join my homeschooling group. Catholic, tons of large families, but totally not like the other things your describe. Would you happen to live in the NY/CT area?

I worked, sometimes two jobs, until my fifth child was six months old. That was more than 7 years ago, and I desperately wanted to stay home, yet it is still sometimes difficult in certain ways. I think scheduling your days is a great idea, planning to get out regularly is really important, and developing patience and appreciation for the kids even when you put in those long hours with them will be a learning curve possibly. Overall, I love staying home. Good luck!

He supports our family. But he will discourage art school if any of our kids are interested, unless they are extremely driven with strong entreprenurial streaks.

Dental for myself and husband and I only take the kids once a year.

The full-fat kind. Or a grilled cheese on gluten-free bread.

"This has NOTHING to do with Obama's health care plan. It's been this way for YEARS. Ten years ago our health insurance premiums went up 30% per year for several years. We kept having to reduce coverage and reduce coverage to afford it. Thank goodness my husband got a job with excellent health insurance. I dread going back to individual insurance. Frankly, I don't like Obamacare either. I think it doesn't go far enough." I hope the above looks like a quote - I really don't know how to do that properly. I couldn't agree more. We have bought our own ins. on and off since 1995, and it has gone up and up every year, since way, way before Obamacare. In our case also, a high deductible plan with an HSA is the CHEAPEST. Our out-of pocket max is 24k b/t the monthly premiums of a bit less than 1k and a $11,900 deductible of which the first 6k approx will come from our HSA. In fact, if not too much happens medically, the HDHP/HSA offers us the only chance to come in much below that, although none of these numbers include dental or vision. I would love to get a federal-gov't-like plan for $600 per month for my family. The fact that so many people think of COBRA as so expensive really shows that many people, as noted before in this thread, don't know what health insurance really costs. When we qualified for COBRA we stayed on it until the bitter end of our eligibility, because after that, we had to buy an individual policy, and of course we couldn't get a deal as good as a big company does. I would love, love to deal with a little England or Canada style inefficiency instead of agonizing over whether I should get the mammogram and colonoscopy recommended by my doctor. The worry, as so many of you know, is so time and energy sucking - and the annual hours I spend trying to make sure I have the most affordable plan .... I'm not a fan of big government ordinarily, but I have noticed that my relatives that work for the government have good, worry-free insurance. Bring it.

Fish on Fridays and pancakes on Fat Tuesday! Obvious I guess ... what I think are weird are the lamb cakes some people serve on Easter. It just always seems weird to see someone slicing a cake shaped to look like a lamb (iced with coconut frosting.)

I live in NY and for our family, we pay about $1,000 per month with a deductible of $11,900. We are self-employed, so no dental either, or vision. It is killing us. Of course we fund our HSA with pre-tax money, but the limit on that is $6k and change for a family. In NY, all ins. companies that sell here have for a long time had to take people with pre-existing conditions as long as they had continuous coverage. I have to admit I do resent the price increase for covering people's grown children, but of course I am in favor of making sure everyone can get coverage for all of their conditions.

Dear all, I have learned so much from these boards and I know I really need to start posting regularly. It is hard, though, being in the habit of just reading recommendations. This year, thanks to reading these forums, my ninth grader has been in a Red Wagon Tutorials class - bio - and it's perfect for him. My son does well with structure and clear expectations and non-negotiable deadlines. In the past, we tried a class at another online-class-provider, and it didn't work well for us. There was no year-long class calendar laid out, it was hard to tell how it was going to be graded, we didn't really know how far in advance to expect tests, etc. So what I'm asking is, if RWT is just the kind of thing that works well for my son, are there any classes at Pennsylvania Homeschoolers that might work well for him? I see their AP classes recommended often, but are they for kids who do well with less structure, and are better at organizing their own time? My son is bright, but needs a detailed syllabus and deadlines. Also, a general thank you for leading me to RWT and also to Art Reed. He has helped me solve some Saxon problems I was having in my homeschool due to using first edition Saxon and then trying to move students to the third edition Algebra 1. This is a bit all over the map! Have a great day, Jane

Thanks so much. I just bought six audio downloads for less than $27 total for all of them; plus video downloads of Museum Masterpieces of the Louvre and Secrets of Mental Math for about $10 for both. I barely ever post, which I'd like to change, and I thought I'd start by saying thanks!

thanks a lot, that's helpful ... I'm a little nervous about this!

Hi! I'm new too. I have a rising ninth grader as well as several more. I also have lurked here for years! May I ask how you like Biology Matters? I'm considering it for my ninth grader, along with the Chemistry and Physics Matters for a years-long concurrent study of the three major sciences. Have a great day.

Dear all, This is one of my very first posts although I have been reading these forums for a long time. I have read with great interest several threads about doing bio/chem/physics concurrently, and when I mentioned this idea to my 14-year-old, who is about to start 9th grade, he was very, very interested. I wonder if anyone can give me specific book recommendations, particularly for chemistry and physics books that would be appropriate for a ninth grader to start with who is just finishing up Algebra 1. I looked at the Singapore books - they look good to me but I guess I really don't know what I'm looking for. I've heard so many good things on here about Spectrum Chemistry, so I thought I might use that. I am embarrassed to ask this - what do you do for labs when you do science like this? I am very thankful for the schedules posted in the other threads. Best to you all.

Hello all. I have an almost 14-year-old starting high school in the fall and a 15-year-old with special needs who will also be starting homeschooled high school then. I have lurked on these boards for many years, learning so, so much. I have only posted once before and that was on the old boards! I look forward to being a participating member of this community. I have 7 children ages 3 to 15 and they are all homeschooled. I did a WTM-like curriculum for about 4 years, then did Seton for 3 years. I am unsure still of what exactly I will be doing for my sons this fall.