The only thing I'll add for food is to consider buying in bulk or from unusual sources. We've bought a half cow before - gave us a better price than stores and really good grain fed beef. I do the same for just about everything we eat. Apples on sale - that's the fruit of the week plus we can and freeze if we can. We also glean wild food when we can. We have sources for currants (makes great jam), wild onions, choke cherries (great jam), raspberries.
One thing I noticed in your posts is a running theme of "keeping your sanity" and that you don't seem have many homeschool moms of many nearby. I thought I'd offer some suggestions for that that you might be able to use to save money and/or cut your costs. I'm a homeschooling mom of many too. When my first 4 were all little, they were ages 5, 4, 1, newbie (first two are 12 months apart, 3rd and 4th are 14 months apart). I remember how crazy it was! My husband also worked long hours although he didn't travel at that time (he did travel when our second was an infant). We didn't have money for a babysitter and I don't believe grocery delivery was available at that time so I learned to do it with sanity intact : ).
So some ideas:
1. put your kids on a schedule so their wake up times and bed times are close. 6am to 10 pm is nuts! Work on your baby sleeping until 7 and your last going to bed by 8. That will give you time at each end of the day - mornings to get going and get some stuff done, evenings to have some down time.
2. Institute a quiet time during the baby's afternoon nap. Train your kids to play quietly on a blanket in the living room with a few toys/books. This will give you some down time or time to tackle something that is difficult with constant interruptions. It's also great if you need to take everyone to the Dr or elsewhere with you - I always took all my kids to my OB appts for each pregnancy.
3. Set a consistent grocery shopping time for right after breakfast. Little chance for kids to fall asleep. They are also less grumpy since they are newly awake and newly fed.
4. Set up your shopping strategy - put the 3 year old in the front of the cart. The baby either on you or in a car seat across the back part of the cart with groceries underneath. The older two hold on to the side (other hand in pocket if they tend to touch everything). Teach them "little ducks" - if someone is coming toward you, say little ducks which to them should mean "get behind me in a line like ducks follow their mama".
As far as homeschooling: I think I read that you are in NC so you don't have any day or time requirements as far as teaching (although it looks like there are "suggestions" for both) so that should reduce your stress too. At 6, kids don't need more than an hour or two of direct instruction and much of that can be reading aloud (I've found that while my kids eat breakfast is a great time to read aloud since their mouths are all busy), life experience (nature study, cooking/baking, field trips, etc), life skills, pursuing their interests, games/puzzles, etc. Throw in some life math and phonics and you should be set.
Hope some of that helps!
