​Welcome to the Homeschool Money Podcast. This is Crystal Obie, and today's episode is unlike any other we've ever done before. You know me as a coach who helps homeschool families break free from financial struggle and create abundance while giving their children an extraordinary education. But here's what you might not know. I wasn't always the person sitting on this side of the microphone confidently guiding others through their biggest life decisions. There was a time when I was drowning in my own chaos, navigating a childhood that didn't look like anyone else's struggling through school experiences that left me questioning everything I'd been told about education and wrestling with cultural expectations that felt completely at odds with my deepest values. I faced moments where everything I thought I knew about success learning and what makes a good life got turned completely upside down today. I'm getting up close and personal for the first time. I'm sharing the raw, unfiltered story of my crazy childhood, my eye-opening school experiences, and the cultural pressures that shaped and nearly broke my early understanding of success in education. You're going to hear about the pivotal moments that made me question everything. The experiences that taught me traditional paths don't work for everyone, and the surprising discoveries that led me to homeschooling long before I became a parent. This isn't just my story, it's the foundation for understanding why I give the advice I do, and more importantly, it might just hold the key to your own breakthrough because sometimes the path forward becomes crystal clear when you see how someone else navigated the same crossroads you're facing right now. So grab your coffee, settle in, and let me share with you the story I've never told before. The one that explains everything.

A fast growing number of parents are starting their homeschooling journey while others have been homeschooling for years. All of these parents are asking one big question, how can I afford to homeschool? We are here to answer that important question once and for all. Hi, I'm Crystal Obby. And I'm Anthony Obby. We've been homeschooling our five kids for 13 years. And we funded it through our online consulting business that we've been running for over 17 years now. We're combining Crystal's financial coaching expertise with my digital marketing background where I help entrepreneurs launch and sell online. We're here to help fellow homeschooling parents self-fund their homeschool journey and create lifestyle businesses. For financial freedom without enough to five jobs. Are you ready to start living life on your own terms and make your homeschooling experience a lot more fun? Well then sit back, crank up the volume, and enjoy this episode of Homeschool Money.

There are five major themes that influence my decision to become a mom who homeschools and runs a business from home. And I wanna share each one with you because chances are you've experienced at least one of these yourself. Theme one. This is the divorce of my parents. I was born in Evansville, Indiana, and by the time I was 10 years old, my parents were divorced. Suddenly I was being raised by a single mother and what everyone called a broken home. Those labels, single parent household, broken family, they made me feel like I didn't have a choice in how my life would turn out. Like my fate was already sealed, but here's what I learned early on. In every situation, a choice can be made. That changes everything. Yes, my parents divorced, but that decision actually saved both my mom's life and mine. My father was abusive and my mom had finally found the courage to leave, but then she discovered she was pregnant with me and like many young women hoping for the best, she thought that maybe having the daughter he always said he wanted would heal their relationship. She had gotten married to try to be a good Christian woman in a committed relationship rather than dating around. I was proud of her for that. Her dreams of a beautiful family were completely shattered, and she was faced with an impossible choice, escape, or potentially die at the hands of a controlling, jealous, violent husband. I won't go into the horrific details, but I want you to know that I am incredibly proud of my mom for saving our lives and facing that disappointment head on. But now, as a single parent with no support from my dad, she needed to provide for us. She was able to get a good job at ge, which was fantastic financially, but it meant putting me in daycare. My grandmother refused to let that happen, so she stepped up to help take care of me. Here's the thing about blessings. They can solve one problem while creating another. The blessing of getting that job in income meant I would rarely see my mom since she had to work swing shifts and overtime, she even had to stop nursing me just so she could go to work. So at a very young age, I learned that you can have the best hopes and intentions. But if the other party doesn't keep their commitment, you can be left making decisions that make you look and feel bad while making life infinitely harder. So please have grace for other parents, and if you see someone struggling, see if you can help instead of gossiping or casting judgment. Theme two, the hospitality of my grandparents, my mother's parents basically raised me and my brother, like we were their own children. Giving my mom the opportunity to work while knowing we were truly cared for as she navigated life as a single parent. I absolutely loved being with my grandmommy and granddaddy. We lived out in the country on the west side, just a mile away from my elementary school and two miles away from my church in the other direction. I lived on acres of land that had been passed down through multiple generations, and I felt safe, secure, and calm. My grandparents never yelled. My granddaddy could build or fix literally anything. My grandmother played piano for church and ran her own dress, sew and shop. So all of my clothes were beautiful and handmade. Every morning I had breakfast with my multivitamin, cod, liver oil, and B pollen. We had dinner around the table at five o'clock sharp. My granddaddy said that was good, Bobby, after every single meal, and I love to see my grandmother smile. I was in bed by eight 30 every night and had perfect attendance at school and never missed a Sunday of church. I, they were absolutely amazing at this parenting thing, and I was so grateful. One time they heard that my cousin's friend at school was having a hard time at home. They let him and his nine siblings come stay with us for a few days. That was 10 kids, plus the six of us who were already living in the house.

