June Inspiration

Summer has arrived. I know that officially, Summer doesn't begin until 21st but it feels like Summer. In the days when I was running a memory clinic, official advice was to allow 1st to 20th June as Spring or Summer. I'm in the Summer camp.

We've had half term, this week. It has been great to stop and read more than usual. The younger two and I enjoyed our church outing and, on another day, wandering round a, new to us, park. 

This summer "pizza" is on my to do list for a hot day.

Wasting bits of bread was annoying me. This post has 20 ideas to avoid wasting bread.

Our home education group is hoping to have a science theme, next year. These videos about each element in the periodic table are a tremendous resource. We are also looking forward to taking part in the Royal Society Young People's Book Prize judging again. The books arrived today and my own children are very excited about their sneak preview!

There is a trend to try to measure and test everything in education. This post is about those things that we can't measure.

My youngest has been talking about fidget spinners and today, made his own. He was inspired by this tutorial although he has made his own modifications. Try using red and blue bricks for the arms and see the effect.

Have a happy June!

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Feeding a Big Family

We currently have all eight family members living here. This is a delight in many ways and something to be enjoyed, particularly, as I doubt that this will continue for long as two of our children are now adults.

The other side of a large family are the food bills. I'm glad about zero inflation as my food bills are rising. There are websites around which talk about reducing food expenditure but my current plan is to try to stabilise the amount we spend whilst realising that active people will eat a fair amount.

So some thoughts on managing food expense.

• If you have children and a garden, it really is worth planting fruit trees. The trees will have several years when their yield will be minimal but eventually, they will start to give reasonable quantities. Our eating apple trees have come into their own this year. 

• Buy in bulk. Buy one, get one free offers can work well for larger families. Potatoes are much cheaper in 20kg sacks. These aren't usually available from supermarkets but 7.5kg sacks can be found which are, again, cheaper than buying in smaller quantities.

• Don't waste food. I have found it useful to monitor where waste occurs. For us, this tends to be overfilling plates for younger and older members of the family. It is better to give smaller portions and allow second helpings than to waste food.

• Herbs and salad grow easily and cheaply. Many of my herbs grow on the kitchen window or close to the back door.

• Berries and currants are expensive to buy but cheap to grow. Currant bushes take a few years to be established so worth planting while children are younger and before they have adult size appetites.

•  Left overs can be used for lunches/when someone needs to eat late/dislikes what is on offer. It is, generally, over optimistic to hope to make a main meal from left overs. Stories about chickens stretching over three main meals don't quite work in a family of eight. The bones do, however, make great stock for a substantial soup.

• Pulses make meat go further and provide extra protein. Tins of beans/chick peas frequently go on offer. Alternatively, dried pulses are cheap but need more preparation.

• It isn't easy to cook double meals when large saucepans or casseroles are full making one meal but it is worth, occasionally, spending the time to make an extra. Pastry cases and casserole bases (meat not added) freeze well and are useful to keep for busy days.

Please add further thoughts.

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September Inspiration

September and, like many others, we are about to start back to more formal learning. I have some reservations about the long holiday and we need to get going again. Having said that, this is a brilliant time of year to go away. This time, last year, we were away this week which proved a brilliant not back to school activity.

I don't have any preschoolers, any more, but found this post by Lizzy quite convicting about older children too especially

 It is easy to consider things which are definitely optional absolutely necessary, but to be flexible about things which should be essential.

Danika has published an enormous list of Christian history books for children of different ages. I certainly haven't read all of these books myself but the list will be helpful when researching books.

We are hoping to start our nature studies with Exploring Nature with children (review soon), this week so this post from its author, Lyn Seddon, about how to set up a nature journal was relevant. We love some lovely empty journals just waiting to be used.

We should never stop learning and Annie Kate's article about modelling the joy of learning for our children was challenging and inspiring. This has inspired me to write a list of books that I ought to read. What would you put on a must read list?

This is apple season and with a biggish crop, I am always looking for more uses for apples. This post helps to avoid wasting the skins although I tell myself that composting isn't waste.

