The Homeschool Buyers Club is the world's largest buyers club for homeschooling families. Founded in 2005, they are a business dedicated to providing top-quality curriculum at the lowest price possible. The Club combines the purchasing power of thousands of homeschooling families around the country to give homeschoolers the same purchasing clout as school districts. They contact suppliers of homeschool curriculum, tell them how many thousands of homeschooling families they represent, and ask them for discounts and special offers for their products, which they can then pass onto their customers.
Website: Homeschool Buyers Club
(4 Reviews)
Before investing in any homeschooling resources, please read "How to Choose the Best Homeschool Curriculum."
Contributor Reviews
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
Cons: Worldy-wise 3000 system doesn't work
Be careful if you sign up for Worldly-wise i3000 subscription as the system is not the original worldly-wise i3000 from worldly wise publisher. The system is poorly made and linked to all kinds of free online resources. Their ad is very misleading.
Cons: Limited availability worldwide
Grades Used: 3-6 and ongoing
This site has some fabulous deals that you can get for your home school environment. The only issue that I have found with them is that quite a lot of the really good deals are for the USA only. Which limits availability worldwide greatly. Since I have moved to Australia I can only access about half of the deals on this site.
The prices are very good, and are usually at least a 20% discount with most times the discount being around 40% which can save you some major cash in much needed educational items.
The site covers all categories, from Art to Maths and Physical Education and everything in between. Some wonderful online opportunities for grades 5+.
All in all a fabulous site and well worth taking a look at.
Cons: Read the fine print carefully
The Homeschool Buyers Co-op can offer some nice discounts, but you have to be careful. The percentage of discount that's shown is not always what you get. For example, I received an email which said in one place the discount was 50%, in another place it said 46%. When I actually went to the publisher's website and compared prices, it was 39%. There are also separate fees, which can cause trouble in order processing, especially if using paypal. An additional automated paypal order is placed for the co-op fee, which doesn't allow you to choose your payment method. If you have more than one payment method linked to your paypal account, I don't recommend using paypal to pay for orders through the co-op. And before you order through the co-op, go to the publisher's website and check the prices and discounts they have. It may be more advantageous to order direct, especially if you're buying for more than one child or would rather pay monthly than yearly. I'm not saying it's not worth it to join the co-op, because it is, especially with the discount choice feature mentioned above. The review page for the products is very helpful and informative also. Just be careful.
Cons: sometimes I spend too much money!
In my opinion, everyone who homeschools should have a free subscription to the Homeschool Buyers Co-op! It's free to join, so you have nothing to lose. You can get notice of special group buys, special purchases, FREE items, trials, and access to their e-book store (you can pay for discounts there, too).
Not only does HSBC bring you great deals on many different homeschool curricula and online sites, but they also have FREE classifieds, a field trip list, special member discounts to a variety of stores and magazines.
Before you purchase any online access subscription, or even a printed curriculum or audio-visual item, always check with HSBC first to see if you can get a member discount. You can also choose what level of discount you're willing to pay. Say there are five levels of discounts for an item: 10% off, 20%, 30%, 40% & 50%. If you cannot spend more than 50% of the "retail" price, then when you "purchase" an item, you can say you will not buy it unless it gets down to that price. If HSBC only gets enough members purchasing for the 40% discount, your order will not go through. Or you have the option of still purchasing for the 40% off. Not all group buys have this feature, as it depends on the publisher, but very many do.
I couldn't homeschool on the budget I have without the help of HSBC!