Saving money with Memoria Press

We are now in our fourth full year of using mostly Memoria Press materials in our homeschool. I was first drawn to them because of their Latin curriculum, which my daughter used in an online class with True North Homeschool Academy. Then I decided to look into their literature guides, and then writing, and then science, and before long I realized that other than math (Saxon was working for us), I didn’t want my kids to miss out on any of the rich education that Memoria had to offer.

Placing your first order with MP can be a little daunting, but I quickly learned how to navigate their website and, especially, how to save money the MP way, and that is what I want to share with you!

Order when they have free shipping.

There are usually one or two times a year when Memoria Press offers free shipping for several weeks or even all month long - and this month is one of them!! Until the end of May 2024, you can get free shipping on one order with the code free1time.

You can also get free shipping during various homeschool conventions, including their own Sodalitas conference coming up in July 2024, where they will ship to you for free if you place an order with them while you are there or while you attend online. 

Save with bundles.

When you buy a bundle (for example, their First Form Latin set, which includes flash cards, the teacher guide, test boon, CD, etc.), you usually save money over ordering them individually. Often, the prices of these sets are comparable to what you would pay on "discount" sites such as Christian Book Distributors or Rainbow Resource, with the added bonus that you know you are getting the most up-to-date edition AND you will get digital copies of the tests and quizzes in the teacher's guides.

Get the biggest discount with their core curriculum packages.

When you order a grade level package containing lesson plans and all of the subjects for a grade, you will save the most money, even up to 40% in some cases. That is what we do now. Don’t forget to add in items that would have been included in the packages for earlier grades. For example, last year, I needed to add the Geography flashcards for my daughter, since she was studying Geography 3, but did not take Geography 1 and 2. When my son was in third grade and beginning Latina Christiana, we needed to add on the flashcards, because they were included in the Prima Latina kit in Grade 2.

Here are a few other things to keep in mind about this option:

• You can customize a core. You can remove books and swap one level of a book (like Latin) out for another and still get the core discount as long as it is a subject that is normally part of a core package. For example, my son in fifth grade does not need math or spelling because we use a different curriculum for those, so we leave those out. Last year, I also got him Greek Alphabet, which is in the seventh grade core, but not fourth. MP let me do that, no problem, and gave me the core discount on it. I also needed some individual books in the recommended read-aloud collection for his grade. Those are NOT normally in a core package, so I did not get a discount on those.
• Simple changes can be done online, but others will need a phone call or email to MP Customer Service. The only subject you can remove online is math, and there was also no way for me to add Greek Alphabet that will trigger the discount, so I called MP to get their help - and they are really the best!

Do order your core curriculum from Memoria Press directly.

As I alluded to above, you can get Memoria Press curriculum from Christian Book Distributors, and from Rainbow Resources, and others, but there are some very big advantages to ordering from MP directly:

• ​You will know you are getting the most recent edition. Sometimes other websites have older ones. This matters if your child is taking a class using MP materials. It also matters if you want the most up-to-date improvements. For example, they have recently updated their Latin student guides to include some excellent parsing practice that really helps students learn how to translate. I highly recommend them!
• MP will load your customer account with tests and quizzes from the teacher manuals you order, so you can print them instead of copying them.
• MP will sometimes also give you digital lesson plans for things you buy that are not part of your core curriculum package (for example, I got first grade cursive for my son when he was in third grade, and they included those extra lesson plans for me). If you buy your curriculum someplace else, you can still get lessons plans, but you will pay about $5 for them (well worth it for me, but it’s nice to get them for free).
• If you order from them and a new edition comes out down the road, MP will sometimes give you an updated teacher edition.

Use coupons.

If you get the printed Memoria Press Catalogs, either "Classical Teacher" or the "Simply Classical Journal" (both are free and have wonderful articles in them), you will find a $5 off coupon code in the most recent one. If you don’t subscribe, you can request it for free! There was a standalone article sent in the spring this year that also had a $5 coupon in it, and there is a $5 coupon code, LPR24, connected to the Lutheran radio show Issues, Etc. And yes, you can stack coupons! Also, in January, Memoria Press sent $10 gift cards to everyone who placed an order last year - so if you become a customer this year, you will be able to save next year!

Use your local library.

I do not buy everything from Memoria. Many of the books in their elementary school read-aloud and American history collections are either in our home already or are in our local library. If there are a few that I can’t find anywhere, sometimes I will look for them on ThriftBooks or Exodus Books or local used book sales before I will buy them new from MP. HOWEVER, if you are doing a literature study that involves a translation (such as Heidi, The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Aeneid, etc.), you do want to get the exact translation MP uses so it matches your Student Guide.

Questions??

Please feel free to contact me with questions! If you decide to give Memoria Press a try, would you please use my affiliate link in this post? It helps our family at no extra cost to yourself! And please let me know how you like it - maybe we can connect in the MP forums or the MP Homeschool Families Facebook Group!