Ebay is a wonderful place to get products to use in your homeschool, and to sell products you are done using or didn't use. I purchase things for my children's education mostly from ebay. This guide is written from that experience. So whether buying or selling, I hope you find some useful information here.

Buying:

So you would like to save money on your home school curriculum! Buy on e-bay and save.  I very seldom buy anything new, if I can find it used. This saves my one income family a lot of money, plus I don't have to take my children out shopping (ha ha ha). It really has been a blessing from our Lord that I am able to afford books off ebay sales. Without auctions I don't know if I could afford homeschooling. I hope it helps your family to.

What should you know?

The most important thing that you should be aware of is what the price of the item costs new. If the item costs $12.95 retail-new, and the shipping for the item off of e-bay is going to be $3.95 then you wouldn't want to bid more than $9.00. If it is a used item, you wouldn't even want to bid that much. So if someone is fighting you on bids, let it go at about $5.00. That way you would not pay more than $8.95 for the item used. You can see the difference.

Also watch out for "buy it now" deals that sometimes will ask the price of the item brand new from the store. Unless you know the seller from past experience, you don't know for sure what "new" really is. READ THE TEXT CAREFULLY. The seller should let you know of any wear and tear, writing (no matter how minut) and ripped or bent pages. These things should all be listed.

One thing I personally hate, is when I order a "like new" book that comes with stickers from a school or public library on them. If the seller does not let me know that the sticker is there, I tend to be crabby when I recieve a book that has two or three stickers. This doesn't cut the performance of the book in my home school (obviously) it just makes me feel a little mislead. Usually you can notice these in pictures however, so look with a magnifying glass if you need to.

Searching for home school books can be overwhelming, time consuming, and sometimes even hard. In the new search box you need to try different searches. Try: grade ____ (fill in the blank), home education, home school, school, text books, christian school, study (what you are looking to study, such as astronaut study).

Of coarse you would want them to send you an invoice via e-mail, and then you will need to save and print a copy for your taxes. Home schooling is tax deductible.

Another thing that helps, if you are interested in buying the book, but want more information on what the book is about, look it up at the publishers or another new book site. Read all about it and then you will know. Or look for reviews on-line!

Selling:

If you are selling homeschooled items, I suggest selling things in a set. For instance, don't sell your BJU student book seperate from the teachers book. I believe you will get more for the set. Personally if I bid on something like this and won one auction and not the other I would be upset because now I have to waste more time tracking down the other book or I won't be able to use the first one!!! I am also willing to spend more on a "lot" of books than I am purchasing them singally. This works great to sell a whole "unit study" you have put together and used with your children. Mothers love to have everything all put together already, maybe adding an extra item or two. This saves them time of running around trying to find it all. When your child outgrows their books, why store them? Clean off your shelves and make space for more. Help pay for new books. Help out another home schooling family, and when they are done using them, maybe they can help out another family, and so on. What a great community we could have of homeschoolers doing this!

Good Luck and happy e-baying!

Blessings from my homeschool family to yours!