Many families feel that home education is unaffordable, because it often requires that one parent must give up their career in order to attend to education. The loss of a second income could make homeschooling unaffordable.

However, careful analysis shows that this is not necessarily the case. There are also costs associated with a second income, namely school fees, daycare, additional transportation, increased cost of food due to a lack of time to prepare food, etc. There are also opportunity costs, because being at home creates opportunities to start a business from home.

Property prices are also often inflated in areas where there are good schools. Homeschooling families can afford to buy less expensive properties in other areas. Places like Stellenbosch and Paarl are examples of sought after areas due to good schools. Such families can also save money by taking vacations outside school holidays, to name but a few.

If all these factors are taken into account, home education might be much more affordable than you think. Research done many years ago by what is now a well known American politician, Elizabeth Warren, has shown that families that live on one income are less likely to go bankrupt than families that live on two incomes. View a video on this at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pM3t-m0Zryk Although this research is not about homeschooling, it does address the perceived risk of choosing home education.

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