Rising Cost of Homeschool Curriculum

 I went to Mardel yesterday (a store with a large homeschool curriculum section) planning to purchase the next Handwriting without Tears workbook.  We were going to start the cursive workbook.

Almost twenty dollars for a simple workbook.  I remember when these same workbooks were eight bucks.

*sigh*

I looked at some of the other cursive curricula out there and they looked like a nightmare for a dyslexic kid.  One of them was like the size of a telephone book.  This was why I always used Handwriting without Tears.

Some of the homeschool curricula has become unaffordable in the past few years.  Mathusee, which we've used for years, has almost doubled in price.  It is now almost $400 for Algebra 1.  This is a shame, because it was my go-to math program for high school.  I can now no longer recommend that one to new homeschoolers.

I feel like I'm going to be forced to use different resources for my youngest (age 8) than I did 15 years ago for my older kids.  No wonder new homeschoolers are constantly asking for curriculum that is "free and online."

Homeschooling does not need to be overly expensive.  Of course, it's not free to homeschool.  Businesses need to be sustainable.  Educational expenses can be reasonable, though.  

I'm going to teach my 8 year-old cursive without a workbook or a curriculum.  I guess I'm going to start with lower case letters and just go through the alphabet.  I have the old Handwriting without Tears cursive chalkboards and chalk.  I'm going to use that and the dry erase board.  We can later move onto lined paper.

I'm sad that everything is becoming so unaffordable.