‘Hey, Honey! Let’s pack up the kids, sell the house, and move overseas with no income!’
‘Sounds good, Babe. I’m in!’
The end
Even though that is way, way over-simplified, that is more or less the conversation my husband and I had in 2016. We had played around with the idea of moving overseas for a while, and both of us wanted the kids to have another experience of ‘normal.’ After the 2016 Presidential election, we realized that our vision of the world was more and more out of sync with what was happening in the US.
It took years of research, planning, and focus, as well as a couple of heartbreaks, but in July 2019 we started our new life in Stavanger, Norway.
Let me start by saying that I realize we had a lot of advantages that allowed us to make this goal a reality: steady, well-paid jobs, no debt outside of mortgages, and a generally frugal lifestyle. But that is part of the reason that I write this: to help others understand what lifestyle design – especially a MAJOR readjustment – takes and how to use the knowledge and skills you have to put yourself where you really want to be.
Step 1: Reflection
This step is such a part of who I am and what I do that I almost forgot to include it. But I realized that this is the keystone that holds all of the other steps together and gives you the best chance for happiness in whatever life you choose.
And by reflect, I don’t mean reflect on what you want, I mean reflect on WHO YOU ARE. Both Robb (my husband) and I have a really strong sense of self. Even before we started talking about a move, we knew that our deepest moral convictions didn’t match what we saw happening around us.
We weren’t OK with the number of people (especially children) living in poverty, the divide between Black and White and Asian and Latinos and Native Americans, the increased polarization of politics, or the growing culture of violence. Both of us had spent the majority of our professional lives trying to solve these problems in some capacity: him as a consumer advocate and me as a teacher in low income schools. We had protested before protesting was cool. We had contacted our legislators. We felt like we had to resign ourselves to living in a grossly unjust society, which we could not do. So we went for option B: leave.
Now this is a whole blog post on its own. Things aren’t perfect in Norway and I’m not going to say they are. But we both feel more comfortable here. However, in order to realize this, we had to name what was bothering us and admit how much it was bothering us. Because we knew ourselves, we knew when it was time to seriously try something new. And we were also able to stay the course when things got really tough.
Step 2: Reconnaissance
We were hoping to move in the summer of 2018, and we knew this would be a huge undertaking with three kids, especially one who had some issues with anxiety. We didn’t want them to freak out any more than necessary, so we decided to do a family trip. During the summer of 2017, we travelled to Norway as a family and spent 3 weeks in Oslo and visiting with distant relatives.
Besides demonstrating to the kids that Norway is the land of 10,000 playgrounds and giving them a positive feeling about the country, it allowed me to actually experience how expensive things were. (REALLY expensive!). Without that, I don’t think I could have made budgets that were realistic, because honestly, who would believe chicken breasts could possibly be almost 5 dollars a pound – on SALE!
There were a hundred little things we gained from our reconnaissance vacation, but the big one was a feeling: ‘Yes. We could live here. We could be happy here.’
I put three steps in one here, because it is kind of a continuous loop. I researched, created projections (translation:budget) and then readjusted as I got more info. We didn’t know where we could be living until about 3 months before we actually left, so I was researching four different cities: Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim, and Tromsø. We over-estimated costs and under-estimated income. How much money would we need to live with absolutely no income for a year? How long could we make it on 50K? (Not long!) 80K? 100K?
Even though it is impossible to think of everything (as evidenced by the global pandemic that hit about 9 months after our move), I did my best to leave no stone unturned. Some of the things that I checked on were costs for housing, transportation, food, utilities. And whenever possible, I would recommend checking ACTUAL sources. For me, that was finn.no, the go-to site for all things second-hand in Norway. I also checked sites that give comparison costs for groceries in different countries.
But it wasn’t just the costs. We also had to research ways to live in Norway legally. Even though Robb has Norwegian heritage, immigrating to Norway is extremely difficult.
One of the places we used to do research on this (and a lot of other weird stuff, actually) was Facebook. There are a ton of ‘expat’ Facebook groups where you can search to see if your question has already been asked. If not, you have hundreds of people with real world experience who are usually very willing to help. (Assuming you already checked the previous threads and didn’t ask a question that is posted approximately once a week. Then, they can get a bit testy.)
After gaining some basic info – including that education is free in Norway, and most Masters degree programs use English as the language of instruction – SCORE!!!! – we checked out the Norwegian government sites. We finally decided that my husband would apply for two programs in his field, and I would apply for one.