Have a happy September!

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Providing Food for Older People

Eating frugally in a three generation family can be challenging. 

• there are different needs and may be special diets
• larger range of likes and dislikes
• need to have a different approach to likes/dislikes of the older generation than the children

Realistically, Granny or Grandad can't be told that if they don't like their food, they have to try at least some. Alternatives have to be provided. Of course, this does have knock on effects on the children! 

Many older people have conservative tastes in food and this seems to narrow as they get older. So, pasta, rice and curry may be out. This has financial implications, you might be able to make a pasta bake with three rashers of bacon in the sauce feed eight but if Granny doesn't eat pasta this doesn't really work.

How to manage?

-Sometimes, it is necessary to cook two main courses. It is unrealistic to expect the rest of the family to live on an endless supply of meat, two veg and potatoes! In addition, this probably isn't either the healthiest and certainly isn't the cheapest option.

-The second main course might have to be a ready meal to save sanity!

Ready meals

• vary widely in cost. The supermarkets sell ready meals for £1-£1.50. This is for a standard adult portion. I don't usually shop at Asda but they do seem to have the widest range. The specialist suppliers (Cook/Wiltshire Farm Foods/Oakhouse Foods) do have a reasonably wide choice but tend to cost £2.70-3.50 per mini meal. Full sized meals are more expensive.
• Standard supermarket ready meals may be too large for an older person and putting the whole meal on the place leads to waste. There are two ways round this; either serve up half the meal on one day and leave the rest for the next day. Alternatively, if another family member is either extra hungry or less keen on the food provided for them, they can eat the extra half.
• Supermarket frozen ready meals are cheaper than those on the fresh shelf.
• Of course, ready meals can be made at home. When a favourite meal is served, put a portion in a small container and freeze this or even have a special cooking session. I rarely seem to have time for the latter but saving an extra portion does work.

Meals that may appeal to everyone!

I have failed to find enough to make a month's menu! Still, here are a few ideas.

• Roast chicken/gammon/beef/pork/lamb
• Casserole-chicken/sausage
• Sausages and mash
• chicken kiev
• quiche
• lemon chicken
• chicken goujons

Desserts may be expected by older people and may be important to help them eat enough. I'm not convinced that providing dessert everyday helps the rest of the family so try to provide a choice of fruit or ice cream. 

Please do comment with thoughts/menu ideas or how you feed the older members of your family.

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July Inspiration

We've just reached the end of our academic year. Whilst I admire those who educate year round, this isn't something that we manage for these reasons:

• one of our home educated children was in school so expects traditional terms.
• I'm tired and the children are tired so we are looking forward to a rest.
• I need time to catch up with the house and garden.

Education is holistic so we don't do nothing in our holidays but turn into something that resembles unschooling more than our usual structure. So far, this has meant signing up for the library reading scheme, a trip on the River Thames,

 sending feedback to Blue Peter, cooking and going to special meetings at church. 

Holiday time is reading time so I was interested to read this post about the best homeschooling books. It doesn't include RC Sproul Jr's book When you rise up which, in my opinion, is a must for Christian home educators.

Se7en has produced a post of some of those questions which people want to ask home educators and yes, it includes socialisation! 

Homeschooling with Dyslexia is an excellent site and worth looking through for anyone who has children who struggle with reading. The post about what to do when Kids hate Reading has some lists of books which might be easier to read. I haven't read all these books so don't take this as an endorsement!

Something for keeping children busy in the summer is Annie Kate's post on Three Computer Games I almost always allow.  We were introduced to Seterra after an earlier post by Annie Kate and have loved the challenge of this on-line geography game.

How to feed your family on about £20 a week is mainly a Facebook page although they also have a website. We are way off £20/week but there are some helpful recipes and a 3 month menu plan. Do you manage to feed your family on that sort of sum? Both this month, and last, I have featured frugal cooking sites but can't say that our food bills are especially low! I'm looking forward to some produce from our garden soon but still doubt that we will eat from £20 per week. Any tips?

