When I left the financial comfort of my family counseling practice to start homeschooling my three children, I knew I would have to find ways to conserve my dwindling educational funds...and that started with finding free homeschooling curriculum.

There are several printable free homeschooling lesson plans on the Internet, but seeing as how time is money, and therefore putting these lesson plans into a usable curriculum was anything but free, I decided to look for discounted homeschooling curriculum instead.

The absolute best two resources I found for lightly used complete homeschooling curriculum were eBay and homeschooling forums and support groups.

Forums and local support groups are great because you can talk with others who have already gone through what you are going through now...trying to design a plan of attack on what to teach your child.

Many forum users will gladly sell their lightly used but complete homeschooling curriculum to other members for a fraction of what they paid for it. You will also find these incredible deals at eBay as well.

I would advise, however, that you use these as guidelines and do not rigidly stick to the plans. Homeschooling is about freedom and preparing your child to go out into the real world, something traditional methods of education fail at miserably because of their rigid educational structure.

You are allowed to decide how to educate your child. You know better than anyone how your little one learns and absorbs information, so be flexible when putting together your homeschooling curriculum.

Use resources from the library, Internet and support groups and create a flexible, interesting method of education and your child will flourish and be much better prepared for college and beyond than any public school raised child could ever dream of.

I consider myself a bit of a veteran when it comes to educating my children and have become even better at finding inexpensive ways of putting together lesson plans that satisfy the governing bodies in my state as well as stimulate my children so they learn at a much quicker pace than other children their age.

We visit the museum, art gallery and even sporting events to find ways of learning and to interact with people of all age and gender groups. You can always find lessons in life and that sure beats sticking your children in a room for six hours a day with little or no interaction with their peers!

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