Episode 9: How Much Does Homeschool Actually Cost? (Plus the Scholarship Most Families Miss)
You're listening to Episode 9 of Modern Homeschool. Today we're tackling the question I get most: how much does homeschool actually cost? I'm walking you through our real Year 1 budget (under $1,000 for the whole year), where to save, where to splurge, AND a deep dive into the Florida Personalized Education Program scholarship, about $8,000 per child per year that most families don't know exists. Plus a non-Florida segment so everyone walks away with something. My mission is to help modern families homeschool with structure, flexibility, and a life they love, so let's get into it!
Episode Highlights:
1. The honest Year 1 breakdown: curriculum, supplies, apps, field trips, co-op
2. Where to save and where to splurge
3. What the PEP scholarship is and how it works
4. Who qualifies for PEP and how the ESA reimbursement model works
5. How to apply for PEP through Step Up For Students
6. ESA programs in other states: where to look
7. The under-$200 ideal Year 1 starting place
Resources Mentioned:
FREE Homeschool Weekly Planner: https://www.chantymacias.com/weeklyplanner
Getting Started With Homeschool Guide: https://www.chantymacias.com/guide
Step Up For Students PEP: https://stepupforstudents.org
AAA Scholarship Foundation: https://aaascholarships.org
Disclaimer: I'm a homeschool mom sharing what we did and what I've learned. I'm not a financial advisor or a legal advisor. Verify scholarship program details and your state's requirements before making decisions for your family.
HSLDA State Laws: https://hslda.org/legal
Khan Academy: https://khanacademy.org
Connect with your podcast host:
https://www.instagram.com/chanty.macias
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Hey, hey. Welcome to Modern Homeschool, the podcast where families thrive together by learning how to create a life of freedom, connection, and education that actually works. If you're curious about homeschooling, thinking about starting, or already in the thick of it and wondering if you're doing right by your kiddos, you're in the right place.
I'm your host, Chanty Macias, and here we talk about real-life homeschooling for modern families and creating a life around your family first, because homeschool isn't just school at home. It's a whole new way of living and learning. Let's do this.
I'm gonna start this episode with just one word. Ready? Money. How much does homeschool actually cost? Can a regular family afford it? What if you only have one income? What if you have three kids? What about the scholarships you keep hearing whispers about, and are they real? Today, I'm gonna give you the most honest, no-fluff breakdown I possibly can. So I'm gonna walk you through what we actually spent in our first year of homeschool, which came in under $1,000 and I'm gonna share where I saved and where I splurged. And then, because this is one of the biggest secrets in the homeschool world, especially here in Florida, I'm gonna talk to you about the Step Up for Students PEP Scholarship that pays approximately $8,000 per child for homeschool families.
Here's a quick disclaimer up front. I'm a homeschool mom sharing what we did and what I've learned. I am not a financial advisor or a legal advisor at all. Scholarship programs change. The dates change. The information changes. So you wanna make sure that you verify everything for your situation before you bank on it.
All right, let's get into the numbers. I'm gonna give you our real-life year one breakdown, okay? Not what it could be in theory, what it actually was for our family. For curriculum, we spent about $350. For year one, I'm considering this year one because this was the first year that was third grade that I pulled her out of public school, but I have homeschooled before during the preschool years, so just so you kinda get an idea.
For year one, I only bought two core subject curricula: language arts and math. That's it. Everything else we pulled from the library, from YouTube, we got free PDFs, and we got some wonderful resources from our lovely teacher friends who were kind enough to share their resources with us. Two solid curricula at about three hundred and fifty total got us through the entire year. A pro tip you'll hear me say again and again, don't buy curriculum for every subject.
You don't need it. The library has a science book for every theme on Earth. History, you have read-alouds, Art, there's a ton of directed drawing and YouTube tutorials and so many printable materials. For music, you have Spotify or Amazon Music and a bunch of free curricula also. Your money only needs to cover the subjects where the structure of a curriculum actually pays off, and for elementary, that's almost always just math and language arts, maybe even reading, unless you're getting free things from the library like we do. Supplies came in at about $100 total. Now, these are binders, paper, construction paper, pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, glue sticks, um, a few whiteboard markers, sticker rewards, and a small bin for organizing.
I did not buy a laminator because I already had one for my classroom, and honestly, I've been leaning back on laminating everything, and it's just felt so freeing. We're, we're obsessive laminators, teachers. All right. I did not buy a custom desk setup because we already had one for my office desk, and we occasionally use our kitchen table or the sofa and a small bookshelf in the corner. If you already have school supplies from a previous year, your number will be even lower here. All right, for apps and online platforms, we spent about $100. This is not taking into account the Outschool program because I got this paid through the scholarship, which we will talk about more in a bit. But we did use a handful of paid online tools. Some were seasonal, so we only used them for a few months, and then we dropped them, or we just left it as is. The total across the year averages out to about ten dollars per month, and with only ten months of teaching and homeschooling, it came out at about a hundred dollars.
