Is there a grassfed beef operation near you by any chance? There are a few a few hours from us. We investigated that option once. You can purchase an entire cow that was raised privately (small farming) on grass at one time and save considerably on the average cost. Of course you get a mix of cuts/types of beef. You need a separate freezer and all that though. But if knowing exactly how your food was raised is important, that is one way to achieve that and save a little bit off the cost of buying it in small packages.

Your menu looks pretty typical for us too in dinners, and we spend about $400/mo for a family of 6, 2 adults plus 3 kids that are youngish still and one who doesn't eat table food yet. We get chips, some sodas, 100% juice, etc., so not bare bones budget either. I think others might have hit on it already - how much per pound are you spending on your meat? Are you getting it when it is lowest price for your area? In my store for example, whole chickens can range from about $0.59/lb to $1.79/lb. That is a huge difference. When they are $0.59/lb I buy 3-6 of them at once. And so forth with all the meats. I keep a price book to know when something is very low price. This week it was chicken breast at 0.99/lb. I got several big family packs and split then up for the freezer. I use coupons on most things, especially shampoo, toilet paper and so forth. Our stores double coupons to $1. I am able to get a lot of things for pennies that way, especially deodorant, toothpaste, dental floss. Again though I may buy 5-10 packages at once when they are cheap/free and then not buy them for a year. Each week I look at the ads and plan my menus based on what is on sale and what is in my freezer. I aim to never pay full price. I also have several markets near me so this doesn't involve driving all over town either, which is not cost effectively obviously. We buy a selection at things at Costco when they are consistently cheaper than regular stores (huge blocks of cheese which I shred and freeze, eggs, milk, oats, 25 lb bags of flour ...). You need to plot out where you can get things the cheapest. We have a raised bed garden but it is small this year. A newborn does that to our household. Typically this time of year I would be eating some zucchini, tomatoes, peppers and so forth from our garden to supplement. I have cut our groceries from when we were a couple without kids as I learned how to shop for us. Let's just say our days of Trader Joes yummy prepared salads at $5/meal are gone. LOL. But we eat well and inexpensively. I do cook/bake more than I used to, but that fluctuates with my time constraints. I heartily agree with others that baking/scratch cooking is a huge savings. The biggest savings you might be able to get right away is your frozen prepared items for lunches if you are looking for a cut quickly. We eat sandwiches, hot dogs (even the all beef nicer ones are pretty economical), leftovers, fruit/cheese/bread platters, etc. Occasional mac and cheese.

Here. :001_smile:

We mix swim. Separate swimming is new to me. I grew up on the liberal west coast and so did DH. Now we live a couple miles from the beach/bay. Even going to the park people are in bikinis by the bay. Geez, people are even in bikini tops at the grocery store here, so it doesn't phase me. We have a clothing optional beach close by too, although I don't frequent it and neither do my kids. :D

My oldest was 3 and eager (continually asking "what does this say" and such). He is 8 now and still a very very avid reader, chowing through at least one book a day and advanced for his grade. I hope he continues his love of reading. My biggest problem with him is finding new series appropriate for his maturity level but also fitting his reading level. My 2nd is just now doing CVC words and progressing slower. We do lessons when he asks. He will be 5 at the end of the month. He is getting more eager and asking more, so I'm guessing probably late 5 or early 6 for fluency. My others are too young to start yet so who knows!

As long as there is nothing you find morally offensive (other than possibly turning the brain to goo), I would let him read them if he wants to, or not read them if he doesn't want to. My son is 8 and reads his fair share of what I consider garbage, chosen by him. He also reads a lot of great books, so I figure it evens out. Sometimes he seems to be on an easy read streak, and then he will read a few really tough meaty books in a row. I let him choose as long as he is getting a mix overall, and nothing contains things I really consider offensive.

Big piece wooden puzzles Play-Doh with rollers, cookie cutters and so forth Lacing cards Play food/play kitchen Books on tape/CD (when mom's voice is tired, listen together) Bubbles with lots of wands, blowers. Fun for all the kids.

$75/mo for homeschooling $40/mo clothing budget for all of us total (note I sew a lot of clothing)

Our city has a swim team at the local rec center pools. I was able to find the information by going to the pool, but it was also on the city website with the pool information. Our local YMCA also has swim team. Does your city/area have a homeschooling email loop or list? If so, you might try there too, joining that list and asking the other homeschoolers.

Sounds normal to me. My 2nd child didn't talk until after 3. He WAS delayed and had some speech therapy, which honestly didn't help too terribly much, but honestly he enjoyed it quite a bit as they brought a round of toys to the house once a week for him to play with while they worked with him. His receptive was fine; he just didn't say anything. Then he suddenly had a very late word explosion that usually happens around 2 per the pediatrician. Now he does not shut up. :D Kids are little individuals, most growing and developing on their very own schedules within the WIDE range of normal for the most part. I wouldn't worry.

Coastal southern California. My DH is in software too. We are a little hotter than you would like, but rarely over 85 where we are a couple miles from the coast (the farther back from the coast you go = cheaper!). Not the cheapest place to live though.

