This is sort of a spin off from the "What do you wish new homeschoolers could know" thread. I found some of the comments encouraging, and some not at all. One of the less encouraging remarks had to do with the idea that "you can homeschool for free or almost free" is not realistic unless you spend massive amounts time and effort to do so (enough to be prohibitive to most people). Do you think that people are just trying to make homeschool seem accessible to lower income, or even downright poor families when it's really not?

Ketogenic diet is what works for me. Very low carb/ high fat. Everyone is different, but for me, eating smaller amounts, restricting calories, and weighing/ tracking food is miserable and ineffective. I can't eat carbs in moderation. When I take the carbs away I start eating less and feeling satisfied without trying.

Thanks, ladies. We are doing the McGuffey readers (that are viewable on the Easy Peasy all in one website) for the most part. I do read aloud knowing it's good in general, I was just wondering how it relates to them learning to read since reading aloud is so often mentioned when talking about getting a child to read.

That's pretty much my question... and forgive me if I sound dumb. Does reading aloud to a child help them learn to read? If anyone is able to explain, I'd be interested. I want to know how and why this works. We do read aloud, I'm just curious. My oldest child is 6 so we haven't been doing official homeschool for that long. He does recognize a few words but isn't exactly reading yet. Getting him to read is probably my number 1 goal in homeschooling right now, because I know that it opens up a whole other world of a child being able to work more independently. Bonus question: if you are trying to get your child to learn to read and they aren't quite grasping it, how do you know if it's that you aren't doing it correctly or enough, or if they're not ready yet and you need to back off?

I have a bachelor's that I often wish I could take back for a refund. Going to college was something that I thought would lift me out of a hard life. I was a drug addict in my early adulthood and thought getting a degree was some magical key to a better life, so I dove into massive debt to get it (all the debt is still there, btw). I am now married and a fulltime SAHM earning no income. My DH is the sole provider and has no college degree at all. He works in pre-press/ print production. We live in a working class/ low income neighborhood. I often ponder how background, family of origin, life choices, life traumas etc have a sizable effect on standard of living, not just whether one is degreed or not.

My rotation is Sprouts, Costco, Walmart, Target, Aldi and a local salvage grocery store. I shop about 3 times a week. Storage is limited in our home and I have 3 small children including a toddler who make getting groceries a generally depleting experience, and they providing adequate distraction to make me forget several items on my list.

Another who met my DH online here. On a Christian dating website. And my DH is not a weirdo, LOL. He's actually the first guy I ever went out with from a dating website. We actually had mutual friends (a married couple) but for whatever reason our paths didn't cross. I have been involved with far more weirdos in real life. It's not 1993 anymore, there are more than just weirdos on the internet. But I do think the internet provides an inherent way to more easily sneak around if one is so inclined.

I read the last couple of posts and I don't have time to articulate myself fully at the moment but thank you so very much, ladies, for taking the time to post. Suffice it to say, on the verge of tears. Touched. And yes, I am a praying woman and a Christian woman. I've been praying that our situation would improve long and hard. DH and I have young kids but we got a bit later start and are not all that young. It feels sometimes like I've wasted too much of my life praying for things to change and get better. Sometimes I wonder if part of my/ our family's mission on this earth is to never see any real improvement to our circumstances and still say that God is good. Maybe it's to show that loving him and following him is not based on getting what you want in life. But I guess it's all relative. I would just about kill for a nice, safe, clean home, merely an average income and a means to be free of our debt (incurred out of stupidity that I would go back in time and change if I could). But instead I get things that money can't buy like well adjusted children when I was anything but as a child. I believe truly that God can do anything he wants, in the most unlikely of circumstances. Still I must admit it is hard when I see how sin and reality plays out. I cannot think of anyone I have ever met or gotten to know who's improvement in circumstances didn't seem traceable back to some big advantage in life that DH and I do not have. For example, people may take for granted that they were raised in a Christian home, and/ or in an in-tact home and/ or have some level of family support system. Not having these things... I won't go into gory details but a snapshot of my growing up years included watching my mom's drug crazed boyfriend try to strangle her with a telephone chord. Not having these advantages in life is no small thing, let me tell you. Our whole game plan (if you can call it that) is for the sin and mess to stop with our generation and not have it's tentacles in our children. Just no. It's going to stop with us. I don't care what I have to do... how hard it has to be, how pitiful our standard of living has to be, how we may do all this deep, legacy changing work in a small nasty rental in a sketchy neighborhood. I'm determined, and I see the big picture, but like I said, it's hard to keep my spirits up in the day to day. So thank you for the insights and ideas. And thanks for letting me be real and post what I'm really dealing with.