For field trips, museum visits, library activities, those came in about a hundred and fifty dollars. So we do something out and about almost every single week, and this is not counting our Disney days. But some weeks it's free, like library story time, a state park with a free annual pass or just, you know, a free visit a homeschool nature meetup, things like that.
Some weeks there's a small entrance fee, and some weeks we use the homeschool discount at a local museum. A note for my Florida besties, if you have an annual pass to any of the parks or the attractions, that becomes a huge part of your field trip line item without costing anything extra. Disney Wednesday is basically free for us because the pass is already paid for and the scholarship covers hers. Yay! I'm sure other states have their own version of this too, so find yours. Co-op and extras came in at about 250, rough estimate. This year we joined a homeschool co-op, for more socialization. It cost about 250 each month, but we were only there for a few months, so if you're not in a co-op, this line item could be zero for you. So the total came out to about 950. That's our real year, just under $1,000. Some less, some more. But for an academic year of homeschool with consistent learning, weekly field trips, online platforms and a co-op, that's not terrible. Could you do it for less? Absolutely. I know plenty of families that are doing it for about 200 to $300 a year with just library books and Outschool.
Could you spend more? 100% , of course. And honestly, most new homeschool moms accidentally do this because they buy too much in year one, and we're gonna talk more about that in a couple of weeks in our bonus episode. But under $1,000 for a quality first year, totally doable. That's a real number so after four years of doing this, three in homeschool and one in third grade, here's what I'd tell you, okay? I'm gonna give you some things to save on and some things that you can splurge on. For save on, you wanna save on most extra curricula, like science, history, art. Your library and YouTube are absolutely golden for this.
Save on Pinterest perfect storage setups. You can get bins from the dollar store, and they're gonna work just fine. Save on anything trendy that you might have seen on Instagram, 'cause you're gonna give it a month, and if you still want it, then you could just revisit it. And if you don't, drop it. Save on brand-new curriculum at full price.
You're gonna wanna check your Facebook Marketplace and any other homeschool swap groups or used homeschool sales, garage sales. You can find some really great current year curriculum for 40 to 60% off. And save on the laminator. Trust me, you're gonna want to laminate everything, and then you're gonna be like, "Why on earth did I do that? It keeps changing." Trust me, you don't really need it. Splurge on these things. Your two core curricula. Get really good ones that fit your child's learning style. This is the foundation, okay? Splurge on one quality online platform if your child loves it. That could be Outschool, IXL whatever fits Splurge on a real library setup. A sturdy bin or a bookshelf for current materials is gonna be great. And splurge on experiences, field trips, museum passes, memberships. These are the parts of homeschool that you will both remember, or all remember if you have multiple kids. Don't spend money on aesthetics. Spend your money on access to good materials, to great experiences, and to the curriculum that fits your kid or kids and that they absolutely love.
Okay, Florida besties, lean in. Here in Florida, there's a scholarship called the Personalized Education Program, the PEP. It runs through Step Up For Students and the AAA Scholarship Foundation. The state of Florida has approved both of these as scholarship funding organizations. PEP provides about eight thousand dollars, give or take per K to twelve child per year through an education savings account. So you can use it for curriculum, online classes, tutoring, in structural materials, hybrid school programs, and so much more. Now, the reason I say about eight thousand dollars is because they have a bracket for each county in the state of Florida. So if you're, a pre-K through third grader in Marion County, you're going to get a different amount than if you were in Miami-Dade County or in Osceola County. If you're a fourth through twelfth grader, you're also gonna be in a different bracket by county. They allocate a certain amount of money per county, per child, depending on your grade level. About eight thousand dollars per child every single year. Let's talk about who's eligible. K-twelve Florida residents who are not enrolled full-time in a public or private school. This is open to any household income, regardless of how much you make. The first priority is given to families with household incomes at or below a hundred eight-five percent of the federal poverty line. You don't need to memorize this. If you go on their website, you will see it. It gives you all the information there. It's wonderful.
The state of Florida can fund up to a hundred and forty thousand students for the twenty twenty-six/twenty twenty-seven school year. So how do the funds work? The first one is a reimbursement program. You pay for the curriculum, the supplies, the tutoring, whatever it is first out of pocket. Then you submit a reimbursement request online through their program. Step Up or AAA pays you back from your ESA account. Reimbursements can take between two to eight weeks, sometimes up to sixty days during peak times. The second option is they have a marketplace that already has so many vendors. You just click on their marketplace, and you can order anything you want from right there. It'll pull out the cash directly from your account, so you don't even need to put any card or any information, and it'll get shipped right to your door. So what can you use this for? Curriculum, online learning platforms, instructional materials, tutoring, hybrid school enrollment, educational therapies, approved educational equipment, like museum passes, tickets, entrance fees. The list is so genuinely long, and they have a wonderful, really helpful handbook that tells you exactly what is an approved category. To receive the PEP scholarship, you do need to officially withdraw your child from the public school system. You can't have your child enrolled in a public school system and receive the PEP scholarship. They are very strict about this, and that's the only way that you will be able to receive the funding to cover all of these things.
