Free Preschool Printables

This is a commercial site but they have lots of free printables for the 4- to 6-year-old set. Click on Download Center.

Recovering the Food Budget

After going back to work part time, Margaret Mary found her grocery budget explode. Just as I suggested in my earlier post about the cost of working outside the home. Well, MM has grabbed hold of the food budget reins and she's reeling them in. See her post on recovering the food budget to hear how she's doing it and to join her in the quest.

Downsize: Think Big

If you have a huge debt hanging over your head, then you have to get beyond saving pennies on household items. Especially, with the current financial crisis sweeping through the country we need to think big!

Can you downsize your home? Your cars? Sell your vacation cottage or recreational boat or vehicle?

I met a homeschooler some years ago who lived in my sister's neighborhood. A neighborhood where the houses start at $400,000. Her husband just lost his job and they were in bad shape financially. They lived in a beautiful home and drove brand-new SUV's . . . and lived from month to month. They were drowning in consumer debt. Just one month without an income put them into dire straits. The mom was putting the kids in public school and getting a job herself. It broke my heart.

You need to ask where you would be tomorrow if your main wage-earner lost his or her job. Do you have savings set aside? I recommend at least 3 to 6 months of living expenses in liquid savings. This saved us years ago when my husband decided to quit his job and start his own business.

To accomplish this, you may have to downsize your home or your car. Can you live in a smaller house? In a lesser neighborhood? (No need to concern yourself with school districts - we're homeschoolers.)

Can you downsize your car, or get rid of the second car altogether? I know several homeschooling families who work around one family car.

What are some other big items that you should be avoiding?

Free Unit Studies and Forms

Free forms for creating your own literature unit studies. Scroll down for free prepared unit studies.

Art Appreciation

Art is another subject where Charlotte Mason presented a living education. She taught art appreciation picture study by introducing children to the works of great artists one at a time using narration. Music appreciation was taught similarily, listening to the works of great composers one at a time.

I would love to fill my home with original masterpieces for the children to study, but it isn't possible. The art budget at our house doesn't even have room for cheap reproductions. But I have found an inexpensive way to introduce my children to great works of art.

Using your computer, you can download famous paintings and save them to your wallpaper. (See CGFA- A Virtual Art Museum for example.) Then every time your children sit down at the computer they are introduced to great art. Change the wallpaper every week. Or get wild and change it everyday. Feature the same artist (or era or subject matter) for several weeks in a row. Make sure to point out the name of the artist and the name of the picture.

Another idea is to print a painting on your color printer. Have the children cut out the picture and put it on a magnet sheet (from the craft store). Now you have fancy kitchen magnets. Every time the kids go to the fridge for a drink or snack, they are introduced to great art. Or have the printouts laminated - my littles like to carry them around like trading cards.

Kids love getting mail. Ask Grandma and Grandpa to send art postcards Ask out-of-town family members or friends to do the same. Not only will your children be introduced to great art, they are reminded of their loved ones.

Some exercises to do with your Internet or postcard art:
Play Concentration - you need two of each work to do this. Turn the cards upside down on a table and have the children take turns looking for matches, turning over just two cards at a time.
Groupings - have the children group together works of art by artist, era, or subject matter.
Recreate by Memory - show a child a masterpiece for a few minutes and then take it away. Then they are to try to draw the picture from memory using their crayons, colored pencils, or markers. (A twist on CM's narration.)
Develop Descriptive Abilities - Have your child choose a work of art, without showing you. They are then to describe the art in such a way that you can reproduce it on a piece of paper with only their verbal instructions. This is a favorite exercise at my house. Try it. I guarantee you'll get a laugh out of the first several tries!
Look for Symbolism Used in Art - I tried but could not find a dictionary of Christian art symbolism on the Internet, but you can look for books such as Signs and Symbols in Christian Art by George Wells Ferguson (Oxford University Press) at the library.

I'm sure that if you put your mind to it, you could come up with more ideas.

The children in Charlotte Mason's schools had Picture Study every term from age 6 upwards. Between the age of 6 and 15 a child had studied reproductions of pictures by some thirty of the world's famous artists. Why Picture Study? In order that children may be put in touch with the contribution that each famous artist has made to the world's store of all that is beautiful and worthwhile. Just as Literature introduces us to the thought of the greatest writers, so Picture Study opens the gates to the ideas of the famous artists.
-- Karen Andreola

For more on teaching art appreciation through real books see my book, For the Love of Literature: Teaching Core Subjects with Literature.

Homeschool Tracker

Free homeschool record keeping.

You can also purchase the Cadillac version, but I think the freebie version is good enough.

Stay-at-Home Vs. Work Outside the Home

Back in the day when I only had 3 or 4 children, my husband mentioned one day that things sure would be easier financially if I was still working outside the home. Now, my darling husband was only jesting, but I knew that I had to nip the thought in the bud. I didn't want it to fester and grow into an actual desire. So I sat him down, grab a piece of paper and pencil, and let the mathematician in me go at it.