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I asked my grandma, I mean, why they were there, and she simply said she was given their mom a chance to catch her breath and get some food built up in the cupboards. You have to understand this was a 1200 square foot home, and it wasn't like we were overflowing with food. She also took those kids to this huge new store that had just come to town with thousands of items and bought them shoes and other necessities. You may have guessed it, that was the year Walmart came to Evansville Because of their love and care. I didn't experience wounds I could have without them. I used to always say I couldn't wait to be a grandmother because of the loving, joyful experience I had with mine. One day my kids told me I didn't have to wait. When I described the kind of grandmother I wanted to be, they said I already treated them that way. One day my kids told me I didn't have to wait. When I described the kind of grandmother I wanted to be, they said I already treat them that way. I learned that intentional love can make a negative situation beautiful, and that's exactly why I go above and beyond to care for my family. Theme three, the cultural messages from society. The media constantly talked about fatherlessness and all the negative statistics that went along with that, but I learned in Sunday school that God is my father and he is always with me. So when I would cry myself to sleep at night after my mom left for work, I would sneak into the laundry basket and pull out her shirt so I could sleep with her perfume scent, still lingering on it. My mom loves perfume and she has a great nose for picking out great scents. I would imagine my dad taking me to the zoo and I would comfort myself with scriptures about how God would be a father to the fatherless. My heart was able to receive love from my granddaddy and not turn bitter about my circumstances. That's how I was able to avoid many of the negative consequences that supposedly come from not having a father around. But I always noticed that the world was built for a mom, a dad, and at least two kids. I saw Claire Huxtable looking happy and successful on the Cosby Show with five kids, a career, a husband, who had a great career as well, and somehow she still had friends and outside interests. I realized that the biggest joys in my life came from being with family, so I set it in my heart at a young age that I wanted five kids. I felt like three was the minimum, four was too even, and five was perfect. Just overwhelming enough to keep me on my toes. Theme four, the transition from public to private school. I went to elementary school while living with my grandparents, but when middle school came around, my mom had remarried. I was so excited because this was my chance to finally have a normal family. I'd be able to say things like, my dad did this, or My parents did that. But school districts were based on zip codes, which meant I had to leave my beloved school and go to the one across town. I loved my school, so we kept my records with my grandmother, and I just made sure my teachers didn't know where I actually lived. The funny thing is sometimes I rode the bus home to my real house because there were kids being bused across town to my school for diversity reasons. I was constantly told in middle school that the key to success was education, and education meant college, but I had no path and no money for college. Even though I was a star student, I had no idea how I was gonna make it to be a successful adult. After some hurtful experiences at school in the eighth grade, I knew I needed to make a drastic change to get on the path to college based on my environment, I knew I would likely not make it to the life I wanted if I stayed. There was a program called 21st Century Scholars that allowed kids who qualified with the income and the grades to attend any college in Indiana. During the year of qualification, I had too much income because of my stepdad's job, but since they ultimately divorced right after the cutoff, the program was closed to me. That was my best chance of going to college, and it was gone just like that. I asked myself, who's the most likely person I know to go to college and be successful? That was my cousin. She was the perfect role model. The kind of person where if you didn't get along with her, it was probably something wrong with you. She had a normal family and a loving brother, and two awesome parents. She went to a private school called Evansville Day School and was doing really well. I saw they advertised that 99% of their students go to college. I saw that they advertised that 99.9% of their students got into the college of their choice, and most of the colleges were top Ivy League colleges around the nation. I figured they wouldn't want to fail with me. So I asked my mom if I could go and she was willing to see if it could work. I saw they advertised that 99% of their students got into the college of their choice, including the Ivy League. I figured they wouldn't want to fail with me, so I asked my mom if I could go and she was willing to see if it could work. My mom has always been supportive of my goals. At that time, the only way to attend EDS was to either have money to pay for it and it was expensive, or test in and earn a merit scholarship. The headmaster interviewed me and said I could take the test. Well, I got in, the first thing I did was go to the library and look at past yearbooks to see what successful