So you can't be dipping into both pots, okay? Now, you do need to also submit what's called a student learning plan. It's like a quick checklist that you click on each button and say specific categories or academic skills. What is your child really great at? What are you satisfied with as far as their progress? What areas can they improve on? You're going to make sure that they take some form, you get to pick and choose, any form of annual standardized testing just so that they can see the progress, and you're gonna get a certified teacher at the end of the school year to review either the portfolio or their standardized test and check off on whether they are able to continue to the next grade or not. So how to apply. Go to stepupforstudents.org, and I'm gonna link this in the show notes also. The twenty twenty-six twenty-seven application opened in January twenty twenty-six. The priority deadline for the twenty-six twenty-seven school year was April thirtieth, but applications stay open throughout the year as long as funding is available. To be considered for PEP, students need to hit the Accept Scholarship button on their application by May thirty-first, twenty twenty-six for the twenty-six twenty-seven year. If you're listening to this in real time in June twenty twenty-six, and you didn't yet apply for this upcoming school year, you can call Step Up directly. Ask about the current funding status. Don't assume you're too late just because you missed the priority date. There's also a related scholarship called FESUA, and that's the Unique Ability Scholarship. This is for students who are three to twenty-two years old with specific diagnosis, and that one averages about ten thousand dollars a year and for students with severe disabilities. It can be significantly more. If you have a child with a diagnosis, look into that one too So if you're not in Florida, here's what to look for. Florida isn't the only state with a scholarship or an ESA program for homeschool families anymore. The school choice movement has been moving incredibly fast across this country. Now, I'm not gonna list every state and amount because honestly, the policies are changing month to month and we'd just go nuts. But here's what you can do. Google your state name plus Education Savings Account Homeschool, or ESA Homeschool, or Homeschool Scholarship. Check if your state has a school choice or universal ESA bill that passed recently. States that currently have some form of ESA or scholarships for homeschool families include Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, West Virginia, Utah, and a handful of other ones. Verify your state directly, okay? The HSLDA website also tracks legislative updates by state. It is an excellent resource. The funding landscape for homeschool is widely better than it was even three years ago. So if you've been writing off homeschool because of money, please go look at your state today before you decide. You may be surprised.
If scholarships are not available to you and your budget is tight, here's your really scrappy starting place, okay? Year one for under two hundred dollars. One solid language arts curriculum, like Christian Light Education, is around fifty dollars for the whole year. One math curriculum, like Math with Confidence or Math-U-See are around sixty dollars. A library card is free. Free PDFs from The Good and the Beautiful, if you like that one, it's completely free. Khan Academy, free. Local library store times and free events, free. State park and beach access, mostly free. That's it. That can absolutely be year one. Please don't let money be the reason you don't even ask the question.
Quick recap. We covered today year one with weekly field trips, two solid curricula, a co-op, and online tools that came in just under one thousand dollars for our family. Save on extra curricula and aesthetics. Splurge on core curricula, one online platform, and experiences. Lots of them. Florida families have a PEP scholarship through Step Up For Students, which provides about eight thousand dollars per K to twelve child per year. Apply at stepupforstudents.org. Non-Florida families, search your state's ESA or homeschool scholarship programs. The landscape has changed so much, especially in the last two years. Even if scholarships are not an option, year one can absolutely be done for under two hundred dollars. The Getting Started With Homeschool guide is officially live! The guide is 12 chapters. It includes find your why, check your state laws, deschooling, your child's learning style, choosing your approach, setting up your space, starting with only two core subjects, choosing your curriculum wisely, our actual curriculum picks, which is golden, online learning app ideas, and your first week with a sample routine. Oh, and a portfolio plus record keeping. It's literally everything I wish someone had handed to me before we started in one super easy-to-use PDF that you can print, save, use digitally, and reference for years to come. Go to chantymacias.com/guide and the link is also in the show notes. So money is real, but it's also more solvable than most people realize. I hope today gave you actual numbers to work with instead of vague feelings about cost. If this episode helped you, will you please share it? Especially if you know a Florida mom who hasn't heard about PEP. So many families are leaving funding on the table that's literally meant for them, which is crazy. Next week, I'm especially excited about it because Laz is coming back on the podcast. Woo-hoo. And we're doing an episode called What Other Dads Ask Laz About Homeschool and How He Answers Them. So if there's a husband in your life, a hubby, who's been hesitant, uh, this is the one to share with them.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I truly love creating this space to support you on your homeschool journey. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love to connect with you. Come say hi on Instagram or TikTok and tell me what resonated and what questions you still have. I read every single message, and your stories help shape future episodes. And if you know another parent who's considering homeschool or needs encouragement, share this episode with them so we can support more modern homeschool families together. Remember, homeschool doesn't have to look like school at home. It just has to work for your family. See you in the next episode!