I wrote down the income that I would likely receive (I was in human resource management, so I made pretty good money). Then I started subtracting all of expenses of working outside of the home.

If finances are getting you down and you are thinking of throwing in the towel on homeschooling, so that you can bring more money into your home, please, please do this exercise. Even if it is just a bad homeschooling day, which happens to the best us, and military school is looking quite attractive for your brood. Sit down and write out how much money it costs to have both parents working, then compare it to the non-monetary rewards of being home with your children.

The first expense I figured in was taxes. My income would have put us into a higher tax bracket and so our tax burden would increase. Then I would have had to buy a car that was actually dependable and could get me to work each day. And there would be private school tuition. Sorry, but I'm one of those people who believes our Christianity should permeate every part of our everyday lives, including our school subjects, and "free" public schools don't offer that. The littles would require daycare and the bigs would need after-school care.

Those are all major expenses. But there are a zillion smaller expenses that add up pretty quickly to significant numbers. First is food. If I am working outside the home, I don't have time to make homemade meals, it'll be prepackaged, prefab fare for my family. And no time to pack lunches for Rob, myself, and the kiddies. It would be McDonalds and cafeteria food for the lot of us. And no time to comparison shop, plan menus, or hit the thrift stores so the food budget explodes.

Speaking of comparison shopping, I wouldn't have time to do so for other items such as clothes so the overall budget has to be expanded. Since I would be working in an office, a whole new wardrobe would be called for. My homeschool uniform of sweats and a T-shirt isn't going to cut it. Of course I can't throw my brand new business suits into the washing machine, so dry cleaning is added to the budget. Then there are pantyhose! I'm torture on pantyhose, so that alone would put my expenses over the top. Oh, and of course I'll need a couple of nice jewelry pieces and new shoes to go with my new suits.

Don't forget all those office collections for birthdays, anniversaries, and for employees who are leaving for better jobs (and we're supposed to buy them a present?). And you can't turn your boss down when he wants to sell you Girl Scout cookies for his sweet little girl, lest you want to be passed over at promotion time.

Most importantly, we must consider the cost to our children's souls. Personally, my number one motivation in homeschooling is to get these children of mine to Heaven. They are gifts from God Himself, and I am going to do my best to raise them for His Kingdom. I am not saying that homeschooling is a cure all, but it sure does make things easier in the purity of heart department.

Finally, let us remember the Scripture:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
-- Matthew 6:19-20.

Is It Always Better to Buy Than to Rent

My husband and I rented our last home for fourteen years. Yes, you heard me right. Fourteen years. Well-meaning friends and family would often chastise us for renting, telling us that we were just throwing away our money.

Is it always better to own than rent? Are you really just throwing away your money when you rent? I would say no. Sometimes it's better to own and sometimes it's better to rent. You need to look at your own personal situation as well as the current economic situation in your geographical area.

In my case, the rent was cheap. Half of our current mortgage. In fourteen years, our landlord only raised our rent once. Yep, only once. We were good tenants and he wanted to keep us. Now, that's not to say that he was the best landlord. He wasn't. It would often take several phone calls to get him motivated to make repairs. But for the most part he wasn't too horrible.

One downside to renting was the inability to decorate my house as I wished or make changes that would have made our lives more comfortable. Plain white walls was all my landlord would allow. If I had owned the house, I would have made some improvements such as a room addition or knocking out a wall or two. Or just put in decent carpet. But really that's a small price to pay for cheap rent. Home owners can paint their walls any color they like, knock out walls, put in gorgeous carpet . . . and they get to pay for it.

When I rented, my landlord paid for repairs. Sure, it took him forever, but it came out of his pocket, not mine. Today, I pay for my own repairs. A recent discovery of a major problem with the structure of our home set us back $4500. I don't even want to think about the cost of the new roof, or the trees that need to be removed, the grading of the driveway, and the boiler repair. But, hey, I can pick my own paint colors!

Today my husband and I own our home. Or do we really? Most Americans have 30-year mortgages. Do they own their own homes? No they don't. The bank owns their homes. A few missed payments and out in the street they go. Down payment and house payments out the window.

We haven't even talked taxes yet. For the privilege of owning my own home I get to give the government a huge chuck of change twice a year in the name of property taxes.

Then there's home owners insurance -- considerably more costly than renters insurance.

Am I saying that I'm sorry I purchased my current home? No, I'm not. This house is our life's dream come true. We're out of the city, surrounded by wildlife, and I can decorate any way I wish. But I still believe that my husband and I were NOT throwing away our money for those fourteen years. By renting and living frugally we were able to save enough to make a very healthy down payment and buy just the right house for our family.

