The Cost of Books
Books are expensive. Homeschooling three? Three times expensive. Hence I have to find ways on how we can save in this aspect. My eldest was in his third grade when we started our homeschooling journey. During this year, I bought all of his books brand new. Then, of course, I met people in our little homeschooling community and found out that it is common to source second-hand books within the community.
There are also several market/exchanges on facebook where we can post our book requirements and make deals with those who have them. There are used (marked/unmarked) or brand new books. You just need to be patient in checking the pages or exclusive group chats every now and then. Last year, I got my older two's books through this little community. I was so happy to get his books brand new at a very big discount.
Little Miss' books were also sourced second-hand from the community and they are now being used by my youngest since they are only one school year apart. Even if I would buy brand new books for her, it's still like buying at half the price since we will use it for the Little Man too.
The Hack
Oh, I wish I knew about this before. Earlier, with my eldest, he would use a separate notebook to write his answers for any self and unit tests.
Recently, I saw another homeschool mom sharing that she was removing post-it's from the books her older child previously used, so that they can now be used by her younger child. Brilliant! So the child can use the book without needing a separate answer sheet, and it can be used again by the younger child later on.
...and that, I started doing too!
Little Miss is in second grade and using a separate answer sheet is still confusing for her. She prefers to write on the book itself. And since I intend for Little Man to use these books next year too, I used that ingenious "hack" by that mommy but instead of using post-it's, I lightly glued lined paper.
Recycling old notebooks.
At first, I was printing these lines on fresh A4 paper but I realized that it was wasting a lot of paper too. Then I started using the excess leaves from my son's old notebooks. Perfect!
It is time-consuming, yes, but I do it while the kids are doing their exercises so I don't mind. Besides, I am saving a sizeable amount of money so why should I make such big qualms about it, right?
I also started to make her write on separate answer sheets but I see that she gets more motivated if she is using the book, so this will be what I will be doing for several years, I reckon (not unless I get super rich to afford the same books two years in a row!).
If there's anything we learned/developed throughout our homeschooling journey, that would be creativity, resourcefulness, and frugality. If we can innovate ways to assist us in our journey in any aspect, that is very much welcome.
How about you? Do you also use hand-me-down textbooks to your kids?