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Plants and Making Presents

I promised one of my readers that I would put up instructions for growing African violets from leaf cuttings so here is the tutorial. This can be done with other plants although I have only used this technique for mint and African violets.

This activity is useful for 

• teaching children about different types of plant reproduction. The new plants here are essentially clones of the parent plant as this is asexual reproduction.
• making cheap presents.

Materials needed:

African violet plant with healthy leaves

Compost-I used potting compost but suspect that garden compost would also work. I just haven't tried this.

Narrow necked container: bottle or vase.

Opaque material: I used foil but black paper or polythene would also work.

Method:

Carefully remove 3-4 healthy leaves from the plant. Place these in narrow necked container filled with water and exclude light with foil or black paper.

After 4-6 weeks, the leaves develop roots and sometimes, little leaves. Pot using compost. Keep moist but not waterlogged.

Keep in a sunny place. I use a window sill.

The leaves that I planted last autumn were ready to be given away at Easter time. The leave in the picture above was taken off the parent plant in May.

This plant was grown from a leaf last autumn.

I would stress that I'm no gardener and growing African violets this way is really easy.

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June Inspiration

June and we are looking forward to summer. 

The picture is wishful thinking, from last year. Today, in London was cold, windy and rainy. The children and I went to a sports day and we should have taken warm coats!

Feed a Family Oxford is about a challenge to feed a family on £100 per month. Actually, the family concerned has two adults and a young child but still this is a major achievement. At this sort of level, my family of five adults (yes, my two eldest are adults now!), a younger teenager and two children would eat on about £300 per month. We spend, including the cats, double this so this blog does make fascinating reading. What interests me is that much of the food is based around vegetable boxes which I had counted as too expensive unless on special offer. There are plenty of frugal recipes here too.

Gwen at an Island Family by grace has written an honest article about when she had major difficulties in her marriage, with some principles for managing When the wheels fall off on your life.

One of my children loves history and particularly, Tudor history so we read this post from Claire, at Angellicscalliwags, together. An Elizabethan unit study might be popular here too.

Since I wrote my updated post about UK Christian home education blogs, I have found more.

Grace to Abide is completely new to me although a well established blog. Catherine home educated in Russia and is now back in the UK and has written a recent series about home education here, comparing it with home education in Russia.

Ordinary Clare is another London based home educator. I loved her post about taking children on a day trip. 

Lizzy, a real life, as opposed to virtual, friend has just started a blog, Peaches@Home. Her post about God's Word in bringing up our children was an encouragement and a challenge.


Home Education Novice has moved to a new blog, An Abundant Adventure. Kondwani has written a post seven years after the death of her daughter called Grief 7 years later, a "wish list". Something, we all should read.

I do hope to update the post on UK Christian Home Education Blogs in the near future.


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You might also enjoy these posts:

UK Home Education Resources

and 14 ways to save money on Home Education Resources

10 money saving ideas

What ever the economy is or isn't doing, most people haven't got too much money in their pockets. These are just a few money saving ideas, starting with those that save small amounts and going up!

• Use loyalty vouchers. It isn't worth buying just for the vouchers but it is a shame to let them go to waste. These are often useful for days out.

• Shop the house. There may be something already in the house that can be used for the art project/wrapping paper. 

• Grow your own. It is worth working out the saving for different crops. We have found that there are major savings on salad leaves and herbs along with fruit but that, for us, tomatoes can be expensive to grow.

• Buy from discounters. We tend to stock up every few weeks on items which are particularly good value. We have found that Lidl is particularly useful for passata, washing powder, coffee, chocolate, fruit and vegetables. Our local farmers' market is an expensive place except for the vegetable stall which is excellent value.

• Cook from scratch. This is particularly relevant for larger families. We particularly save when making soup, bread and pasta sauce.

• Eat less meat. Meat is expensive so having some vegetarian meals and making the meat in a casserole go further by adding pulses makes economic sense.