So, the next time someone tells you that you need to buy instead of rent, just nod your head politely and then do what's best for your family. It may be buying and then again it may be renting. I wonder if this country would be in our current financial mess if more people weren't in such a hurry to own their own home.

How To Buy a Foreclosed Home

I am often asked about the process we went through in buying our home -- a foreclosure.

First off, when my friends ask me, "So, how do we go about finding foreclosed homes too?" I tell them, "Run! No! Don't go looking for trouble!"

The truth is, the market is sinking. At least here in Michigan. Prices are dropping everywhere, not just on foreclosures. And, you don't need to go looking for foreclosures. We were not looking specifically for foreclosures, but in the area we were house hunting, 75% of the homes we looked at were either foreclosures or in short sale.

A short sale is when the bank tells you that you have to put your house on the market to keep it from foreclosure. It is similar to a foreclosure for the buyer as the bank is in control -- you deal with the bank not the family. For the family it's different from the foreclosure in that their credit is not as badly damaged. We once found ourselves in a terribly uncomfortable situation where the family was heated about not wanting to sell and here we were in their house -- with them across the street looking in at us. When we were done they had a screaming match with our real estate agent because we took an hour and a half instead of an hour to look at the house (we were planning to make an offer).

Before I share how to navigate a foreclosure sale let me say this, "Do NOT pay anyone to find foreclosed properties for you!" You don't need to go looking for them. They'll find you. And remember, in this market a lot of people are ready to price their house to sell. Translation: cheap. So, don't think that a property has to be in foreclosure to get a deal. If a house has been on the market a long time, you have the upper hand in negotiations.

We've found that foreclosed homes come in two varieties. The first is the family who doesn't give a hoot. They don't care about their property and they don't care about their credit. They milk the system for all they can. You'll know their homes -- they're falling apart and not worth a second look. The other scenario is the family who loved their home and took good care of it, but simply fell on hard times. Sometimes their money trouble started because they kept refinancing the house to fix it up. Those homes are the ones you'll be interested in. It's very sad, and I admit feeling guilt walking through foreclosed homes, but there isn't anything you can do. In fact, you may be helping the family by getting their house sold and taking good care of it.

Note that foreclosures are not always a deal. An important thing to remember is that they are almost always "AS IS." There is little to no negotiating once an offer has been accepted. For this reason, as we were later told by one of the bank's employees, you should consider paying for the inspection before placing a bid on the house. Then, when you go to put in your bid, you can include a letter explaining all the serious issues you found and why you offered far less than the asking price. Now you are in a negotiating position.

When dealing with human beings (as opposed to a corporation, i.e. a bank) you would have an inspection and then negotiate should any serious problems pop up. When dealing with a bank, they consider the inspection "for your information only." If you find something seriously wrong in inspection and therefore want to lower your offer, 99% of the time you will need to pull your offer and start all over again with a new offer.

That brings up another problem with dealing with banks. It can take months to get a response to an offer. Months. Three to six months is not unheard of. Though three to six weeks was our experience.

Ask your agent to help you negotiate extras up front. For example, you may want to ask for a one-year home warranty insurance policy on the appliances, etc. With foreclosures you have no history on the house. There are no disclosures because the person who lived in the house is not involved. The bank didn't live in the house so they don't know if the basement leaks after a hard rain or that the stove is on its last leg. The real estate agent should be able to suggest several other negotiable items up front.

Don't be afraid to underbid on a house. Unless you are in a desperate situation and have to find a house today, you are in the driver seat. The worst they can do is say, "No." There are plenty of houses out there. Rob and I put bids on multiple houses and were turned down. But that was a good thing because God was saving a special house just for us. We found the perfect house and got it for 40% less than it sold for four years ago.

What happened was that it was a foreclosure and had sat vacant for two years. There were some big ticket items to be fixed -- the roof and windows -- so it wasn't moving. But the basic construction is rock solid and the property gorgeous. In the end, it was a very good move on our part.

But it wasn't easy. There was some water damage done AFTER our bid had been accepted (the bank's agents didn't winterize it correctly) and we tried to re-negotiate the price. Remember what I said about banks not negotiating. Well, Flagstar bank told us, "No deal. It's 'as is' and that's that." We made the decision to pull the offer. In the end, they negotiated -- just an hour and a half before the scheduled closing! I never want to go through that again.

Then when closing time came, the bank's employee was no where to be found. There was a snafu that could have halted the deal and no one could find the guy. We ended up going forward with the deal, but it cost us an extra $1,000 in property tax. You see the bank employee told us that we would not have to pay the pro-rated property taxes. He was very clear on the phone that the taxes were paid through the summer and that was one thing we didn't have to worry about. That was an important lesson learned -- Get everything in writing!