Step 6: Regroup
After applying, we were in limbo from about December to April. That’s a long time to wait when you may be moving your family to a different country. I kept researching like a mad woman, tried to declutter whatever possible, and kept socking away my pay check. (For more info on how we planned financially, check out this blog post.)
We got the first response in March. It was a ‘no’, but it wasn’t our first choice anyway. Then the next one. Again a no, but not one we were hoping for. Then I came through the door one day, and Robb said, ‘We heard from Oslo. I didn’t get in.’
Wow! Didn’t even know what emotions I was feeling. On the one hand, I was thrilled that we would have another year to save (and that turned out to be a HUGE bit of luck) and that I would have another year in my dream job teaching English to non-English speakers. BUT, we were also really disappointed. We had worked so hard, and of course, there was no guarantee it would work out for the following year, either.
I will say this, though. I don’t think that either one of us really considered NOT trying again the next year. Pretty much the first thing we did, was return to the ‘Study in Norway’ web site and find Every. Single. Program. that we qualified for.
In 2019, we applied for every possible program. We were determined to get to Norway. Again with the waiting. Again with the suspense. But this time, I got an acceptance from the university of Tromsø in March. We were 100% for sure going to Norway. But Robb still hadn’t received his responses, so we didn’t know for sure whether we could accept my position or whether his would be a better fit. So we waited. He got a no.
Then a ‘Yes’! We were only waiting for Oslo, his first choice program, the one that was an almost perfect match for his experience.
And then the answer came. No. But we were going. We were moving to Norway after almost 2 years of trying. Stavanger, Norway would be our new home.
Step 7: PANIC! And become best friends with good enough
You may have noticed this step doesn’t continue my lovely ‘r’ theme. As an English teacher, I can tell you there is some symbolism to that: everything went to heck. Sometimes there is just more to do than you have time for. We had approximately 3 months to prepare our house to sell, pack everything we were keeping into a shipping crate, and get rid of everything else, all while caring for 3 kids and working.
This is actually one of the more sensitive topics of our move for me because I felt completely out of control and pretty much like a failure through most of it. When we came to the last 2 days, we still had things in our house – LOTS of things. And we were flying out whether we got them out of the house or not. We accepted that we would have to hire a clean-out service and shifted tactics from getting everything out to making sure we didn’t leave anything precious behind.
We also had to sell our car. It was one of those things that just didn’t get done in the mad rush because we both needed transportation. So we were sitting in a used car chain on the Saturday night before we left on Monday waiting for a quote that turned out to be about half of what we would have gotten if we had the time to sell it on our own.
But like I said, we became best friends with good enough. Our priority was getting to Norway, and we had built enough cushion into our finances that the money we lost on the car was an inconvenience, not an emergency.
As we left, I had tremendous guilt about not leaving things the way I wanted to. Flying to Norway, and even for a few months after we arrived, it hurt me to remember those last weeks. But now, those feelings are receding into the background as I realize that we did what we had to do to get our family to Norway and to our new life. I’m thankful that we are here and I just have to accept that we did the best we could in a really hard situation.
In other words, there is a happy ending. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say there is a happy beginning. If you want to check out our adventures in Norway, head over to World of Wonders, where my husband and I write about our life in Norway.
And if you are dreaming of a major lifestyle change, remember, You’ve got this!
Broken air conditioners. Late rent. Evicting problem tenants. Replacing carpet torn up by dogs that were not even supposed to be in the apartment. After I bought my first investment property in 2002, those issues (and more) became a normal part of my life for over a decade.
And at the time, I wasn’t putting even a dime in my pocket. I had chosen to put 100% of the rents from the 13 units I eventually owned or co-owned back into the real estate.
I’ll be honest. It was a drag, especially during the great recession. Our tenants moved out, and we had to start dipping into our cash reserves to pay the mortgage. At that point, my partner wanted out. I believed it was the worst possible time to sell, and stuck it out, buying out his interest.
In 2018 & 2019 (that’s 17 years from the starting point, for anyone who is math-challenged), when the market had FINALLY rebounded, I sold the majority of my rentals. Because I had consistently put that money back into the real estate, they were paid off by that time. I deposited checks for almost $250,000 during those two years. That’s and amount equal to almost 6 years of take home pay from my teaching job. AND I still have about $1500 of passive income each month.
And that, my friends, is the power of the long game in side hustles.
I am all about side hustles that give you cash today, especially if you are trying to pay down debt. But once you are on firmer ground, the long game side hustles can be a source of very real wealth.