Thank you so much for the input again, everyone. I am sorry about being so negative. I am also sorry if this thread is out of place in this category... to me it really seems like a lot of the struggle is due to wanting to lead a homeschool lifestyle, even if my kids are very young. Other people with my circumstances often use daycare, preschool, and of course school (my oldest would be starting 1st grade). I read about a big study that says moms who work are less stressed and depressed across the board, even if they are working just to barely cover the daycare expense that allows them to work (amazingly). And the numbers are even more dramatic for low income women -- meaning they are consistently more stressed/ depressed when being an at-home mom. But anyway, as negative and defeated as I can sound sometimes, I think I try to do a pretty good job of making our home and life as pleasant as possible. I use simple things like music to break up the day and lift our moods. My kids diet is not the best but I do prioritize getting protein and good fat into them. When DH gets overtime it helps to have a few bucks to do things, even if it makes it harder because I'm alone more. We also do get a decent tax return and I think we should figure out ways to use it more strategically to help me throughout the year. We end up using it on things that we normally can't pay for like furniture, or paying credit card debt that we racked up buying gas and car repairs to get by in tough times. But I was thinking maybe we could use it to get passes to the zoo or something next time, gas cards, etc and be strict about splitting them up evenly throughout the year.

I'm coming back here to read the responses because I am having a tough time today. Often times, like today, I cannot come up with enough things to just plain occupy my kids in a good way. "Doing school" takes a small portion of our day since my kids are 6 and under. Then we have these seemingly endless stretches during the day. Going on a walk in this neighborhood is not very safe or pleasant, like I mentioned. Weather is still in the mid 90's every day where I live and I can't handle sitting outside at the park in that heat. Signed up for the only homeschool meet-up I could connect with and the vast majority of the events are far away where all the homeschoolers live, and/ or require some type of money spending (brunching at a restaurant etc)... even if it's a parking fee for a museum, it's still grocery money for us. I often feel suffocated and on the verge of tears during the day in times like this. My kids just fight, cry, whine, and flop around the house acting bored and begging for shows and videos which I too often agree to (Netflix or youtube, we don't have cable) just so they'll be quiet. Someone mentioned making the best of our circumstances and I'm just not sure how to do that. I don't know how it's possible to have these high minded ideals of, for example, "no screen time" etc. We would lose our minds without screen time each day. But besides high minded ideals... just how to get through the day occupied with reasonably beneficial things. I have no idea. What gets me is the heavy feeling of failure every day. I can honestly say that I feel like I'm doing a decent job maybe 1% of the time. I have an almost non-stop anxiety about ruining my kids lives. And it seems like people (not referring to anyone here) think they would have the strength, wits and determination to make the best of a situation like this (being at home full time with small children, aiming to homeschool, skimming the poverty line, living in a beat down neighborhood where you can't even take a walk etc) but I don't see anyone but me trying to do it. Maybe I'm crazy and stupid. We don't make enough money to be "normal" in any way. And I have heard the lectures about how well off we are compared to people in 3rd world countries... it doesn't help, especially coming from people who make 3+ times our income and/ or who aren't massively in debt with no assets (home owners as opposed to a cr*ppy rental, livestock, spacious property for the kids, a garden etc) at all. These are real things that are hard in real life. But I do get caught up wondering if I'm a hopelessly negative person. I am a Christian, and I know the value of contentment. I also get tired of hearing about contentment from people who I wish would just say "That's a hard situation to be in." or something along those lines. Anyway, thanks for reading my ranting if you got this far.