• Avoid wasting food. I find that often waste comes by putting too much on a child's plate. The answer is obvious! Left over vegetables can often be added to a soup or casserole. Mashed potatoes can be shallow fried in patties. I coat these with flour or cornmeal. 

• Pass on used children's clothes and gratefully accept, and use, clothes passed on to you. 

• Shop around for insurance. The Moneysaving Expert has useful guides. 

• Change utility company. This has produced large savings for us whilst maintaining the same level of use. This has been a win:win for us. Again, the Moneysaving Expert has guides and search engines as has the Daily Telegraph comparison site.

Please do add your tips!

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The true cost of home education

For people thinking about home education, the expense can be a major factor. So how much does home education cost?

The cost of home education is like the cost of bringing up a child. Every time someone sees figures, they always claim that they don't spend that much.

Of course, I don't spend over £200 000 bringing up a child. 

I wouldn't spend £x on curriculum/exams/tutors.

What has struck me recently is that I do spend a large amount on home education. Part of this is on curriculum but a fair proportion is on other things.

• books
• educational games
• extra curricular lessons: swimming and art
• different foods to fit with country studies
• art supplies
• educational trips

In fact, it is quite difficult to know where home education spending begins and ends. Do extra books go in the home education category on the budget sheet? How about swimming lessons? We paid for these things when our children were in school so should this be part of home education or something else?

How about the extra wear and tear on the house or the higher heating bills? Or the loss of income? 

Of course, there are some expenses that are lower. Holidays can happen in term time and there isn't school uniform to buy.

There are savings to be made on home education resources. Trips can be local, cheap and are optional. I have written a series about reducing the cost of trips. Extra curricular lessons aren't essential or sometimes swaps can be arranged between home educating families with particular skills. Libraries are full of books and there are plenty of free books to download on the internet.

I imagine that the vast majority of home educators lose income. I know that some people are able to continue working but mainly, they can't work the same hours as before. When we started home education, I was working part time but found that I didn't have time to work, home educate and be a carer. 

So what is the cost of home education? It varies according to

• the age of the child. Older children are more likely to take exams/need tutors and materials for working towards exams.
• whether the plan is for the child to take exams from home or go to college for these
• the number of children
• family circumstances
• which expenses the family decides to categorise as home education
• whether a parent has to stop working

For us, the outlay is less than the cost of sending the children to private schools but more than state school would be. However, adding in loss of income does add to the bill! 

We don't home educate for financial reasons! The reasons are far removed from finance. The home educators that I know have many reasons for their decision but they don't include saving! 

I don't want to put anyone off home educating. It isn't necessary to be wealthy to home educate: most of us aren't, but it is important to be realistic when making the decision.

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Frugal educational trips: food and other costs

This is the last part of this series on Frugal Educational Trips.

Questions to ask before a visit

Saving on Entrance Fees

Saving on travel costs.

Today's post is about saving on food, drink and other costs.

I guess that saving on food seems fairly obvious; just take a packed lunch. I often find this difficult in the rush to get everyone ready and out of the house, along with leaving food for those who aren't coming on the trip. Yes, we usually do take a packed lunch and I'm probably the queen of uninspired picnics. However, an alternative is to stop somewhere to buy a baguette, cheese, tomatoes and fruit. OK, not quite as cheap but not far off and very quick! 

Please do comment with suggestions for other quick, cheap, on the go lunches. Creating exciting picnics isn't my forte.

Children seem to become especially hungry on trips. I've learned to take more than I think that we will need. A packet of rice cakes, bag of fruit or packet of crisps and more can easily disappear on the way home from a day trip.

Occasionally, eating has to be a special part of the trip. Some time ago, we took fairly frequent foot passenger crossings to France for the day. Eating French food was part of the experience and we didn't take our own food. 

The end of a day out is tiring and it isn't always easy to find the energy to prepare a meal on return. The simplest way to manage this and avoid buying an expensive meal out, is to prepare in advance. A casserole in the slow cooker or another meal ready prepared at home saves time and money.