If you are interested in creating a side hustle that will pay off for years to come, there are certain things you need to understand or you will get discouraged. During the great recession, I saw a ton of people trying desperately to get out of real estate. They had an unrealistic idea of what the long game was, or maybe they didn’t realize the huge rewards they could get if they just stuck around.
So if you want to pay the long game, here are some lessons, insights, and pointers to give you a realistic idea of what that might mean.
Prepare for the worst, work for the best, and be happy with anything in the middle.
That’s not my idea. It’s a paraphrase of Maya Angelou. But it’s a pretty good idea of what to do if you are going to play the long game. Again, I’m going back to the great recession of 2007-2010ish, because that was a huge moment in real estate. A moment when a lot of investors lost everything.
Unfortunately, my sister and I bough 4 units shortly before the big downturn. But fortunately, we bought them with that ‘prepare for the worst’ idea in mind. Instead of putting down only 10%, or even less – like some people encourage you to do, we put down over 20% and made sure that we could cover the mortgage out of our own salaries if need be. We also didn’t take any money out of the real estate. In other words, for the two years or so during which we were actually making money each month, whatever was left over after paying the bills just sat in our bank account and grew until we needed it.
And need it we did. That extra money was a lifesaver. At one point, we had 3 out of 4 units unoccupied. That’s pretty unheard of, but our small town was really hit hard. To translate into dollars and sense, we had about $500 a month coming in, and a mortgage payment of $1040, not to mention water bills, property taxes and any other expenses. But we used that money we had saved up when times were good, and we knew that even if we burned through that, we would be able to cover it from our own incomes. So yes, we did have a backup plan for our backup plan.
If you are going to play the long game, remember that it is a LONG game. Don’t check the score every 10 minutes.
When I bought those first apartments in 2002, my plan was for them to pay for my kids’ college. Yeah, I didn’t have kids yet, so even going in, I knew it was the long game.
Knowing I was playing the long game helped me to remember that I wasn’t worried about what happened over a year or two years. I was looking at the 20-year time frame. So when the taxes were higher than I expected or we had a tenant who really tore up the apartment and we had to put a ton of money back into it, I wasn’t as likely to freak out. I knew that those things happen, and I knew it would even out over time.
The other thing that keeping the long game in mind helped me to do was NOT sell out at a loss. No shade for my partner. He made his decision based on his life at the time and what his goals were right then. But he did choose to sell out just as the market hit pretty much its low point. We weren’t making money that year. We were losing money. And he just kept seeing it go down the drain. So he sold his share out to me at a loss.
I knew we were losing money that year, but I also knew I wasn’t worried about that year. I was looking at the long game. So about 4 years after he sold out to me at a price equivalent to $150K, I sold 5 of the 6 units for $230K. I still have one of those units that pays me about $500/month.
That’s the power of knowing that you are playing the long game. It keeps you from messing things up for yourself because of what is happening in the moment.
Business is a snowball
When you are playing a ‘long game’ it is often like rolling a huge, huge boulder. At first, even a tiny bit of movement takes incredible effort. You push and strain and push some more just to move that massive rock a centimetre. But once it is moving, if you keep exerting that same amount of effort, it moves a bit faster. And then a bit faster. And then a bit faster. Suddenly, you look up and realize that you really couldn’t stop that boulder if you tried. (I would advise you NOT to try.) The cumulative efforts that you have put into rolling that rock are now allowing you to work a bit less hard and still keep the rock moving.
This concept applies to real estate (look at a chart showing how much principle is paid off each year of a mortgage), but to getting clients, building a brand, and a million other business processes, as well.
When I started my language teaching business, I had to hustle my butt off to get ANY traction, ANY forward motion. To get my first preschool class, I probably had to make 20 calls and teach 15 free class sessions for exposure. My second one was easier. And on it went from there. Even a full year after I sold my business, I actually had people contacting me for language teaching because they had heard of my business through word of mouth.
But you will never get to that point if you don’t do the hard pushing in the beginning OR if you get discouraged because things just don’t seem to be moving as fast as they should for all of the work you have put in.
And right at the moment I’m writing this, I am SO right there with you. I’ve set up my web site, written over 30 blog posts, created more Interest pins than I ever wanted to, and taken several courses on blogging. Have I made a penny? No, I have not. But I’m not quitting, because I know that you never get where you want to go if you quit. And you watch this space, cause big things are coming.
If you are playing the long game, I’m right there with you. It’s not going to be easy, but if we keep at it, it WILL be worth it. Hang in there, cause we’ve got this!
