I wanna start today's episode with a question, and I'd like you to really sit with it for a second before we dive in. When you decided to homeschool your child, or when you're considering it now, what did you assume you would have to do on your own fund on your own? Figure out on your own Because for most of home schooling's history in Texas, the answer to that question was everything. You chose this path. You paid for it. Full stop. The state was not part of that equation. The state was for a lot of families, almost an obstacle in that equation that is changing right now in a way that has never happened before in Texas history and today. We're gonna talk about what that actually means, not just for your bank account this year, but for what homeschooling looks like in this state five years from now, 10 years from now, and for the generation of parents who come after us. 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 a nine to five job, 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. Welcome to the Homeschool Money Podcast. I'm your host, Anthony Obby. And I'm your host, crystal Obby. We are not going to tell you that this is all perfect or that every question has been answered. What we are going to do is tell you what is real. What is possible and why this moment matters? To understand why this moment is significant. You have to understand where homeschooling in Texas has been and the honest answer is. It has been entirely on your shoulders. Legally protected. Yes. Respected by many, yes, but funded by the state. Not even close. Texas homeschool families have been building something remarkable for decades. Completely independent of government support. They've built co-ops, they've built curriculum networks. They've built community. They've proven through thousands of outcomes that choosing education outside the system can produce extraordinary results, and they've done all of it. While paying taxes that funded public schools their children didn't attend while buying curriculum out of pocket, while paying privately for therapies, tutoring, and enrichment programs that public school students received at no direct cost. The homeschool community has been in a very real sense. Running a parallel education school system with zero public investment, that context matters because Tifa is not just a new program for homeschool families. It represents a fundamental shift in relationship between the state and educational choice. For the first time, the state of Texas is saying your choice to educate at home is a legitimate educational path, and here is real money to support it. This is the shift from a system where the state funded one model of education to a system where the state funds the child, regardless of where or how they learn. That is not a small change. That is a philosophical reorientation of how Texas thinks about education. Now, does $2,000 per homeschool student fully close that gap? No. Is the homeschool funding level the same as the private school level? No. Is there more ground to cover? Absolutely. But the door that just opened. Is one that was sealed shut for the entire history of formal homeschooling in this state. And what matters right now is understanding what can walk through let's get specific because quote unquote, things are changing is only meaningful if you understand what is actually different in your family's daily educational life. Here's what TFA concretely changes for a homeschool family starting in the 2026 to 2027 school year. Change number one, curriculum has a budget line. Now, for the first time, a Texas homeschool family can have a state funded curriculum budget. $2,000 per child. If you have three kids, that's $6,000 for curriculum and instructional materials. That the state is contributing to you. The textbooks, the online learning programs, the hands-on science kits, the structured reading intervention materials, the Math manipulatives. These now have a dedicated funding source that didn't exist a year ago. Change number two, tutoring and support services are accessible. One of the quiet inequities in homeschooling has always been this. Families who can afford outside tutoring and supplemental support get better outcomes. TFA disrupts that tutoring and supplemental education services are an approved expense. A homeschool parent can now use TFA funds to hire a qualified reading specialist, a math tutor, a writing coach, or a foreign language instructor. Services that were out of reach financially become part of the plan Hey, real quick, if you're liking the show, hit follow so you don't miss a single episode and drop a five star rating and a review to let us know that you're loving the content and tell us what topics you'd like us to cover. This will help more people find the show, and please share this episode with a friend, your co-op, or anyone who needs it. They'll be glad you did. Now, back to the show. change. Number three, educational therapies are on the table. This one is particularly significant for homeschool families with a child who has a learning difference or disability. Educational. Therapies and services are an approved TIFA expense, speech therapy, occupational therapy, educational interventions for years, homeschooling families with kids who needed these services. Either pay it out of pocket or just went without tfa, creates a funding pathway that simply did not exist before. Change four. Technology gets a real allocation. Technology is an approved category, capped at 10% of your account, so $200 on a $2,000 homeschool account. That's not enormous, but it's real. A specific educational software subscription, a learning app, a digital curriculum platform. These now have a budget. For homeschool families who have been using technology creatively and on their own dime for years. This is recognition that technology is a legitimate educational tool. Change. Five, the homeschool community becomes visible to the state, and this is, and this one is less financial, but just as significant. When Texas homeschool families participate in Tifa, they