When I first started charging, I called several local-ish tutoring agencies (Huntington, Sylvan, Kaplan, etc.), and asked THEIR rate. I then figured out what MY rate would be, and am comfortable justifying that to parents. When I want to tutor for a fellow homeschool family, I share my "friends and family" rate (less than my normal rate if I LIKE them), and also sometimes offer to barter work-for-work. I have a handy list of things I'm willing to barter for, and while it doesn't always work, it's worked often enough that I'm willing to keep it going. 😉 (Examples: dinners for my freezer, piano lessons, a truck full of apples, local co-op classes like gym and career exploration, etc.). My tutoring completely funds our educational expenses, and I've been VERY thankful for it as a part-time gig over the years. Good luck!

I nearly drowned myself multiple times trying to get the hang of a neti pot (with basic saline), but when a friend hooked me up with the squeeze bottle version, I was good to go. Regular rinsing is annoying, but significantly cuts down on sinus congestion (both as a cure and as a preventative, IME), bloody noses (wood stove = dry air), and even common colds. ETA: Oh, sorry, I read this wrong and missed the part about ears - I still think regular rinsing helps stave those things off, but - YMMV, of course.

Thank you for this thread. It's been a dream-come-true for me that my kids have passed / are passing me - this has been our GOAL, but it does beg some questions at the practical level! ❤️ I love you people.

Now I wish we lived in NC. 😉 We have some DE courses open to us inexpensively, and they DO transfer to the state U, but - they're online and not universally high quality, which complicates the decision-making. Hmmm. THANK YOU to all of you chiming in here - other "real" experiences (in this thread and multiple others) are very helpful for those of us trying to figure this out.

I'm not the poster you're referring to, but my guess is that this is a 5-year bachelor's-plus-master's program.

I *SO* appreciate your writing this all out; THANK YOU. I don't have people IRL that I can talk to about this, and I feel like the answers I get from college UG admissions people are not the full picture (i.e., they don't take family long-term finances into consideration, or siblings). Thank you! We have a couple of academically-minded kids who are mildly interested in several different options, but don't feel super strongly about any 1 option. They're not going to have a lot of cash for college, and I want to be wise with advice to them, and feel like the "next step" is incredibly complicated. I'm reading here, studying, taking notes, asking around, doing due diligence of my own, but still feel inadequate to advise them. I appreciate the wisdom. (We're starting the CLEP process through Modern States as we wrap up this semester, just using the CLEP as a post-course bonus test. No downsides to that, right? Maybe?)

The Avion My Uncle Flew

Yes, that's the same "take-away" I'm getting from it, but I have 4 who are likely college bound and NOT enough cash-in-the-bank to fund 4-8 degrees, kwim? I'm curious as to the receptiveness of important graduate schools to the degrees from those "Big 3" and have zero real life experience / people with experience to ask.

Has anyone else read Homeschooling for College Credit? I bought it and read it and am QUITE intrigued.

Non-candy items that would fit that description and be very welcome here: quality socks, specialty-type popcorn, a travel mug, hat (warm beanie OR ballcap), game (card game / small board game / dice game), new pens or art-markers, flashlight (solar rechargeable?), other camping gear (like a "gearline" or cookset or shovel / tool / carabiners / rope / paracord), a movie ticket, fishing "stuff", gloves, camping food, army guys / Legos (other kids may be too old for this, but they're still quite welcome by my 14DS), wallet, good scarf (we live in a cold climate, LOL)

For younger kids (not your teen DS), the EcoTarium is pretty cool. And our whole family still collectively mourns the closing of the Higgins Armory. We like the Worcester Art Museum, and if there's a "Brown Bag Concert" going on at Mechanics Hall (long shot, I know), those are pretty fantastic! If you do visit Mark Twain's house in Hartford, Harriet Beecher Stowe's house is right across the parking lot (if your DS is into history or architecture at all). And the Cabelas in Hartford has a huge bargain cave, though you likely have opportunities like that closer to home, LOL.

Yep, we do the same! We have made them from old socks, but now we all have "fancy" ones made from flannel / cotton fabric: just sew a small pillow, fill it 1/2 with cheap rice, and sew it shut. We occasionally add a drop or two of scented oil just for fun. An added bonus when the kids were small was that they would hold their feet on the hot rice socks at night, and keep really still, which made them fall asleep REALLY fast, haha! We have taken these in the car before, too. Once you GET warm, it's easier to KEEP warm.

Here, our schools have "CBE" - Competency Based Education, which essentially means that until the kid has learned > 85% of the tested material, (s)he doesn't advance. At the practical level (state online charter school), it means kids have virtually unlimited chances to re-try homework (not tests, though). We are not bound to do what the local schools do, of course, but it's informative to realize what's going on. For my own kids, the motivation / reason she's missing them would factor in to how many times I'd re-set the problem. If a student is using the HW problems to actually learn the material, it's not grade inflation to re-set them as many times as needed . . . that's what she needs to learn the material! If a student is re-doing HW problems until HW grades are 100% in order to off-set a lower test grade average, then that might indicate that she doesn't actually know the material, and WOULD (in my opinion) be grade inflation. (That's assuming kid doesn't have any special problems connected with testing in general.) $.02

"Make a lab" (for robot / inventions / even a way to have 1-2 like-minded friends come "invent" stuff with him? Like his own private MakerSpace? 3-D printer?

I'm an English teacher, and the only thing we did until 4th grade was read together & love books. They're teens now who love to read (though I don't mean that's the best plan for everyone; just, that - for some - it's a lovely, full-scale, appropriate, dear foundation for reading). ❤️