I frustrate my mother, as I’m sure all of us do for a million different reasons. My particular reason is because I do too much. Always trying another projector side hustle. Always biting off more than I can chew. Well, we all have our flaws, and that is one (among many) of mine.
So if you are worried because you just don’t know what side hustle will work for you, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to choose just one. Different side hustles are right not only for different people, but also for the same person at different times in their life.
My first side hustle (after the age of 10) was a multi-level marketing company. If you have found or are hoping to find success in MLM, I wish you all the luck. With that said, it wasn’t for me. I did all the things one was supposed to do, but some companies just aren’t quality companies, and I finally cut my losses.
However, my MLM experience probably taught me the #1 most important lesson for success in money AND in life: feed your mind and control your mind. As most MLM companies, mine offered extensive ‘professional development’ in the form of conferences, CDs, books, and seminars. Eager to succeed, I dived right in. I read and listened to some of the top names in personal development: Earl Nightingale, Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie. They led me to other motivational thinkers like Marie Forleo, Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield.
I don’t pretend to have things 100% figured out. I get in funks like everyone else. But most of the big things that I have accomplished in life have been possible because I kept going. And how did I keep going? By feeding my mind a constant diet of encouragement and focus.
Almost 15 years ago, I broke off an engagement and gave up on the idea of getting married. But I knew with 100% clarity that I wanted to be a mom. With an adopted sister who has taught me more things than I can tell, adoption was an easy choice for me.
What wasn’t easy was the adoption process. I spent 19 months assembling documents, reading about adoption, assembling the necessary funds on a teacher’s salary, and a hundred other things. Oh, and doing them all as a single woman.
Through all the headaches and heartbreaks, I had tremendous support from family and friends. But I also made a conscious choice to keep my mind right. I listened to leftover tapes and CDs from the MLM. I continued to read books.
Ten years later, my husband (so much for giving up on marriage) and I decided to move to Norway. Again, it took focus over time. Over two years after starting the process, we finally settled in Stavanger, Norway. (For more info on life in Norway, you can check out my lifestyle blog here.)
This time, keeping my mind right was a little different. It involved looking daily at housing, checking facts, reading the posts in Facebook groups, and changing my password to NORWAY2018, so I would remember several times a day where I was headed.
Even though I didn’t make millions (or even hundreds) in the MLM, in a very real way, that first side hustle made it possible for me to follow my dream all the way to motherhood and Norway. Life isn’t perfect, but I am loving my life in so many ways. And I don’t really think I would be here if I hadn’t had that lesson from my MLM experience.
If you have big dreams, especially big dreams that are going to take a long time to realize, get your mind right. Find a podcast or two that wlll continually point you where you want to go. Watch Youtube videos, read books. Whatever works for you. But you need to find a way to keep that dream front and center.
Why? Because you’ve got to find a hundred different ways to remember what I am always telling you: You’ve got this.
I am a personal finance nerd. If you have been reading this blog for any length of time at all, you probably know that. But I realized recently that I haven’t really explained much about multiple streams of income and why I am totally committed to this idea.
What does multiple streams of income even mean?
Multiple streams of income became kind of a buzz word during the 1990s when Robert Allen published a series of books on different angles of this concept. The basic idea is that people who are wealthy often don’t rely on a single income source. They might. For example, a family in which there is one high income-earning spouse who brings home income and the other spouse does not contribute to income earning at all. However, in order to TRULY not have more than one stream of income, they would have to have no investments in dividend earning stocks, no income real estate, absolutely no other sources of income. That is actually pretty rare.
On the other hand, a family that had 2 income sources would be a family in which both spouses earned income, OR one spouse earned income AND they had some other source of income, like an apartment they rented out, or a bedroom they used for AirBNB.
It has been over 15 years now since I have truly had only one source of income, and it’s pretty clear I’ll never go back.
Why I love multiple streams of income.
In two words: freedom and security. I know those are two words that are often used as opposites, but if you have multiple streams of income (and you have chosen them well), you get them both.
First, multiple income streams can provide security that no single income source can. You’ve heard the old saying about putting all your eggs in one basket? Well, that’s what you are doing if you have only one income source. Unfortunately, if that one source goes away, you have no income.
A lot of people who thought that their jobs were incredibly secure before the Corona Virus pandemic have lost their income because their job can’t be done without face-to-face contact and it is not considered ‘essential.’ While it is true that a lot of people’s side hustles have taken a huge hit, as well, having multiple sources of income means that the chances that you will still receive SOME income are greatly increased. And the more sources of income you have, the more likely that one of them will not only survive, but THRIVE during downturns.
