Tap Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 I stopped homeschooling my son 5 years ago. I stopped homeschooling my daughter, 4 years ago. I still have a lot of materials to sell and I finally decided it was time. About 2 years ago, I sent boxes of items to a secondhand curriculum store and walked away with over $600. It was easily $1800 dollars worth of material, but I was just looking for a quick way to clear out some boxes. We needed the room more than the money so it all went in one big swoop. Now I am selling off the rest. I still have boxes and boxes of materials that I am posting on Craigslist right now. (I don't sell online anymore, so it all will go on CL) It is the oddest feeling in the world. I knew it would bring up old feelings but wasn't expecting the feeling of disappointment being one of them. DD was home schooled 1st-5th grades and DS 5th-9th grades. At one point in time, I had everything we needed to home school K-12. I am getting rid of some well loved, high quality materials. I think back about the education my daughter has had in private and public school and it makes me sad to think about all the quality materials we had at our disposal...that went unused. I know she is happier in traditional school, but man....what a waste. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happi duck Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 (Hugs) We're finishing up our last year and I'm struggling with looking back and only seeing what we didn't do. :( (Hugs) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 I still have some expensive things I know i couldn't recoup the cost of. Looking at them makes me so sentimental. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 FWIW, those of us who have graduates have similar feelings. I bought things I never used, things that were an utter bomb. A friend of mine who homeschooled through 8th grade and has graduates wants to get together this summer so that we can list things together. We'll probably cry in our coffee too! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 Such a timely post. Hubby just reminded me that we had more books on a bookshelf next to his chair... I literally just finished putting them on the Classified section here. Such memories. (sigh) And life goes on. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
applethyme Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veritaserum Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 My kids are going to school this fall. I plan on selling off all but my very favorites (just in case anyone comes back to homeschool). I feel lots of conflicted feelings. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 I had many of those same feelings when my sons graduated and we were done. I had such an emotional response to touching some of those books. One thing that helped me tremendously was picturing the person who would buy this from me or the second hand homeschool shop--what delight she would have in getting such fine material for such a low price. ;) I grew to love 'blessing' those future purchasers. I continue to hope she had better luck with some of those programs than I did. lol 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRAAB Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 I'm in the process of boxing up all the material I have for elementary and middle school as my twins start high school this fall. The only thing saving me from getting depressed over it is my oldest asked me to save my curriculum and books for her dd. I will be so happy to pass some of my treasures on to my granddaughter. I used to feel like the end would never come; now it is only 4 years away, and it feels too soon. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merry gardens Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 Are you getting rid of all of it? Why not keep a couple of those well-loved items? You could set a few things aside for a while, get rid of the bulk of the materials, and then after a period of time, see if you want to keep or sell those few remaining items. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twigs Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted June 5, 2015 Author Share Posted June 5, 2015 Are you getting rid of all of it? Why not keep a couple of those well-loved items? You could set a few things aside for a while, get rid of the bulk of the materials, and then after a period of time, see if you want to keep or sell those few remaining items. That is really a sweet sentiment, but it is time. When I sold the first bit to the curriculum store, it was an entire trunk full of boxes. I don't just mean a few items stuffed in boxes, it was an Entire trunk full. I still have 36 boxes of books to go through. My kids were in private school before we home schooled, so I had a huge budget each school year. I could buy pretty much what ever I wanted, and still didn't come close to what I would have paid in tuition. About 10 of those boxes are curriculum. Plus I have a Billy bookcase half full of math manipulatives and another full of science materials. I have 12 items/lots on CL right now and that is about the equivalent of 3 boxes. LOL ONLY 7 more to go. I plan to sort through the readers and put some in lots according to approximate years, but plan to whittle it all down to completely gone by late fall. I figure I need to get off my duff and get it posted if I want to sell it! LOL It is just so much... that I can't get sentimental. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lolly Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 Just graduated my last. We have been renovating our basement, and I just put all our school books on shelves in the basement so that I could know what I had to sell them somewhere. They look so nice on the shelves that I'm tempted to just keep it all! That would really be a waste though. Of course, last time I sold materials I probably ended up on the negative end because shipping costs are so high. Maybe I would be better off just keeping them... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa in Australia Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 :grouphug: :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 I had many of those same feelings when my sons graduated and we were done. I had such an emotional response to touching some of those books. One thing that helped me tremendously was picturing the person who would buy this from me or the second hand homeschool shop--what delight she would have in getting such fine material for such a low price. ;) I grew to love 'blessing' those future purchasers. I continue to hope she had better luck with some of those programs than I did. lol This is exactly the method I use and recommend whenever letting go of things that are more emotional to release. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrincessMommy Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 I got rid of almost everything several years ago. However, I just can't let go of the phonics program that I used with all 6.... cannot.let.go. There were several items in the "never used" pile. Those had zero sentimental value so it was actually pretty easy to let it go. I knew that holding on to any of it for any length of time would continue to decrease any minimal value it had as a used item. I'm pretty pragmatic sometimes :closedeyes: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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