In summary:
Don't pay someone to find foreclosures for you.
Foreclosures are not the only deals out there.
Foreclosures are "As Is."
Get everything in writing.
Negotiate up front for extras
Consider having the inspection before placing a bid.
Be prepared to wait -- banks don't work quickly.
Don't be a afraid to underbid -- you can always negotiate or move on to the next house.
Pray! Ask God to help you find just the right house.

Retail Me Not / The Teaching Company

If you're planning on making a purchase online, make sure to check for discounts and coupons first. You can do this at Retail Me Not.

If that doesn't work, Google the name of the retailer and something like "promotion code" or "coupon."

Today I made a purchase at The Teaching Company and used a code found at Retail Me Not (CVSC) to get another $20 off of the sales items I purchased. The courses I bought were already 70% off. The shipping and handling was $20, so it was like getting s/h free in addition to a huge discount.

BTW -- If you are interested in The Teaching Company's courses, each and every title goes on sale at least once a year for 70% off. If there is a course I would like to purchase for my homeschool then I wait patiently for it to go on sale. Other options for The Teaching Company? EBay, your public library, and Netflix.

Promotion Code Christian Books

I needed to order some last minute items for the school year from www.christianbooks.com and got an additional 10% off using this promotion code: 251512PA. It's for a minimum order of $35 and it's good to September 30, 2008. Nice deal!

Thrifty-Living-Tips.com

Here is a nice little article on getting started homeschooling in a thrifty way: Thrifty Homeschooling Tips. If you click on the topics in the sidebar, you'll find articles on other thrifty topics such as decorating, travel, and so much more.

Homeschool Buyers Co-op

Have you heard about the Homeschool Buyers Co-op yet? It's really very cool. You can get deep discounts if enough homeschoolers participate. For example, I'm looking at the Digital Frog program as I think it may help with Science Olympiad. Right now it's discounted at 20%, but if enough people sign on before the deadline (tomorrow at midnight Eastern) it will be 50%. The great thing is that I can set it up now so that I only make the purchase if it gets down to 50%. Better than e-bay.

Click on What's New to see all the current offerings. Right now there are deals on Explode the Code, Bill Nye videos, Descartes Cove Math, and so very much more.

Will It Blend: Credit Cards

Recipe: French Bread

Simple Mixer French Bread Recipe

2 packages active dry yeast (or 4 1/2 tsp. of the bulk stuff)

2 1/2 cups warm water (105 to 115)

1 Tbsp. salt

1 Tbsp. olive oil

7 c. all-purpose flour (or bread flour)

I like to warm my mixing bowl first by running it under hot water in the sink.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in the warm mixer bowl. Add salt, butter, and flour. Attach the dough hook and mix for a minute or so until the ingredients are all blended. Then knead for for 3 minutes on speed 2. The dough will be sticky.

Put the dough in a greased bowl and turn it to lightly greas the dough all around. Cover with a clean tea towell and let it rise in a warm place until it's doubled in bulk. About an hour.

Punch down the dough and divide in half. Toll each half into a 12x15 rectangle. Roll the dough tightly from longest side, tapering the ends. Place on greased baking sheets. Cover again with clean tea towells. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. About an hour.

With a very sharp knife, either slice one long slice down the middle or 3-4 diagonl cuts on the top of each loaf.

Bake at 450 for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the baking sheets right away and put on your cooling racks.

Book Closeouts Sale and Discount

Book Closeouts is having a big sale. Plus, I have a discount code for you:

Code: BookSale-5
Password: bookcloseouts.com
Details: $5 off purchase of $35 or more.
Expires: Jul 31, 2009

$1 Sale.

Discounted Art Supples

Madison Art Shop. Up to 70% off retail.

Homeschool Freebies

Homeschool Freebie of the Day

Every weekday, Monday through Friday, we’ll post a new homeschooling “freebie” to this site. What kind of “freebies”? Stuff like: Unit Studies… Ebooks… Audio Programs… Games… Samples… Lesson Plans… classic books… and other quality resources! This is the REAL THING.

Many of these will be products that you would normally pay for on their regular websites… but here on the Homeschool Freebie of the Day site, they’re 100% free… at least for that one day! Just download your copy and enjoy! It’s as simple as that!

Cool!

Baby Genius Discount

Wendy's isn't the only fast food restaurant offering discunts to parents. Taco Bell is running a promotion with Baby Genius. If you enter the promotion (discount) code Taco Bell at checkout, you'll get a 20% discount and a free music download. This offer runs from 5/01/08 to 10/31/08.

Discount on Audio Books

Wendy's is currently offering free audio books with their Kid's Meals. You can get one of four Magic Tree House books with each meal. In addition, Wendy's has partnered with Random House to offer you 25% off of audio books online and free shipping. This offer is good until October 1, 2008 and is limited to one title per household.

If you go to www.listeninglibrary.com/wendys and use the promotion (discount) code wendys at checkout, you'll get the discount and free shipping.