When a visit will involve being away for more than one meal, it is worth careful planning. Can a second meal be carried in a cool box or is there somewhere cheap and cheerful to buy a meal? This usually means either going to a supermarket or sometimes, fish and chips. Do remember that portions of fish and chips are often very generous and it probably isn't necessary to buy one portion per person, except for teenage boys!

Drinks are much less expensive if taken from home. OK, I can't say I've never enjoyed a National Trust coffee but generally, we take water bottles and coffee in a thermos. In the summer, one water bottle per person is often not sufficient and it is worth taking a few extra litres from home. The saving from taking drink can be several pounds per trip.

Other costs

Many venues will have a shop full of interesting and generally, highly priced items. It can be very tempting to buy the children a small bar of chocolate, only to discover that it is 7-8 times the price of a basics bar from the supermarket. I try to deter children from spending their pocket money on plastic trinkets although sometimes buying these and discovering their poor enduring value is part of the learning process.

We do buy postcards for journals and occasionally, guide books. 

Please do share your thoughts on saving on trips.

Frugal educational trips: entrance fees

Some of the best educational trips are free but sadly, others can be expensive. For the parent looking at trips, entrance fees make up a large part of the expense.

These are a few thoughts on reducing costs. Most of these apply mainly to the UK-apologies to those readers from elsewhere. Please feel free to add your own tips!

• Visit free venues. In the UK, many major museums are free as they are given tax breaks for not charging. They recoup costs in other ways-see later in the series! In London, the British Museum, the Science Museum, the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert are amongst the free museums. Do note that special exhibitions within these free museums are usually not free.

• Use vouchers. Tesco Clubcard and Nectar points can be a way of going to often expensive venues for less. Both can be used towards English Heritage membership and Clubcard points can go towards National Trust for Scotland visits. Amongst other sites that these schemes can be used for are Royal Horticultural Society membership which allows visits to their sites, Eurostar for European trips, the Eden Project, Warwick Castle, Sealife centres, Imperial War Museum at Duxford, Hampton Court Palace and more. I often have a visit or two waiting for sufficient points and with a largish family, waiting doesn't usually take long.

• Visit before birthdays! Under threes and sometimes under fives go free. We have had several visits just before a child has turned three.

• National Trust and/or English Heritage membership. Both these organisations run multiple historic sites. Both have annual family membership which dramatically reduces the cost of visits. We've found that the first year we have a membership, we use it and the membership pays for itself over and over but after this, there is a tendency not to use the membership to advantage. This may vary for different families. Some years ago, we had one year of National Trust membership followed by a year of English Heritage membership which worked well as they run different sites. There are sometimes offers allowing 15 months membership for the price of 12.

• National Trust free weekend happens once a year, usually in the Spring. The dates for 2014 don't appear to have been announced yet.

• National Trust and English Heritage have schemes for home educators. The National Trust scheme offers reduced cost membership but it can only be used in term time and not at weekends. It wouldn't work for us but may be useful for some families. English Heritage offer a scheme where groups of home educators are allowed free entry. I have been on trips arranged under this scheme and these have worked well.

• 2 for 1 offer with National Rail. This offer allows two people to get into an attraction for the price of one with the appropriate voucher and their train tickets. Many, but not all, of these venues are in London. We have used this offer, though, for a trip to the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth.

• London Open House happens once a year. This is a weekend when buildings in London, many of them not usually open to the public, are open for free. To be honest, I've never been to one of these events as they seem to happen on a Saturday when we are busy and we don't do Sunday trips but some of the buildings sound fascinating.

• Visit out of season. This doesn't work for many venues but zoos can be less expensive and less crowded in winter.

• It is always worth checking the internet for other vouchers!

Please add your money saving ideas for entrance fees.

Frugal educational trips

There are so many educational trips that it would be interesting and useful to take but outings are often expensive. There are three parts to this expense:

• entrance fees
• travel costs
• food/drink/other items bought on the visit.

