Ideas to Help You Find Adventure in Your Homeschool Without Breaking the Bank

So you want more adventure in your homeschool, but everything is so darn expensive, especially if you have a large family. (Hello Disney tickets x7! There’s a good reason we’ve never gone.) What if I told you that you could find TONS of adventure for little to no cost at all? This isn’t about using credit card points or entering giveaways – it’s about shifting your idea of adventure and finding new things that you can do as part of your home education in a budget friendly way.

How We Used to Pay for Homeschool Activities

What didn’t work

In the first three years of my oldest child’s formal education we tried three different schooling options. While we wanted to home educate, the first thing we tried was public school for TK (transitional kindergarten here in CA). It didn’t take long to realize we should have stuck with our guts and home schooled. So for actual Kindergarten we enrolled him into a local homeschool charter. It was part of the public school system with a full campus and teachers, and his class would meet once a week for three hours to learn alongside their teachers. There were other activities, clubs, classes and field trips throughout the week that were optional, and this was a nice stepping stone for us as we gave homeschool a solid try. It didn’t, however, give us the flexibility to diversify our education the way we wanted. Without using out of pocket money, we were restricted to only what this little school was able to provide.

What did work, for a while

After that year I knew that the public homeschool charter campus still wasn’t quite what we were looking for. I wanted more freedom, and really I wanted assistance to pay for all of the classes and activities we wanted to do. Thankfully in CA we have a lot of options, and so we signed up with another charter school that had no physical location but did offer funding for each student to put toward curriculum, classes, passes to local museums/zoo/educational theme parks, and more. While there were some requirements on our end that I wasn’t fond of, they were worth it for the money that we were able to use on unique classes and experiences that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford. But as the years went on and the government cracked down on what the charter was and wasn’t allowed to pay for, and the testing and requirements on families became more stringent, we finally parted ways and opted to go it alone, sans funding.

The loss of funding worked with our travels (we’re no longer around all year to participate in many long-term commitment in-person classes), but it did also mean that we needed to focus on activities that would fit within our small budget. Many of these things we had already been doing, but since leaving the charter school we’ve made sure to implement more of these types of experiences to keep our weeks full and rich.

This is a list of many of the free or budget friendly things we’ve tried over the years and still find useful. I hope you find these helpful, or that they inspire you to come up with some creative ideas of your own. Happy budget homeschool adventuring!

Budget Adventure Homeschool Ideas:

Camping
- Don’t have gear? Try borrowing from a friend or your local Buy Nothing facebook group. Alternatively, some campsites offer cabins.
Hiking
- Try the AllTrails app to find hikes near you. Not sure whether you can hike with your kids? You can find lots of tips and inspiration here.
Nature play/local parks
Join homeschool group to find free activities and meetups
Entrepreneur fairs
- Your local homeschool group might host one of these
Church events
Save more expensive adventures for vacation/birthday
Take up inexpensive hobbies
- Hiking, mountain biking, bouldering, geocaching, whittling, etc. Even inexpensive at-home hobbies are a way to save the activity budget for bigger trips.
Buy year passes (national parks, state parks, zoo…)/look for coupons
Field trips
- Your local homeschool group may be able to get discounted passes to local events and places of interest. And ask around – some places offer free info sessions.
Travel in the off season
Boondocking
- This is camping outside of a campground. Know the area and whether you’re allowed to camp there. Try calling the local ranger station or using a camping app like Campendium. Alternatively, plan a camping trip in your backyard.
Pack your own food/meals/snacks
- This is a solid way to save a $50+ hangry family emergency fast food stop.
Geocaching
- This is a treasure hunting app. Best part, its completely free and there are hidden treasures everywhere!