So, security. Big, hairy, wonderful reason #1.
Freedom
Who doesn’t dream of freedom? Hopping from Greek isle to Greek isle sipping – well – whatever wonderful things they sip on Greek isles?
And if that is REALLY what you want, then absolutely, go for it! I’m cheering you on!
But freedom comes in many different flavors. Even an increase of $10K a year can give you so many more options. Options of where to live, where to eat, where to vacation. So yes, definitely short term, it gives you more freedom to have more income, and that is a great thing.
But it can also give you more freedom long-term, as well. My side hustles over the years (paired with other financially responsible decisions) put me in a position to grab my own personal dream when it came along. I’m writing this from Norway, where I now live with my family and teach part-time at an International school. In a couple of minutes, my train will run along the fjord, and I’ll be able to see the mountains on the other side of the sparkling water. Yup. To borrow from McDonalds, I’m LOVIN’ it!
But whether your long term dream involves Greek isles or Norwegian fjords, or just staying home with your own kiddos for a few years, multiple streams of income really increase the chances of you making those dreams a reality.
BUT, you must remember this.
So I’ve painted a pretty rosy picture of this multiple streams thing. And, that’s not hype. I totally believe that the more solid income streams you have, the more freedom and security you will built into your life. But there is a catch.
Some income streams actually LIMIT your freedom and security if you don’t use them well.
When I started my language teaching business, I forgot this rule. I saw an opening in the market because I knew that American parents wanted their preschool kids to learn Spanish. So I focused my energy there. My business was growing. But just about the time it started to really take off, my husband and I started seriously considering an overseas move. Since my business was location-dependent, I had to make a choice. And since I’ve already told you I’m writing this from Norway, I’ll bet you can figure out what the choice was.
As you think about multiple streams of income and how they can play a part in your life plan, remember: You’ve go this.
As I get ready to start this blog post, I take a deep breath and memories from the past 10 years wash over me. Just a little over 10 years ago, I was a single high school French teacher in rural Indiana. In the past 10 years, I have adopted a child, gotten married, had two more children, started a new teaching job, quit the job, started a business, sold the business, gone back into teaching, moved to Norway, and started a career in an international school. Whew! It makes me tired just listing it.
As you may have guessed from that list, I am a do-er. And often I get frustrated by the fact that I am not ‘do’ing more. I want to have 100 blog posts and 10,000 readers and start mentoring teachers on financial freedom, all while being a perfect, involved mom, creating enthralling lessons, and making dinner from scratch every night. I mean, come on, that’s not too much to ask, is it?
OK, um, maybe it is. A little.
Yes, I want all those things, but I will also admit to being happier than I have ever been in my life because of one question that I learned to ask myself during the continual change that has defined my life for the past 10 years.
So here it is:
Is it forever, or for a season?
When I’m struggling with something that I really want to do, but can’t seem to get it done, I ask myself “Is this forever, or for a seaon?”
Maybe I’m trying to get ahead on my blog posts (true story, at the moment) and I’m relying on a lot of convenience foods (which I HATE to do). But I ask, “Is it forever, or for a seaon?” And it is for a season. I know because I usually cook dinner, but right now I’ve got to get a little bit ahead on blogging. So no, it’s not forever. I can give myself some grace. And my kids can cope with the flavored cardboard that passes for frozen pizza here in Norway.
Or we are trying to get a house on the market so we can move to Norway with three kids. And I have to stop working on my beloved blog. Not cut down on it. Stop. Completely. But is it forever or for a season? Well, as you can tell by the one year gap in my posts, it was a few seaons, but it was NOT forever.
It depends on priorities. And those change and shift constantly. And you know what? That’s OK. More than OK, that’s life. And the sooner we give ourselves a bit of grace, the sooner we’ll have the courage to get up and dust ourselves off after those ‘seasons’ that are going to happen one way or the other.
With that said, I’m going to go read to my son, because that stuff, that’s forever! And as you go through this thing called life, remember: You’ve got this!
So you are thinking you need a side hustle, but you are frustrated because you feel like there is not much you can do until society opens up a bit more? Actually, ground work you do now could put your side hustle or micro-business light years ahead of where you would be if you jumped right in. Here are 5 questions to help find the perfect side hustle for you.
What are my side hustle priorities?
And do not write: “#1 Make money. #2 See #1.”
NO. I mean, really give this some thought, based on your personality and your family situation. What are the underlying reasons you have for wanting a micro-business or side hustle? Is it for little extras like vacations, eating out, or other treats you could give up if the market turned down? Or is it to pay rent or medical bills?
