How Less Stuff Made My Children Happier: Thrifty Homeschooling

Jul 20, 2026 | Homemaking, Homeschool Tips and Support, Latest, Why Homeschool

My kids didn’t know we were “poor” until they were adults. I put “poor” in quotation marks because we never went hungry. We never worried about losing the roof over our heads. Our children were safe, loved, and well cared for. But money was definitely tight.

When I was pregnant with our third child, I left my career in human resource and payroll management to stay home. At the time, I was earning twice as much as my husband, who worked for a nonprofit focused on educational reform.

Financially, leaving my job didn’t make much sense. But we were happier, and the children thrived.

Sure, we had less money and fewer things, but we had more time together. We learned to make do with what we had, appreciate what we owned, and find joy in things that didn’t cost much money. Looking back now, I believe having less stuff actually helped make my children happier.

We Learned to Live Simply

Living on one income in a two-income world requires creativity and, quite frankly, hard work.

I cooked homemade meals and canned summer and fall produce to last through the year. We ate simple, inexpensive foods. I watched for sales and used coupons. Clothes came from garage sales and thrift stores. I even made homemade laundry detergent for a while.

The funny thing is, the kids loved thrifting. A trip to the thrift store wasn’t something to be embarrassed about. It was a fun adventure. You never knew what treasure you might find.

Perhaps more importantly, my husband and I never complained about being broke. We didn’t sit around wishing for a bigger house, newer cars, or more expensive things. We enjoyed the life we had. That matters.

Children take their cues from us. If we constantly complain about what we don’t have, they learn to feel deprived. If we appreciate what we do have, then they learn gratitude.

Comparison Wasn’t a Big Part of Our Lives

We didn’t watch a lot of television, so our children weren’t constantly bombarded with advertisements telling them what they needed to be happy. There wasn’t much social comparison in our daily lives, either. Our neighbors and friends weren’t wealthy. Many of our friends were Catholic homeschoolers like us. They often had larger families and were also living on one income in a two-income world. We were all making do together.

And I think there was great freedom in that. Our children weren’t looking around and wondering why everyone else had so much more than they did.

Like their friends, our children shared bedrooms. The three girls always shared a room. At one point, all four boys were in one bedroom, stacked in bunk beds. Eventually, we were able to split the boys between two rooms, but no one expected a private bedroom with a television and a bathroom of their own. That was simply our normal.

Homeschooling Didn’t Have to Cost a Fortune

We homeschooled on a budget, too. The public library supplied a good chunk of our homeschool books. I bought curriculum from used-book sites, and we actively shared books and resources with local homeschool families. If I owned a curriculum a friend needed, she borrowed it. If she had a book I needed, I borrowed hers.

We didn’t need every shiny new curriculum that came along. We didn’t need a perfectly decorated homeschool room. We needed good books, a library card, friends, and a willingness to be resourceful.

Some of my favorite homeschool memories didn’t cost anything at all.

We Focused on Relationships and Experiences

We were always on the go, but not in an expensive way. There were park days, homeschool co-ops, library days, pick-up sports, and nature walks. We went ice skating in our backyard in the winter and swimming at the public pool in the summer.

Our children had friends. They had adventures. They had time together.

When I look back, I don’t remember feeling that our lives were lacking at all. Sure, we didn’t have much money, but we were too busy living to notice.

That is one of the great lessons I took away from those years: children don’t need to be constantly entertained with expensive activities or surrounded by mountains of stuff. They need the people they love. They need time. They need places to explore and friends to explore them with.

We Had Fewer Things, but We Appreciated Them More

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that we had no toys. In fact, we probably had too many! Thanks largely to generous family members, we had more toys and stuffed animals than I could count.

So I would pack half of them away in the attic. Twice a year, I switched them out. Suddenly, the old toys felt new again.

Rotating toys kept the children from feeling overwhelmed and helped them appreciate what they had rather than taking everything for granted.

We also taught our children to take care of their belongings. Gratitude and stewardship go hand in hand. If something is a gift, you care for it. You don’t trash it because you assume another will magically appear the next day.

Thrifty and Cheap Are Not the Same Thing

One lesson we tried to teach our children was the difference between being cheap and being thrifty. Cheap is buying something simply just because it’s on sale, even if it won’t last. Thrifty means using your resources wisely.

Sometimes the thriftiest thing you can do is save for a high-quality item rather than continually replacing cheap ones.

For example, my husband enjoys smoothies, and for years I made him one every morning before he left for work. The problem was that we kept burning through inexpensive blenders. Eventually, I decided I wanted a Vitamix. We certainly couldn’t run out and buy one on a whim, so I saved for a couple of years.

More than 20 years later, that Vitamix is still going strong. And I used it for far more than smoothies over the years, including grinding wheat berries into flour! That purchase taught an important lesson: it is often better to own a few good things than a houseful of junk.

Waiting Made Things More Special

Because we couldn’t buy everything we wanted immediately, our children learned to wait. That isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I think one of the great downsides of modern life is the loss of anticipation. We see something we want, click a button, and the Amazon delivery guy drops it on the doorstep the very next day.

There is something special about waiting. It’s okay to save. It’s okay to budget. It’s okay to look forward to something for months, or even years. Waiting helps us decide whether something is truly important to us. And when we finally receive what we have worked and waited for, we appreciate it all the more.

Our children learned the difference between a want and a need. They learned to watch for a good price. They learned that wanting something doesn’t mean you have to own it today. Those lessons have served them well as adults.

Having Less Didn’t Mean Giving Less

Even when money was tight, my husband and I set aside money from every paycheck for the Church and for charity. We also gave our time. We volunteered for events and causes that mattered to us.

I think this was an important lesson for our children. Generosity isn’t something you put off until you have “enough.” If we wait until we feel wealthy before we give, we may never give at all. You can live simply and still be generous.

In fact, perhaps living simply makes generosity easier. When you are not constantly focused on acquiring more for yourself, you have more room to notice what others need.

What Happened When My Children Grew Up?

All of my children grew up to be frugal. Maybe one or two of them are a little more penny-pinching than they need to be, but that’s okay.

Not a one of them grew up to be materialistic. They appreciate good things. They know how to save. They know how to wait. They understand the difference between a want and a need. And they have generous hearts.

Most importantly, they know that the real prize in life is not stuff. It’s relationship. Relationship with God. Relationship with family. Relationship with friends.

You Don’t Need a Lot of Money to Live a Happy Life

I’m not going to pretend that financial struggles are easy. They aren’t. There were certainly times when I wished we had more breathing room in the budget. However, I would never trade the life we built together for a bigger house and a luxury car.

My children didn’t know we were “poor” because they didn’t feel poor. They were surrounded by siblings and friends. They had books from the library, adventures at the park, ice skating in the backyard, playing hide-and-seek with the neighbor kids, and parents who loved them.

They had enough. And, as it turns out, so did I.

As my dad would often say, eternity is forever; life here is short. The world will always try to convince us that happiness is just one purchase away, that our children need more things, and that we need more money before we can live a rich and meaningful life.

We don’t.

Less stuff can mean more gratitude. More creativity. More anticipation. More generosity. More time for one another. Focus on what really matters. That is where you will find the good life.

Post Script

When starting Homeschool Connections with Walter Crawford, it was important to us to keep our curriculum affordable for families like ours. That’s why we have Unlimited Access. For one low monthly price, families get access to hundreds of recorded, self-paced courses for the entire family.