kids who went to college actually did. I got a notepad and wrote down all the activities the kids and the award pictures participated in. That's how I built the confidence to leave everyone I knew at my old school and be the new girl with kids who'd been together since preschool. I was obviously there on scholarship while other students came from some of the most successful families in the city. And as usual, since preschool, I was the only African American. I had experienced wonderful teachers in public elementary school than in different teachers in public middle school, but my private school teachers were on a completely different level. They loved teaching their subjects and they connected with us students. Learning was cool and succeeding was expected and celebrated. I used to get made fun of in my neighborhood for bringing books home. Now my friends were cheering me on for getting good grades. This was amazing. I experienced firsthand how much difference an environment change could make, and my teachers made it possible for me to participate in Hands-on Learning, which I love. At public middle school, we had to move. When Bells rang, we had to get permission slips to use the restroom, and we were rushed around all day and it seemed like there were tons of rules with no one really caring about me as an individual. At private school, we could hold classes outside. We had real discussions. We could leave campus for lunch, and we had an AB schedule with block scheduling, which helped us get deeper into subjects. I even had a college advisor who walked with me all the way through senior year to make sure I went to the college that I wanted and got it paid for her. I realized that kids in the same city could be having completely different educational experiences. I also realized that while private school is amazing, there are more expenses than tuition. There was no cafeteria, so I had to buy catered lunch or bring food from home. There was a dress code, so I needed new clothes. There was no music program. Only tutors who charged by the hour and parents were responsible for transportation because there was only a private bus. While it was an amazing opportunity, it also created a situation where I now had the pressure of needing to perform at a top level academically and in activities, while also holding two jobs just to be able to participate. This stress caused me to faint at work from exhaustion. In another instance, I had to spend a week in the hospital from a medical condition caused by stress. I learned that I do appreciate a great education, and finding a way to make it easily affordable can make a huge difference in the day-to-day experience of a student. Theme five, the reading assignment After the Columbine shooting, all upper school students were required to read Time Magazine every week at Evansville Day School in 1999, the year I was graduating, the devastating Columbine shooting happened. This sparked tons of articles in the media about education. One article I read had a line that said some parents choose to homeschool so they can give their children a custom education, spend quality time together and have a hands-on approach to help them prepare for practical adult lives. I had never heard of homeschooling before, but when I read that line, I knew it was for me. I committed to it at that moment. Because my school encouraged taking initiative and back that encouragement up with resources. I felt empowered to do something about Columbine as student body president. I created a fundraiser to raise money to send to teens at Columbine High School as a way to show them that we were thinking of them. My classmates did an amazing job and it was another perfect example of how project-based learning made me feel more connected to the world and empowered to make a difference. So just to recap the five experiences that profoundly influenced my decision to be a work from home homeschooling Mother of five are. The divorce of my parents, the hospitality of my grandparents, the cultural messages from society, the transition from public to private school, and the reading assignment after the Columbine shooting, and just to tie up a few loose ends. Yes, my school delivered on their promise. I had my choice of colleges and ended up choosing Agnes Scott in Atlanta with a full ride leadership scholarship. As yearbook editor, I suggested we create a special senior book with a survey asking each student where they predicted they'd be at 30. My answer, I said that at 30 I would be married, running my own business from home, having five kids and homeschooling them in 1999. I didn't know one woman that had that lifestyle. It was literally a dream in my heart and the complete opposite of what all my friends had planned. The homeschool money program is the God I wish I'd had back then. I hope you tune into the next episode to hear Anthony's story, and after that, the episode where we share our story together of how we made this dream come true. A dream that's so amazingly possible for you today too. Thank you for listening, and please reach out to me if anything I share resonates with you, because if my story sounds familiar, if you felt that pulled towards something different, something more intentional for your family, then you're exactly who we created this program to serve. So take the next step and sign up for our free introductory class called Get $30,000 a Year to Fund Your Homeschool Without a nine to five job. See you next time.