Yeah, this is what I was thinking too honestly. So we assign everything down to every single detail and they feel "studying" in a more free form, self-motivated way isn't needed because it never was before? I do think there is a jump in expectation from high school to college that many are not prepared for. I know my DH and I have talked about this. We came from what were accepted as fairly rigorous private schools, both graduating with honors, yet college was a big leap for us. Honestly it was probably a harder leap because we never had to study before, doing quite well (straight As) with little to no effort at all. We too learned to study in college. Our peers with poorer grades in high school, who studied harder, did better than us in college in the beginning. They were used to studying.

Sidewalk chalk? Drawing practice, letters or just plain fun scribbling. $4 for 52 pieces at Target this week. ;) We also got new mini white boards at Target this week and some new dry erase markers. My oldest (8) does his spelling on it. My 4yo just loves to scribble and write on his at the same time. School is always more fun on dry erase boards, but it cuts down on the recycling of paper too for drawing - just erase and go again. We do lapbooks occasionally. They are getting to be more fun for my 4yo than 8yo at this stage. I coordinate them with what we are learning or a favorite book or topic. My 8yo has liked those castle book things you carefully cut out and put together. We have a mummies one too. Puzzle books? My 8yo likes soduku (spelling?) and the 4yo likes mazes.

Yes, $30 per child, no multichild discount, even for parishioners. It comes with a T-shirt but no opt out if you don't want the shirt. That is considered cheap around here.

Daily in one bathroom, very very rarely in the others. Where we replaced the toilets in this house, they now work. The one that stops up is a toilet that was here when we purchased the house and is lousy. It helps to use only that really thin 1-ply Scott TP but doesn't completely solve the problem.

10-12 hours usually, but 12+ is not unusual. He is technically supposed to do 10-12 hours daily and have every other Friday off. I honestly cannot recall the last time he took that Friday off though, still works the 10-12 hours every day and then weekends. He seems the norm around here, very frustrating. Edited: It is not OT for him; it is expected.

We live in a high cost of living area - our housing is quite a bit above his recommended. We still work his plan. We didn't start out with any CC debt, but we did pay off our cars, pay off my student loan and increase our savings significantly while using his plan. There is still benefit even if you have low debt but your fixed costs are higher. It is the mindset, personally, that is helpful.

I voted this way too, for the same reasons. I have two asthmatic kids, one very very seriously so. Avoiding smoke is necessary to avoid oral steroid courses and hospitalizations. I grew up around smoke and was seriously miserable, so that colors my thoughts too. I then and now feel like I am going to pass out in the presence of smoke. I just can't breathe at all. I would, however, go, stay in a hotel, and offer lots of time together outside that home so a relationship can develop. I do the same with my kids as my mom smokes to this day.

My K'er will get SOTW but just as a tag along with his 3rd grader brother in te fall. We listen to the audio CDs in the van. I don't do any other stuff with my younger in terms of helping him retain it or activities. The CDs are just fun to listen to. My son (pre-K at the time last year) has done some of the activity guide too, but only when he sees a particular project or craft his brother is doing and wants to tag along with his own set of printouts. I'm in the camp that I wouldn't do SOTW or CHOW with a K age child as the primary audience. I also find CHOW harder than SOTW, though my older son likes both.

We purchased a truly ugly house 10 years ago. It still is the ugliest in the neighborhood, but we're working on it ... slowly ... with cash. We had 2 incomes at the time and no kids. We refinanced x2 to get a lower rate and kept chipping away at it. Those first couple years were HARD and we had little excess for sure. Now DH alone makes what we made together 10 years ago (we were only out of college a couple years), so I stay home. We keep expenses as low as possible (secondhand stuff, couponing, cooking from scratch), and remodeling goes very slowly without home improvement loans. ;) Even with the current downtrend, our house appraises at double what we paid so we're happy campers, though not interested in selling. We could never, never afford what it appraises at now. The neighborhood is nice, and there is a nice mix of young families, middle age and people who have owned their house since it was new (1960s era). DH bikes to work, the grocery store is close and the park, rec center and city pool are walking distance. Love it!

DS is 8 - he finished the 2nd of the Gregory the Overlander series this morning and is begging to get to the library for the next one.

I do agree with those recommending cloth. We never had a true blowout in cloth, unlike disposables, through 3 kids. I agree with the person with onesies. Ugh. I sit here thinking on that as I'm pregnant with my 4th. Not looking forward to those onesies again. LOL

My DS's two psychiatrists actually stated the same thing to us. I reiterated our commitment to homeschool and am being supported in that (they don't bring up PS anymore). However, her beliefs are not coming completely from left field either as apparently it does work on some kids. I simply feel that the bad behaviors he picks up are worse than what he has right now. I see it in his play with his PS peers. His free time socialization was enough of a trial basically that his psych admits he gets plenty of social interaction with peers and it is not helping his conformity to social norms, while at the same time he is picking up undesirable traits from his peers, traits which DS doesn't recognize as being incredibly annoying to adults. <sigh> So, it is longwinded. Your friend shares beliefs with a lot of professionals I have encountered. That doesn't mean they are right for every kid or even the majority though. And I think sometimes even professionals underestimate the social situations currently happening in our school system at the present time.

We do, through DH's work. If we didn't through there, we probably couldn't afford it either.

We like theirs, but I use Homeschool Share more simply because of the cost involved. I get some of the HOAC when they are on sale at Currclick though! :)