If it just ‘fun’ money, you can choose something that is good in good times and not good in bad times. But if this side hustle is the difference between you making rent or a car payment, you are going to want to give serious consideration to side hustles that will produce income no matter what the general economy does.
Another thing to consider is your family situation and life goals. Do you have kids? If so, what is best for them is going to play a major factor. I’m not trying to be alarmist here, but one of the (several) issues that kept me from every seriously considering using our extra room as an AirBNB was the fact that there was no separate entrance, and I didn’t want strangers in and out of our house when our kids were little.
Another thing that I would love to do is pet sitting. Unfortunately, my husband is allergic to both cats and dogs, so that is a non-started based on our family situation.
Be aware that your goals and situation will change over the years, so don’t try to predict everything that could possibly happen. But don’t be unrealistic about the facts, either. If you have 4 kids under age 4, a Saturday afternoon Mom’s Day Out babysitting service might be a lot more practical than a side hustle that requires hours of uninterrupted concentration.
Some ideas to consider:
Is this going to be ‘fun money’ or is it money you need just to pay the bills?
If you have a significant other is s/he on board?
Is it more important to you to make money right away or to have the potential to grow your income?
Do you need to be able to do your side hustle from home? While watching your own kids? At a certain time of day?
Do you have plans to move to a different city within the next few years?
Are you looking for something that could eventually replace your day job, or do you just want some extra cash on the side?
Is this side hustle recession proof? COVID-19 proof?
There are a lot of great side hustles out there that are only great until the economy goes south or we have another shutdown. That’s why it matters so much whether this is ‘fun money’ or you are relying on it to pay the bills.
If it’s fun money you have a little more freedom to choose based on what you will enjoy doing. If it is essential income, the last thing you want is to choose a side hustle that is super fun, but dries up the second people start cutting back on their own spending.
In the era of COVID-19, it’s also worthwhile to think about whether this is something you can do if your city or state shuts down again. That really limits the choices, I realize. But remember, you don’t have to rely 100% on a single side hustle. You can do Uber AND test websites. You can have a Mommy’s afternoon out where for Stay-at-home-moms AND do VIPKid. But you don’t want to count 100% on a side hustle that will drop to $0 in income with the first blip in the economy.
What side hustles can I pair up to get the best of both worlds?
Let’s look at a specific example. Let’s say you look at the options and decide you LOVE the idea of indexing. It seems right up your alley to be able to read books at home, create an index, and make money for it. (If that sounds like a dream job to you, check out more info here.)
But it just won’t work because you need to make $150 a month to pay your basic expenses. That is non-negotiable. And it needs to start this month, so you don’t have time to wait for the indexing to ramp up. So you think Uber might be better. But you know you can’t do Uber if there is another shutdown. Plus, you hate to give up the chance to create something that you could actually turn into a career in the future.
Newsflash: This ain’t a marriage. You can two-time your side hustles. You can have one to cover the essentials and one to build into the future. So you do Uber until you’ve got th $150 to cover your expenses, then spend the rest of the month on building your indexing side hustle. With luck, the indexing will eventually provide the full $150 you need a month – and more!
This side hustle doesn’t work for me. What else can I try?
OK, going back to that old relationship analogy. No one goes on one date and then dispairs if the person wasn’t Ms. or Mr. Right. Going into the side hustle search with the same attitude – that there will be some things that work out and some things that don’t – makes it a lot more likely you’ll actually be successful.
If you have gone through these steps and really given them some thought, make a list of 10-15 side hustles that could work based on your priorities. You might have to dig deep to get to that number, but sometimes those ideas that you stretch for are the ones that work out.
Here is an example list for someone who wants to work at home, needs to watch their kids at least part of the time, and has some background in art and design: running an in-home daycare, selling crafts on Etsy, flipping items on E-Bay, teaching English online though a service like VIPKid, offering a subscription box service with a focus on art for kids, creating and welling Pinterest templates, doing SEO optimization, testing websites, selling lesson plans on Teachers Pay Teachers, selling photos online, teaching Mom and Me art classes from home or doing calligraphy for weddings.
The important thing is not that you love every idea on the list; it’s that if one idea doesn’t work out, you have others to fall back on. Just don’t fall back too fast. Give each idea at least a couple of months to see if it will work, and longer if it is something that you have to build up, such as art classes or a subscription box.
A final thought: Your priorities will change
Moreover, even if you find a side hustle you love, that doesn’t mean you’ll love it forever. One of my side hustles was selling real estate. Man, I loved it! I’m a real estate addict, and I love talking real estate and helping people find their dream home. It’s totally something I would do for fun even if nobody paid me to do it.
