Well, here it is. My very first blog post. People keep telling me to start a blog, so I finally did it. You can follow our adventures here as we begin a new chapter in our lives. In just a few short days, we will begin homeschooling our four children. Well, the "we" is mostly me, with my wonderful husband helping out as he is available. Now, you might be wondering how we got to this stage. After all, those of you that know me, know that we are not just beginning to homeschool a kindergartner. Oh no. I am starting with homeschooling a 7th grader, two 5th graders and a 3rd grader. So here is the short version of a much longer story about how we got to this point.
A long long time ago, in a county with very expensive schools, we went and looked at most of the local Jewish Day Schools. We chose one that we felt would best serve our eldest child. We figured that the others would just go to that school. At the time, we had 3 toddlers and a baby. So off he went to the school starting in kindergarten and all went fairly well. The following year, our twins joined him as they began pre-K. And two years later, another one joined those three. All of a sudden (well, we knew it was coming, but it is still a shock) we had a tuition bill that was over $60,000/year for four kids to attend elementary school. And then a few years down the road (actually right down the road from elementary school), we knew high school was looming which would cost us a minimum of $100,000/year for four children. Together, we make a good living, but not good enough to afford those prices and do other things, like maybe fix our roof, or buy a new oven, or you know, ever visit Israel. I mean, here we are, spending $60,000 to send our kids to elementary school, and in school and at home, they hear about Israel constantly. But we can not afford to take them there any time in the foreseeable future. Something is wrong with that.
So my husband and I sat down and had a long talk. I wanted to switch them to a cheaper school I had heard about but it was a bit of a shlep. He was not ready to do that. So the school year ended and we were presented with a new bill for the following year. This one was $62,000 for four children in elementary school (one of whom was in kindergarten). The new school year began and my husband and I sat down again to look at our finances. And suddenly, he saw what I was talking about. He agreed to visit a few other schools which were further away, but were more affordable.
I see that this is getting long, so I will end it for today. Stay tuned. I