This is a short series about trying to keep the costs of educational visits down. This first post is about assessing the value of a visit.

Before getting to the entrance fees, it is worth thinking back a stage and being thoughtful about the purpose of the visit. Our most useful trips have been those that support the children's learning. For example, a visit to Dover Castle was relevant to Middle Son's history studies but we were able to combine this with the Five in a Row book, The Glorious Flight, for the younger two.

This isn't always easy with children of different ages and isn't an area where I have always succeeded. 

This isn't to say that we never go on trips that aren't immediately connected with learning but particularly, when money is tight it is worth working a visit for all it is worth!

Onto actual visits- these are some questions to ask about the visit.

• Is this the best place to visit for this topic?
• Is there somewhere that would be equally good which is cheaper or nearer? This can often be the case with historical visits, here in the UK. 
• Would it be best to visit this venue with an educational group or as a family? Educational visits often have re-enactors and interactive sessions for children and can often be substantially cheaper or free. A group visit may be less useful if it is only for particular age children or only looks at part of a venue.
• When is the best time to visit? Some popular places, such as the Science Museum, can become uncomfortably crowded in school holidays. For home educators, visiting in school terms can be ideal. At the beginning and end of term there won't even be many school parties so maximising time spent in interactive parts of museums.
• Will this visit be helpful for all of my children or just some? Can the visit be altered in some way so that it is beneficial for all? 

How do you plan an educational trip?

Are there other questions that you would ask?

Part 2: Saving on entrance fees.

After Christmas soups

Winter days call for soup. The remains of the Christmas chicken or turkey makes excellent stock. Making stock in the slow cooker is surprisingly easy.

We ended up preparing more parsnips than we ate on Christmas Day. This recipe from Delia Smith is a tasty way of using up excess parsnip. The first time that I made this, I didn't think that I would enjoy the combination of parsnip and apple but was pleasantly surprised.

Years ago, I borrowed a library book about cooking for older people on their own. One of the recipes was for Stilton and Brussel sprout soup. This has become a favourite, for those of us know love sprouts, although with our own tweaks and in larger quantities. This is my recipe but do realise that I don't weigh ingredients for soups precisely! If you like sprouts then this is for you!

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
Brussel sprouts about 300g of peeled and halved sprouts, alternatively use frozen spouts
1 litre chicken or turkey stock
pinch of nutmeg
sage to taste
pepper
Stilton or other blue cheese about 100g

Method
Peel and chop the onion. Soften the onion in the sunflower oil until just browned.
Add the crushed clove of garlic and the sprouts. Cook for 1 minute.
Add the stock and seasoning. Bring to boiling point and then simmer until the sprouts are just soft.
Puree.
Add the crumbled Stilton and serve.

This serves 4.

Frugal festivities

This can be an expensive time of year. Christmas is to remember the birth of the Lord Jesus but we also enjoy a time with family and friends. Still, the added extras can spiral.

I work on the basis that it is never worth spending more than I can afford for Christmas. People are more important than things.

Just a few ideas for reducing the financial load.

• Many Christmas items are much cheaper in advance. My younger children like chocolate coins: these were half price in October and had a long best by date. The same applies to boxes of biscuits and supermarket pyjamas.

• Children don't need loads of presents and certainly not more than can be reasonably afforded. Some of those presents can be useful items: we often give pyjamas as part of the present. Usually they are an item which would be needed anyway.

• Children can learn to make presents or manage a small budget. We have found that pound shops can be a useful place for children to buy presents with pocket money.

• Gift labels can be made from the previous year's cards. I make these when I take the cards down. Scissors which make a zigzag edge are an advantage but not essential. A hole punch and some ribbon or wool complete the tag.

• Wrapping paper doesn't need to be expensive-it is only going to be thrown away or recycled. I have tried to make my own but my level of creativity isn't high, again, the pound shop has come to my rescue. 

• Postage is expensive. Sorry, Royal Mail, but in recent years, we've sent fewer cards and more Christmas letters as e-mails. No, I haven't written the letter yet! We still send cards to people who are not on line or who might especially, appreciate a card.

