on books that I ended up not using (for whatever reason). I thought I would have all three of my children in different history modules (2nd, 4th, 7th grade) and not only that, but double up my 7th grader to do two histories (ancient greece and rome) in one year. Well, now that all my materials are in I can see that I was INSANE to plan that way. I am just going to do all of them in Ancient Greece this year. When will I learn? If I had just taken a good look at the free previews of the study guides (Sonya’s) I could have avoided this mistake. I think I wasted about 60 dollars. I guess I can just hold on to it until the year after next but I am still so frustrated with myself. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this. My poor husand is so patient about it all, thankfully. I really dislike wasting money.
I do the same thing. Only this is our 4th yr homeschooling. I don’t even want to think about the amt. of $$ I’ve wasted. And my husband is also so patient and understanding. Thank God!!!!
Ony $60? Oh, my mistakes have been far more costly.
We will always make mistakes and have to regroup. I agree about patient husbands. My husband never asks me about the money I spend. He totally trusts me even when I goof up big time.
BIG HEAVY SIGH……Until I truly decided to trust CM and the SCM curriculum guide, I literally bought and sold over $1000 worth of curriculum. Oh how I love my sweet husband!!!
bkack, I just checked and if you are referring to your recent order from us you are still well within our 30-day money back guarantee time. You would have to pay return shipping but at least you wouldn’t be out the cost of the books. Here are the details:
Doug, I have already penciled in notes on the guides… comes from being a chronic list maker! Some of the other books came from ebay and amazon. I will put the books away to use another year I think. Thank you for the suggestion though, and the great return policy.
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who does this sort of thing. I guess I could also comfort myself knowing that it isn’t nearly as big a loss as when I first started homeschooling. I ordered 3 seperate years of brand new Abeka curicullum only to use it 3 weeks (and hate it!!!)and sell it all for half what we paid for it. I think that was about a 1500 dollar loss. It was worth it to find CM though. 🙂
I have probably given away or thrown away more than we actually use:) Now that we use the library so much more since taking on the CM method we spend far less money on curriculum (since we don’t really buy much) and we’re so much happier:)
I am trying to make better choices these days since I have spent gads (100’s) on supplies, software, etc. that never actually worked out:( Oh well, live and learn, right?
After one of my money “goofs” my husband told me that I was being much harder on myself than he would ever be. It made me realize later that I don’t allow myself room to make a financial mistake! It’s also hard to remember that while we can plan ahead, it doesn’t necessarily mean we are able to predict the actual outcome. Predicting the future is a tricky thing, as real life can be different than my best intentions. (some of my garage sale kids clothes come to mind). I really, really, hate wasting money too, and while it is good to be frugal, at the same time I am human after all – which means I need to give myself a break when I do mess up and waste money unintentually. Thankfully, there is ALWAYS another opportunity to save money and as the posts mention above, we’ll only get better at it. (Saving money that is!)
My husband realized that all of my goofs cost far less than one year of private school tuition, so he just looks over it. It helps when I can ebay those things or give them to other homeschoolers. I am glad they find great new homes.
Well, sure, I guess I was just planning ahead then. I’m glad I’m not the only one! I’m also glad to hear that many husbands are patient with their wives on this matter. You know, I’m expecting our fourth child at the end of July. By the time he is ready for school, I should be an efficient expert at it all, right??? haha
Hm – I have to admit that I wish my husband was so forgiving! He doesn’t seem too happy anytime I buy anything for homeschooling (and so far I haven’t made any big mistakes….) I honestly think we have spent less on homeschooling than we likely would have if we had sent our child to school!
He does support me with homeschooling, and totally agreed – but just doesn’t seem to understand the costs that are involved. And really, I’m using a free math curriculum (except for our ink/paper), I use book samaritan, and use our library, and read some books online. I recently found a free German (and Spanish and French) resource too. I buy things from used bookstores and garage sales. But there were a few things I really wanted to use, and couldn’t find elsewhere, and I’ve bought them……
I guess I did one mistake – I bought stuff to do workboxes (not exactly as suggested – but I bought 12 bins for each of the kids) and although it was working ok, I can’t really use our schoolroom right now (I can’t climb stairs everyday with my pregnancy…) and I didn’t like the amount of bookshelf space it took – so I’ve bought fileboxes to replace the bins…. which is working well right now…
I think sometime I have to show him the costs of various other methods of homeschooling, just so that he can realize how inexpensively we are doing this!!!
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