become part of a documented, counted, recognized educational ecosystem. That visibility has implications that go far beyond the school year. It creates data, it creates precedent. It creates political reality around the size and legitimacy of the homeschool community in Texas that matters for what comes next. By the numbers. Tifa launched with $1 billion. Homeschool students received $2,000 each. That means if just 50,000 Texas homeschool students participate, $100 million of that billion dollar flows directly into home education. The scale of participation will shape. The program's evolution for years to come. We wanna zoom out now because one of the questions we keep coming back to is this, what does the homeschool landscape in Texas look like? If programs like Tepa continue and expand and we think that question is worth sitting with seriously. Let's think about what public investment in homeschooling actually enables over time. Right now, $2,000 covers curriculum and some support services, but programs like this tend to evolve. As more families participate, as more data is collected on outcomes as more providers build services designed specifically for homeschool students using this funding, let's think about what public investment in homeschooling actually enables over time. Right now, $2,000 covers curriculum and some support services, but programs like this tend to evolve as more families participate, as more data is collected on outcomes as more providers build services designed specifically for homeschool students using this funding, the ecosystem around homeschooling grows. We are already starting to see this in states that have had similar programs for longer curriculum companies are building specifically for ESA funded families. Tutoring networks are organizing around ESA approved providers, micro schools and learning pods. Small groups of homeschool students who learn together with a shared educator are forming in communities where this funding exists. The money creates a market and the market creates options that didn't exist before For Texas, which is doing this at a scale that no state has ever attempted. We are genuinely in uncharted territory. The state just said it is funding the child, not the system. That is a statement with consequences that will unfold over years and decades. Think about this. Every Texas homeschool provider, every curriculum company, every tutoring service, every educational therapist, every learning co-op now has a potential customer base with state funding behind them. That changes the business of homeschool support from a niche cottage industry into something with real economic weight. And there are some real questions that come with that, questions that homeschool commun que, and there are real questions that come with that. Questions that the homeschool community is going to have to engage with thoughtfully. What does accountability look like as public money flows into private education? How do homeschool families maintain the educational freedom and flexibility that made this choice compelling in the first place? What is the relationship between accepting state funding and accepting state involvement? These are not gotcha questions. They are the legitimate questions of a community, navigating something genuinely new. And the families who engage with those questions clearly and early are the ones who will help shape the answers, which is exactly why voices like ours matter right now. Because here's what we know, the program is real. The money is real. Families are going to use it, and as they do, the homeschooling community in Texas is going to look different. Not better or worse, just different, more diverse, more resourced, more visible, and more connected to broader education conversations in this state than it ever has been before. For the journey ahead. Programs like TFA don't stay static. They respond to who uses them, how they're used, what outcomes they produce, and what politics will surround them. The homeschool community's active informed participation in year one is the most powerful thing it can do to shape what Year five looks like. Hey, friend, quick break. If you're ready to fund your homeschool without relying on a nine to five job, you have to check this out. We're giving you instant access to. Our free class is called Get 30,000 a year to Fund Your Homeschool Without a nine to five job. In just 90 minutes, you'll learn how to create consistent income. Afford a world-class education for your kids and get the lifestyle freedom you deserve, that's gonna give you more time to invest into the people that matter the most, your children. This is the system that changed everything for us, and it's changed everything for hundreds of other families too. Go to homeschool money.com to register and watch the free class on demand and get our newsletter full of tips and support. Don't wait. Your freedom starts right now. We wanna bring this back to you, the parent listening right now, figuring out what this all means for your family. Because vision is only useful if it connects to what you actually do on Monday morning. Here is what we think every homeschool family should take away from this moment, regardless of whether they participate in tifa or not. First, know that your choice is being seen. That's important because for years, the narrative around education in Texas. Has centered almost entirely on public schools, test scores and district performance. TFA is the first time the state has formed a tfa, is the first time the state has formally acknowledged that a significant number of Texas families are doing education a different way, and that their children deserve support too. You don't have to agree with every element of the program to recognize. That acknowledgement as meaningful. Secondly, if you participate, participate intentionally. The $2,000 homeschool allocation is real money and it will go the furthest for families who plan how to use it before it arrives. Map your annual curriculum costs. Identify the one or two services your child