But when I became a single mom, that just wasn’t an option anymore, and I had to say good-bye to that particular side hustle.
In another case, my preschool Spanish classes were really taking off when I realized that our family would be relocating within the next couple of years. Unfortunately, my business model was location dependent. So while I could take what I had learned and start over in a new place, it would definitely be starting over. As much as it broke my heart, I gave up my Spanish teaching business because it didn’t make sense to continue to pour my blood, sweat, and tears into it when it wasn’t portable.
But I didn’t stop. I still love my side hustles. Now I just prioritize options that are location independent.
Like I said, your priorities will change. You are likely to pivot several times before your find your long-term love. Hey, nothing is saying you won’t do the side hustle equivalent of marrying your high school sweetheart. But if you don’t there’s still a happy ending out there for you if you keep on trying.
“Financial freedom” (also called financial independence) and “teacher” aren’t words that most people associate together. Not trying to brag on us here or anything, but “overworked” and “underpaid” are often more the go-to images of an educator than “working because she wants to”. Financial freedom for teachers is just not a trending phrase, despite the desperation of many teachers to get out of the classroom, either temporarily or long-term.
And yet, in some really important ways teachers are in a really, really good position to gain financial independence. So don’t let people tell you it’s impossible. There are more teachers out there who have achieved financial freedom than you may believe, and I’ll be highlighting some of them in a future post. Right now, here are some of the reasons why teachers can indeed achieve financial freedom.
NOTE: this post doesn’t deal with the insurance issue. I’m still researching how insurance fits into the picture. If anyone has decent insurance options, please feel free to comment below. I would love to hear them.
What is “Financial Freedom for Teachers”?
Before we get into the reasons, though, let’s make sure we are all on the same page. What is financial freedom for teachers? Almost every personal finance blogger will have a slightly different definition, so I’m going to just go with mine. When I talk about ‘financial freedom for teachers’, I mean the ability to know that you can teach or NOT teach without money being the deciding factor. So I’m not actually talking about you and your spouse being able to move to Tahiti (although that could be YOUR definition of financial freedom). I’m talking about either temporarily or permanently deciding to go without your teaching income and doing so knowing that the bills will still get paid.
What could cause you to walk away from a job you love? Here are a few things that I can think of.
You have 2 kids under age 3, a husband who travels for work and something’s got to give. You just can’t do a good job of being a mom and a teacher both at this exact moment. (This one happened to me.)
You just had a baby and have only 4 weeks of sick leave saved, so at the end of that time, you have to either go back to teaching or go without income. (This one happened to me.)
A family member becomes seriously ill and needs more help than you can give while teaching full time.
There is a job change that makes teaching miserable.
You are put in a position where standing up for your students or for what is right will put your job at risk. (This one happened to me. Do you see a pattern emerging here?)
You have the chance to move to your dream location and have the adventure of a lifetime, but you don’t know if you will be able to find a teaching job there. (Ahem, you guessed it. This one happened to me.)
And the current winner: Your state and/or district are forcing teachers to return to on-site classes during a global pandemic and it is JUST. NOT. SAFE.
All of these examples have a real impact on your family life and your mental health. And while you might know that you love teaching and you want to return to it someday (Yep. This happened to me!) – or not – financial freedom is the ability to leave the classroom if you need to.
So, with that, here are the many reasons teachers are actually in a great position to achieve that.
Low salary
Yep, you read that right. One of the reasons that teachers CAN achieve financial freedom is that they have a low salary. That sounds TOTALLY counter-intuitive. I imagine you’re thinking, “So you are telling me that it is EASIER to become financially free with a low salary than a big one? Well, Jill, we need to review basic math and basic logic. Which one would you like to start with?”
OK, you have a valid point, but low salary also means teachers don’t have a ton of income to replace. If a doctor wants to quit work, she often has to replace $150K+ or more per year. But the bonus of the low average salary we teachers earn is that many teachers would have to replace only a third of that – $50K or less to replace their income.
(Not) Keeping up with the Jones
That’s not news to any of us, but another aspect of that might be one that you haven’t thought of. Because pretty much everybody knows that teachers aren’t raking it in, they don’t have the same pressure to keep up with those crazy Joneses that people in other professions may.
