I spent the morning ordering books for next school year. As a homeschooler, sometimes it can be difficult forking over a ton of money for books and curriculum when you know that your taxes are paying public schooled children to use the same books for free. However, it is a blessing to know that the books I purchase can be kept and read over and over again through the years or used as reference to look up forgotten concepts. They can also be used by the next child, meaning I won’t have to buy the same book twice.
Meanwhile, I got my kids’ book lists (as they are taking local homeschool classes next year) and even after paying five hundred dollars for the books that are being ordered for me, there was still lab fees and other books that still need to be ordered for my two middle schoolers.
I cut my costs in half by using several different websites to purchase the books.
Powells: I started at Powells.com because I wanted to minimize my shipping costs. Because the books at Powells all come from one place, versus different sub sellers, I knew that getting as many books as possible from here would save me money. The downside is that these books cost a little more than the other sources because the books are new and only moderately discounted. The upside is that these books are new.
Amazon.com: I highly recommend using Amazon.com to order books as you can purchase them new, directly from Amazon and take advantage of combined shipping, or you can buy from numerous sub sellers at deeply discounted prices. While my shipping costs were 1/3 of my book order, I still managed to cut the cost of the books I purchased from Amazon in half.
HSLDA auctions: Homeschool Legal Defense Association recently started an auction site in response to EBay banning textbooks with teacher’s editions and answer keys. I have not used this site as the books I needed were not available here, but there were many popular homeschooling curriculums available. I will use the site however, to sell the books from previous years we are no longer using to make help cover the costs of this year’s books.
Half.com: I purchased several of the books I needed from half.com. What I liked best about using half.com was some of the sellers had two or more of the books I needed, so I saved money with combined shipping.
EBay: If you are not looking for teacher’s editions, you may very well want to purchase books from EBay. When you cannot find them anywhere else, EBay is very likely to have them.
*Have a question about homeschooling? Just ask.
*Want to know more about homeschooling? Start with the 2006 homeschool blog in review!
* Have you seen the homeschooling curriculum glossary?