needs that you have been funding privately or going without. Make a plan so that when the money hits in July, every dollar has a purpose. Third, stay engaged with this conversation. TFA is year one. Of what may be a long evolution. The rules, the funding levels, the eligible expenses, the accountability requirements, all of these will be shaped by what happens in the next few years of the program. Families who stay informed, who participate, who provide feedback, and who make their voices heard in the process, will have far more influence over where this goes than families who opt out entirely and watch from the sidelines. Fourth, be honest with yourself about what this changes and what it doesn't. Tifa does not change the fundamental character of homeschooling. It does not change the reason most families chose this path. It does not change what makes a great homeschool education great. The relationship between a parent and a child. The freedom to pursue deep interest, the ability to move at the right pace for your particular child. These things are yours and they are not on the table. What it does change is the financial layer underneath that, and for many families, removing some of the financial strain of this choice makes that choice more sustainable, more enriched, and more accessible to families who might have wanted to homeschool, but felt they couldn't afford to do it. Well, that is not a small thing. The real opportunity, TFAs arrival in the homeschool space is an invitation. For the community to articulate clearly what it needs, what it values, and what it is building, the families who answer that invitation thoughtfully will help define home schooling's role in Texas education for the next generation. We want to close today with something that has been on our minds throughout this entire conversation. Every generation of homeschool families in Texas has faced something new. The families who first asserted their legal right to homeschool in this state faced one kind of challenge. The families who built the curriculum networks and co-ops faced another, the families navigating learning differences and special needs without institutional support faced still another, This generation faces something genuinely different. Not a fight for recognition, but an invitation to integration. The state is offering resources and with resources come, questions with questions, come conversations, and with conversations comes the opportunity to shape something important. We don't think anyone has all the answers yet. We certainly don't, but we believe deeply that the families who stay curious, stay informed, and stay connected to each other. Through this transition are the ones who will navigate it best. That is why we are here. That is the kind of voice we want to be in this conversation. Not the loudest, not the most certain, but the most consistently useful. We want to be the people you come back to when something changes, when a new question comes up, when you need someone to help think it through. So wherever you are on this journey, whether you just applied for tifa, whether you're still deciding. Whether you've been homeschooling for 15 years and aren't sure this is for you, or whether you're a brand new family, just starting to explore what homeschooling even means. We're glad that you're here and we will keep showing up for you. Here's what we want you to do after this episode. First, if you have never visited education freedom.texas.gov, go there, read what's there. Form your own informed view, the program details, the eligible expenses, the school finder, the application guide. It's all there and it is your right as a Texas parent to understand it. Second, have this conversation with your homeschool community. Not to convince anyone of anything, but because this is a topic that deserves thoughtful discussion among people who care about education. The more your community understands what is actually in this program. Not rumors, not talking points, but the facts, the better position everyone is to make their own good decision. Third, share this episode with someone who needs it, a family who is just starting to explore homeschooling. A parent who feels overwhelmed by TFA and doesn't know where to start. A friend who is curious about where education is headed in Texas. This conversation is meant to travel. And fourth, stay with us because this is not the last time this conversation is gonna matter. We're gonna keep following this story, keep breaking down what changes. Keep bringing you the information you need to make good decisions for your family. So subscribe. Follow, share and come back. This journey is just getting started. Thank you for being here. We'll see you in the next episode. If you like today's episode, make sure you tap the follow button so you never miss a thing, and if it help you share it with a friend or your homeschool group sharing is caring. Do you love free stuff? Like me? Sign up and watch our free games class called Get 30,000 a year to Find Your Homeschooling. With our nine to five job, when you sign up, you'll gain instant access to a class and you'll get our weekly newsletter. For tips and strategies to make your homeschooling journey affordable, go to homeschool money.com and register right now, ready to get your homeschool money. Head over to homeschool money.com to enroll in the full Homeschool Money Makeover course. You'll get the tools, templates, and step by step help to find your first $1,000 fast. And create 30,000 or much more every year. Each module of this program is designed to transform your finances and help you experience financial abundance, so you have the flexibility and lifestyle freedom to homeschool your children with a nine to five job and without sacrificing. And right now we have an amazing limited time offer that gives you huge savings and bonus gifts you're going to love. Go to homeschool may.com to enroll today, and don't forget to give us some love with the five star rating and review. It'll help more people find ourselves. Have a great day. Bye.