It seems that a part of the problem of people wanting and not being able to lose weight is that the foods which are the cheapest, tastiest and easiest to prepare pack a lot of calories but little nutrition and satiation. That's been my experience anyway... in recent years something started going on with my body where "eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full" would only lead to weight gain. I could eat 8 pieces of toast (healthy whole grain) and just barely take the edge off my hunger-rage. Eating a very low carb/ high fat diet is what I found works for me to lose weight without being crazed with hunger, even though I feel guilty buying foods to eat that way since money is so tight. I could save money by buying less meat and more pasta and bread with the resulting overweightness that goes with how my body reacts to those foods... or I could be shaky and rage-y trying to restrict calories. It's a hard balance to achieve.

Sorry if I'm ranty, I'm just frustrated! Thanks for all your ideas, it's helped motivate me to make more of an effort. I'm going to keep working on this.

I googled health department for my city earlier and it just linked to the US health and human services website, which is a mass of bureaucracy. If anything, the ideas of tweeting and calling the media would probably get the quickest response, unfortunately. I have been trying with the appropriate avenues and no one is doing anything.

Spoke to the officer on the phone and got a speech about how there's nothing the police can do. *Sigh* He told me to contact code enforcement which I have been doing. Does anyone have a link to information that would allow us to put our foot down with the landlord? I mean, I am reluctant to cause a stink if we have no legal rights in that regard but I do want to know. We live in Texas. Certainly we want to move. No question about that. No one would live in this place unless they couldn't afford better and that's where we are.

Thank you everyone. I just called the non emergency police. Hadn't done that yet. Someone is on the way to talk to neighbor presumably... I don't know if this will help. I will update and move on to the next step if nothing comes of this.

Hi all, I am new here and have gotten some good support so far, so now I thought I'd run this by you all and see if anyone has insight for me. Basically our neighbor has left a massive pile of construction debris covering 30 feet of the sidewalk in front of our house, and it covers a portion of our front lawn. It's been there for over a month and there is some rotting animal carcasses going on in there from the smell of things. We've had heat that is no less than a high of 90 degrees lately during the day and the smell is traumatic. There are also rusty nails and jagged pieces of rotting wood poking out several feet in every direction. I have 3 children ages 6 and under. They cannot be out in the front of our house at all because of this situation. I have contacted everyone I know to contact, in particular the city code enforcement officer. Nothing has actually been done to remedy this situation. Here is what I see as a big part of the problem: we are renters in a low-income neighborhood (it is one of the ways we can afford for me to stay home and homeschool). Maybe our neighbor couldn't afford a dumpster service when he tore down the shed/ backhouse on his property. ( I assume he owns the home. We rent, as do most of the residents on this street. ) But at this point I am angry from having to sit here for a month being able to smell this death pile from inside my house so it's hard for me to think sympathetic thoughts toward my neighbor. We told our landlord, he seems to think he has no responsibility in the matter. We talked to the city, they are going to "fine him" until he does something about it, which, if you are poor and have bad credit anyway, who cares if you get fines. I called the illegal dumping hotline for my county. Nothing. Day after day nothing happens. What would you do, considering you have little to no money or resources and apparently no rights as a renter in a poorer community?

I appreciate all of your feedback. It really does help to know that others are out there who can say "It really is hard" instead of having this sense of failure wondering why it feels so hard to manage. I really do believe that it being hard is not an argument against doing it, namely homeschooling when you're drained with small children and low on resources. My problem seems to be that while I am solid on the big picture, it's the daily grind and tedium that can cloud my vision to where I can't see or care about the big picture. I need to prioritize finding ways to fill my tank, so to speak, so I can get through the days.

