How much do you spend on homeschooling supplies each year?

[homesteadmamma]

Is it a frugal amount or do you spend lots of $$ in the purchase of your school supplies each year?

[guest2]

It's as frugal as I can get it! This year I'm praying that I can keep it at about $200 total for all 3 kids. I have to buy Apologia Biology and I'm hoping to find it used at a good price. My twins share a math book (Saxon Alg 2) and will do the same next year with their older brother's Saxon Advanced Math. We team teach and do co-op with several families, so we trade and share resources all the time. The library provided all we needed for Washington State History last year and for Unit studies in the past.

[sunshineib]

This is the one area that I don't try to scrimp on.
The first year we homeschooled, we decided in August which I believe is the most expensive month of all to try to find supplies. Well, September too.
The next year, I purchased everything in May and used the summer for special interest pursuits and organization time for me.
The same for the next year.
This year, I started shopping in March and purchased in April. We switched to Alpha and Omega curriculum for all of them and in April there were MASSIVE sales on all grade levels. The distributor that I purchased from said April is the most economical time to purchase from Alpha and Omega or Abeka and it seems his advice is true because I've watched the prices go up the past couple of months.
Usually I spend about $400, and in past years I've been buying for three children. This year I spent close to a thousand but I was purchasing for my four and another child who comes over frequently and I supervise him while his Mom works and she was reimbursing me-so about $200 per child. This does not include art supplies or anything extra.

[doodlebug]

We pay about $900 for ABeka's correspondence course which includes all student materials as well as teacher materials and videos. To us it is well worth every penny!