• Decorations can be home made. There are numerous ideas around for salt dough and clay tree decorations. Some of the most beautiful decorations I have seen were made with evergreen boughs. We try to make our own wreath from items from our garden.

• Chicken often tastes better than turkey as well as being cheaper. If there is a turkey enthusiast, in the family, then a turkey crown can prevent waste and having "I'm trying to use up the turkey" dishes.

• Don't forget to make stock with the bones. The stock can be frozen for future use.

• Some things just aren't necessary: crackers just seem full of tack that will be thrown away in five minutes-is my middle name Scrooge?

Anyway, over to you. How do you save at Christmas?

Curriculum and money

I am thankful that I am able to buy the curriculum that we need. Yes, like anyone else I have to be sensible but we can buy the curriculum that we need. This isn't the case for everyone. So some of us, at the Schoolhouse Crew are writing about "What if there is no money for homeschool curriculum."

 Here are a few thoughts. I have previously written about 14 ways to save money on home education.

Priorities
If there isn't money for curriculum, then it is essential to look at priorities.

• most important subjects
• most important items of curriculum
• ages of children-there are plenty of preschool curricula around but it would be easier to do preschool without a written curriculum than to do without a maths book for a teenagers.
• financial priorities-I guess that we all know people who say that they can't afford a course/curriculum or exams but can afford to go on holiday. This might be a valid choice for them but means that they have chosen not to afford the curriculum, not that they can't afford curriculum. If there is a choice between food and housing costs and curriculum, that really is can't afford.

Free curriculum on the internet
The internet is full of free home education materials. The big downside of this, is that much of it involves printing which is expensive and it also requires internet access which could also be an issue.
I haven't used Easy Peasy which is advertised as a "complete, free on-line Christian homeschool" but have heard good reports from users.

CIMT is a British maths programme which is free on line. Again, I haven't used it although when I was looking over, it certainly looked helpful for subjects that might need re-enforcement or further explanation. Some sections seem to be possible to answer on-line without printing.

Other free stuff
There are other free sources of books/curriculum.

• the library might not have home education texts but will have read alouds/ a few early readers/art and history books. Yes, you might have to pick and chose. Here, in the UK, there usually aren't fines on children's book withdrawals.
• shop your bookshelves. Do you have books from your own childhood to read aloud? Do you have an atlas/dictionary/art books already? Is there some curriculum that could be used but hasn't for some reason?
• often home education groups have give aways when individual members bring along unwanted books. This tends to be rather ad hoc depending on when people turn out.
• other friends may give or loan books. Home educators usually have some books out on loan!
• Friends may have the right level maths book that they aren't using this year. 
• there may be a home education library run by a group or individual.
• Do you need a curriculum? Is there a subject that you know well and don't really need a curriculum? It is worth checking what is usually taught at a particular age. It may be a confidence boost that you can teach your young child maths or science.
• Everyday life-there is so much that can be taught from everyday life particularly for younger children. Maths: number of places to lay at the table, skip counting in twos from house numbers, addition and subtraction with blackberries. English: making up stories about their favourite den, reading books, explaining how their model works, writing letters. History: local history-famous people, war memorials, local museums (usually free in the UK), family history and family tress. Geography: road atlases, maps in local parks, making a map of the local area on a large piece of paper or even on the ground, friends from other countries, missionaries in other countries. 

Exams

We haven't quite got to exams as yet but they are on the horizon. The way that UK exams work is that questions are specifically around a particular syllabus so it is essential to buy the correct book, for the right subject, from the right board. Home educators also have to pay to sit exams. So far, there hasn't been a cheap way around this. Of course, some books can be bought second hand although it is important to be careful about editions.

My understanding is that from September 2013, colleges will be funded for 14-16 year old home educated students who take courses and exams with them. This is new and sounds complex but might provide a cheaper way into the exam system.

Above all, pray. 

Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. 

Matthew 6 v8