Thanks, SDmom in VA. Yeah... within the first couple weeks we moved into this current place there was a cop chasing a guy who hopped the fence and ran through our little backyard. I hope that one day we can laugh about these things but it's not funny right now because we are here because we can't afford anything else. Thank you to all of you too. I dug a little deeper and found a couple of what seem like free homeschool support groups not too far away. I contacted them and am waiting to hear back. I think it is probably true that having support will make a big difference to my sanity.

Thanks for this :001_smile: Maybe a big part of what feels so hard that my kids are little... well and that I have an older baby/toddler who is on a rampage daily. I know they do not need intensive homeschooling at their ages, but still, we are homeschool minded and we need things to be occupied with since we are here all day. Having little to no money to do things much of the time can make the days very long and tedious to get through. "Normal" kids who go to school get a good portion of their day filled. I worry that my kids are home too much, and it's just plain hard on me (being here all day every day). It's been suggested to consider regular school for my kids and I can see why people would say that. It's been suggested to me here and elsewhere. I don't really feel like I have a choice though. Like I mentioned, we feel strongly about the benefits of homeschool. Even if I felt like I had a choice I do not feel comfortable at all with our local school district. I think maybe I do need to be realistic about what can be accomplished in a day. Part of it is that I have this constant anxiety because we're low-income, we don't fit in in our neighborhood, we're homeschooling which makes us "weird", we have little support which all means I can't give my kids a "normal" life, and that with the daily chaos of living with small children who take much more than they give. I would really like a homeschool support group. I looked it up a few times and there are only a couple of pay-to-be-involved co-ops within reasonable distance to me. The couple of free homeschool support groups I saw are in the far-away suburbs. I'll keep looking though.

I understand that can be true for some people. For us homeschool is a superior choice and it's one of the few superior choices we're able to make. I just don't want to believe that homeschool is not for us because of our circumstances. It can just be really hard.

LOL I like that. We're kickin' it old school. That's really what I'm getting at... the mindset. Are we getting too big for our britches thinking homeschool is for us? I mean, we're dealing with cycle-of-poverty stuff. The kind of thing where everyone knows you're "screwed", and the best thing you can do is let your kids go to public school so they can have a break from your dangerous and depressing neighborhood. I just hope for better than that, even though the day to day reality can be very rough.

Thank you! I am in the US. I don't know anything about virtual charter schools. That's something to look into. I do know that we aren't allowed to do online public school/ K12 because in our state they require you to have been enrolled in public school previously to qualify.

Hi there. Not sure if this is where I should put this but here it goes... Basically I need help with staying encouraged about the homeschool life while hovering near the poverty line and having challenging circumstances. Hubby and I both feel strongly about choosing to homeschool our 3 young kids. We are a one income family (husband) and have lived on a low-income our whole married life. We currently live in (rent) a small, ill equipped home in a neighborhood where I do not feel comfortable walking down the street with my children (loitering adults drinking, trash everywhere, dogs running wild etc). If we lived in a decent sized home with adequate outdoor space it would help with the fact that we can't afford things like co-op, field trips, fancy curriculum, extracurricular activities like sports or lessons or whatever. But we are here a lot because it doesn't cost money to be home. We also have a baby who needs 2 solid naps a day which makes going places extra difficult even when I can come up with a cheap outting. I try to make the best of it. I use Easy Peasy All-in-one, and I try to come up with things for us to do, as well as encouraging the kids to have creative play times. We are trying to come up with ways to improve our situation, but sometimes life gives you hard choices to live with, and things don't always go as planned or hoped for. I do hope things will improve soon, but in the meantime here we are. Homeschooling is important to me. I feel like it's one thing I can do to actually improve my childrens' likelihood of having a better life than their parents (hubby and I have both come from difficult backgrounds as well as struggling to make a normal living now). I feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes though (kids fighting, all of us feeling cooped up etc). The idea of public school sound like a relief sometimes, and certainly it seems like we just can't afford these high ideals of homeschooling, but I do not like the reality of public school at all, especially living in a bad school district. Have you been there? What kept you going? Did things ever change? Were you glad you stuck it out? Am I ruining my kids' lives? How did you stay sane?