The Happy Homeschooler Podcast

As a homeschooling family, being organized is critical. Organization has to do not only with your space in your home: where you do your homeschooling and studying and where your materials are kept, but you also need to think about your records. Are you as organized as you want to be? Most people aren’t, so we’re covering tips and tricks for homeschool record keeping and organization.
Why organization is so important
You probably already know the answer to this, but if you’re not organized as a homeschooling family, you run the risk of losing information, being stressed, and scrambling when it comes time to compile all of your official records for college. Being organized saves you time and mental energy and probably creates a better environment to homeschool in.
Our tips to keep more organized as a homeschooling family
Have dedicated spaces: For where the schooling happens, for where your students keep their materials and work and for where you, as a parent keep your information.
Keep your materials and records together: Your student probably has binders or folders for each class (or if they don’t, they should!) so keep your information together too. Put materials for each course together and have something like a filing cabinet where you’re keeping records like grades for coursework.
New to homeschooling and not sure how to set up your spaces or get your materials and records organized? Pinterest is a great resource and will give you lots of visual ideas and links to articles for how to create your space and get organized.
Start how you want to end: you don’t want to scramble as your kids complete their college applications, so make sure you’re keeping track of things like grades and course titles from the beginning.
As your kids get older, they can take more responsibility over organization and record keeping, but even from early on, if your kids are involved in deciding how organization happens, they’re taking more ownership over the process and are more likely to follow through with it.
Use technology to your advantage: online spreadsheets and software programs like Transcript Maker can make your record keeping much easier, especially when it comes time to finishing up your transcripts to send to colleges.
Organization of your space and your records is important as a homeschooling family. Use these ideas to help you get more organized and check out the blog for more of our favorite tips for organization.
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College is an exciting time for students and you probably already know that the thoughts and plans for college start well before applications are sent in. One of the biggest considerations (and sources of stress) for families can be the cost of college. On this episode, we go over more than a dozen tips to help you and your student make college more affordable.
Remember that the costs are more than tuition
Even if you and your student are thoughtful about the college that they attend and saving for tuition, there may be costs you haven’t considered. Yes, there is room and board and books, but what about travel to and from campus (that could be car rides or flights), “fun money,” and other incidentals when you’re living on your own. Since college costs continue to climb, we rounded up our best tips to help make college more affordable.
How to Make College More Affordable
In our blog series, 36 easy life hacks to make college more affordable, we give you numerous tips related to planning ahead, saving money, and ways to live life more conscious of money to make college more affordable. On this episode, we chat about some of our favorites:
Graduate on time
Reject the party lifestyle
Don’t dismiss the value of a part-time job
Consider alternatives to a dormitory or campus apartment
Weigh price and value when evaluating schools
Buy used textbooks
Consider dual enrollment
Consider distance education
Apply for a high-school honors program and/or pursue scholarships
Take a hard look at your expected earnings from your degree—before you begin school
Test out of routine courses through CLEP
Find a cheaper smartphone plan
Brew your own coffee
Begin using a budget
Seek out experiences, not things
Most important of all—pay attention!
College is still a big investment, but these tips will help make college more affordable.
Resources Mentioned:Check out all 36 of our tips in the 6-part blog seriesSign up for a free trial of Transcript MakerJoin our newsletter for blog posts, tips, and more

Extracurricular activities are important for high schoolers as these activities help them develop personally and prepare them for future endeavors like college and beyond. An extracurricular activity is anything that isn’t required for graduation, so the options are endless when it comes to what is considered an extracurricular activity.
What activities should your teen pursue?
Allow your kids to consider what their passions are and find extracurriculars that align with those. They can look to existing clubs and activities, even if they’re traditionally considered for adults. Your student may be able to start their own club or chapter of an organization if they’re not finding what they’re looking for.
As a parent, you can help find the opportunities, or work with them to do research, for example, checking out local youth civic organizations, but allow your students to pursue their interests. This helps develop those interests and allows your child to become clearer on what they might like to pursue in college or for work. These activities also allow your students to become more well-rounded, which they can then show on their college applications. These activities are where students can set themselves apart from other applicants in the college admissions process.
Using extracurriculars for course credit
Even though these activities are taking place outside of school, there may be times where they can be used for credit. For example, a physics club might be used for a lab requirement and sport team participation could be used for PE. Be sure to check what your student’s requirements are and see where their activities may fit in- this is an extra benefit of these activities. So, your students’ extracurricular activities could show up on their transcript as extra activities or as part of a course!
Resources Mentioned:Learn more about civic youth organizationsSign up for a free trial of Transcript MakerJoin our newsletter for blog posts, tips, and more