Our priority hasn't been on the books or other stuff for ds7 but on the therapies (water therapy and neurofeedback) or other medical expenses and food (a true superfood diet isn't cheap). A 2e expert advised me that 2e issues come first and to think of myself as a special needs parent rather than a PG mother.
I absolutely think you can accommodate a PG child on the cheap. Is it easy? No. But I do think you have to be creative and resourceful and think outside-the-box. I also really do believe that unstructured play is vital to these kids and is just important to their development than anything else. Heresy, I know.
I really don't believe you need to be a challenged cruise director here with activities. I'm not saying that there's value to some structured, adult-directed activities, but that there are limits within life, within a day, within a week, etc.
I just read the following books:
Madeline Levine's Teach Your Children Well
Peter Gray's Free to Learn
Kristine Barnett's The Spark - which involved educating a PG/STEM-prodigy on the cheap. Her book was quite refreshing for me. She believes in the importance of getting PG kids to just be a kid and play too and do some 'normal' stuff.
I've been writing on opensource.com about free resources (
http://opensource.com/education/13/4/guide-open-source-education) - so you might find something there. I've got some livebinders (under name Wivenhoe) which may be useful. You can also search other livebinders according to grade, subject, etc.
My motto is to go with resources/activities that are free first. Then, I go as cheaply as possibly - less than $10+. After I've exhausted the free and nominal ways, I might consider shelling out the money. But I've often found that the first two options suffice.
Books - ebay, amazon, craigslist, freecycle are possible places for used books if you don't have a used bookstore locally. I live in a college town, so we have a town free book recycle day that has been wonderful. I also live near some homeschoolers who have offered free books.
