Thank you IRS!

We got our economic stimulus check yesterday and I took the opportunity to order the books and curriculum I need for next year. However, even though that money is a surprise bonus (and I easily could have gotten carried away), I stayed frugal and only ordered what I really needed. I really, really wanted to order a microscope, but I decided that can wait at least one more year.

I took the book lists from Ambleside Online (Years 2 and 0), and I checked all of those books on the library catalog and eliminated any from the list that I can borrow for free. I did decide to buy the Holling C. Holling books since we are reading them over such an extended period of time (12 weeks at least!), and I am not the only CM/AO mom in the area using library resources. I learned that the hard way with Paddle-to-the-Sea and I ended up having to buy that book in order to read it when we needed it.

I used amazon.com to order the books since I would be able to get free shipping. I hate to pay for shipping! There was one book - A Child’s History of the World - that I ordered from another source as it was rather pricey on amazon.com, and was not eligible for free shipping anyway. I chose to order it through Sonlight instead.

I checked Librivox.org for recordings of other books we can listen to, and I made sure the quality of the recordings were good before crossing those books off my list as well.

I also ordered the new curriculum sets of Math-U-See for both Super-boy and Diva. Super-boy will be a “third grader” and moving into Gamma, and Diva will be in “kindergarten” and doing Primer.

All told I spent less than $300 (including a few books I ordered earlier in the spring) to educate both of my full time students next year - other than school supplies of paper, pencils, crayons, markers and ink for the printer - which I will pick up during back to school sales. Also, since these are living books/literature, I will not have to buy these books over and over again; I will be repeating them for both Diva and Monkey in the future, driving future cost down even more! Even with Math-U-See, I will only need to buy new student texts in the future for the girls since I will already have the teacher packs.

Not bad, not bad at all!