Homeschooling Budget

This question comes up with a lot of new homeschoolers: How much does it cost to homeschool? I'll start by admitting that I find the question confusing. I mean, I understand all the words, but the answer is dependent on so many factors. The easiest was to answer this would be to research curriculum and other resources, choose what you would want, and then add up the total.

But I've decided to list out my budgeting here, just as one example. These are projections for first grade; I've used my resource list from last week to help show costs.

Language Arts - $711
$150 Michael Clay Thompson Island Level - Teacher Manuals only, plus Mud trilogy
$40   BraveWriter Jot It Down
$0     BraveWriter-style Poetry Teas - we'd be eating the food and drinking the drinks anyway
$0     Participate in NaNoWriMo
$13   Suppose the Wolf Were An Octopus
$500 Literature List - maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less
$0     New American Cursive handwriting - bought for kindergarten
$0     StartWrite software - bought with previous year's budget
$8     Rummy Roots - bought used

Math - $242
$170 RightStart Math (Level C and part of D)
$0     Time-Life I Love Math series - bought with previous year's budget
$0      Penrose the Mathematical Cat - bought with previous year's budget
$12    Singapore Challenging Word Problems 1 (and maybe 2)
$0      Highlights MathMania magazines - bought with previous year's budget
$40    Sir Cumference books - we already have a few, this will buy the remainder
$20    Zaccaro Primary Grade Challenge Math
$0      Variety of living math books from the library

Science - $610
$0     Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding - multi-year curric, purchased last year
$0     Lego Education Basic Structures - bought with previous year's budget
$0     Lego Education Early Simple Machines - bought with previous year's budget
$0     Snap Circuits - bought with previous year's budget
$0     Zometool - bought with previous year's budget
$0     The Private Eye - bought with previous year's budget
$30   Happy Scientist videos
$0     Carson Zorb Microscope - bought with previous year's budget
$20   Caterpillar-to-Butterfly Kit
$35   Thames and Kosmos Crystal Kit
$25   Rock On! Geology Game
$125 ASK Rocks and Minerals Kit
$125 ASK Seeds Kit

$0     Kids Discover magazines - bought with previous year's budget
$0     Click magazine - gift subscription from relative

$0     Magic School Bus episodes - part of Netflix subscription, priced below
$0     Blood and Guts by Linda Allison - already on our shelves
$250 Memberships to local children's science museum and zoo

History - $300
$200 Mom-constructed Ancient History - approximate cost for non-library books and project materials
$100 Netflix subscription - used for multiple classes, just listing it her, we would not have this if not for homeschooling

Spanish - $175
$0     Salsa Spanish
$125 Scholastic Spanish books
$0     DuoLingo
$0     Spanish-language shows on YouTube
$0     Spanish music by Jose-Luis Orozco - already own this
$50   I have Spanish for Children and may or may not decide to use it - bought used
Tentative plans for an immersion trip to Honduras in February/March 2016 - we have a separate travel budget for this

Art - $20
$20    Art Tango Kindergarten level - curriculum free, we owned most of the supplies alrady
$0      Usborne Big Drawing Book - already own this

Music - $806 plus an instrument
$6     Music Theory Made Easy
$0     Finish Story of the Orchestra - already own it
$800+ "Meet the Instruments" lessons followed by instrument lessons in her choice of instrument - this is the cost of the lessons, plus the cost of whatever instrument she chooses
We might choose to add SQUILT

Typing - $10
$10    Keyboarding Without Tears

Physical Education - $800
$200   Gymnastics Lessons
$300   Dance Lessons
$300   Various sports seasons

GRAND TOTAL: $3674

Actually, that's not as bad as I thought. Still less than half the cost of the private school we might otherwise enroll her in, and if she went there she wouldn't have the time for gymnastics, dance, instrument lessons, and travel. And definitely helped by the fact that we spent about the same last year, front-loading costs of things like fun science toys.