We Just Saved $500/Month! Ask Me How...

Okay, so this is not exactly a "tip" type of post, as I know not all of you find yourself in a similar situation or with a similar "out."

But we have saved $500/month that we were possibly going to have to spend in the future and I wanted to share my excitement with you about how.

A bit of a backstory, if you will:

We were a bit naive about school districts when we bought our home in Savannah. We didn't realize that if we had bought just 2 miles away, which is in a different county, that our education options would be much, much better. As it is, we live where we do and we can't exactly sell a house right now.

So we had a plan of action. To avoid Patrick having to attend the elementary school we are currently zoned for (which is awful by all accounts), we looked into some of the open enrollment and charter programs within the public school system. We narrowed it down to two that were relatively close and available for him to attend.

Plan A: Get into the closest Montessori program (there are two but one is really far away). This requires applying and then waiting for a lottery to be held to see if his name was drawn.

Plan B: Put his name in for an open enrollment school that is also part of the public school system.

Plan Ideal: Ideally we could get into both schools A & B and have a choice regarding which we wanted him to attend.

Plan C: Private school. Which we do not want to have to pay for, but are willing to in order to keep him away from his zoned school.

So we proceeded with the action plan. We did the open house at the Montessori school and then submitted our application. And started waiting.

We called the open enrollment school. Unfortunately...they are no longer open enrollment. Boo, hiss SERIOUSLY.

So Plan B fell through (and therefore Plan Ideal). We were solely dependant on Plan A to avoid private school tuition.

Well, Monday night the lottery was held.

HE GOT IN!

Hip Hip Hooray! So excited and relieved! That's one huge weight off our shoulders! His education will be awesome and free!

Have you ever had to face anything like this? How did it turn out for you? Are you pleased with your options for education for your children?

Photo credit: saltoricco