Let’s go back to that doctor/teacher comparison, shall we? Let’s say a teacher chooses to drive a modest used Toyota Camry. That’s pretty much standard for teachers, so chances are no one would even notice. On the other had, let’s say our doctor – a surgeon – drove the same car. Don’t you think they might feel out of place parking next to their colleagues’ BMWs, Audis, and Saabs? Now, I know I am relying on stereotypes here. There are teachers who drive BMWs and doctors who drive Camrys. But I would say that isn’t the norm.
And cars are only one aspect of it. What about private school? Ski vacations? Family trips to Europe? Those are just part of what most people assume a high-income earner will do. Teachers, while they may choose some of these more expensive options, aren’t necessarily assumed to be tightwads if they opt for cheaper alternatives, either.
Think I’m making this up? No. In The Millionaire Next Door Thomas Stanley and William Danko, who spent years researching millionaires, came to the same conclusion. If you haven’t read it, you’ve got to. It’s one of the best personal finance books I’ve ever read.
Summers
Final thought: summers. I know, you are sick of people saying, “Why do you complain about what teachers make? You get summers off!” But those summers , besides being an essential part of recharging our batteries so we can go back at it the next year, are a valuable resource to begin closing the gap between your income and your expenses.
Say you decide to start a side hustle during the summer. Something you actually enjoy doing, but can also get paid for. And you spend about 20 hours a week on this side job for about 6 weeks of the summer for a total of 120 hours. (For info on side hustles that can earn you some serious money, check out my posts on VIPKid, pet sitting, indexing or other side jobs that bring in great money.) You start up slowly because it takes a while to figure things out, but that first summer, you earn about $2000 dollars, which is absolutely do-able. That works out to between $15 & $20/hour. Not great, but not so bad, either.
Summer numbers – had me a blast
Now that you’ve got the hang of it, you decide you are going to continue it during the school year, but only about 5 hours a week. After all, you chose something you actually enjoy doing, so why not? But now you are better at it, so you earn an average of $20/hr. That’s $100/week, or an extra $400 a month. Let’s say you skip back-to-school month, and two other months during the ten-months of the school year. That’s still an extra $2800 at the end of the school year. You have earned $4800, and you are now almost $5000/year closer to being able to quit teaching.
And if you have used that money to pay off some debt, your monthly expenses might even be going down as your income is going up. You can start to see how this whole thing could actually work. It won’t be easy, but it could definitely happen.
Bottom line is this: if you are determined to find reasons you can’t have financial freedom, you’re right. On the other hand, if you are determined to find reasons you CAN, you’re right, as well. To a large extent, what you believe is possible will actually influence what is possible.
Even if you honestly believe that leaving teaching is impossible for you in your current situation, there are loads of things you can do to make it a viable option in the not-too-distant future: investing in your retirement funds, paying down credit card debt, buying used cars when an upgrade is necessary, and doing more cooking at home, shopping at nice consignment stores instead of. Little things mean a lot, and even more importantly, they put you on a path you want to follow long-term.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. These links allow me to earn a commission on some really great products or services at no cost to you. I only recommend products that I really believe in, because your trust is worth a lot more to me than a commission.
We all know that life has changed within the past two months. For many of us, our pre-pandemic “normal” is only loosely related to our social distancing “normal” .
Moreover, we are in vastly different situations depending on family situations, job situations, and emotional states. Some people are completely overwhelmed by trying to work from home, learn the new programs and apps, they need to use in their new virtual life, help their kids with online school work, all while keeping themselves emotionally healthy. Right next door, there may be someone frustrated because they have more time on their hands that ever, but no idea what to do with it.
Spoiler alert: This article was not written for that first group. If you are struggling just to keep up with the day to day, don’t put more guilt or pressure on yourself for not being up for something new at this exact moment.
On the other hand, if you are in that second group, OR if you are someone (like me) who deals with stress by producing something and distracting yourself with work, you might be feeling as if you WANT to do something, but just have no idea what to do. Even if your side hustle or micro-business is on hold at the moment because of social distancing, there are a TON of things you can do to make your business and your life run more smoothly-and hopefully produce more income – when life outside the four walls of our houses becomes a reality again.
Obviously, not all of these will work for everyone. Focus on the 1-2 that you think will make the biggest impact. (Or that you have the mental energy to tackle.) Some of these actions are all about setting a foundation for later, while others can actually help you improve your bottom line right now, depending on your business and/or side hustle.
No matter your situation, remember, I believe in you. You’ve got this!
Improve your online presence
Depending on your side hustle or micro business, creating or expanding your online presence could potentially bring in money today, while also increasing your business’s visibility for the future. Here are four ways to do so.
Create or update your website
Yeah, I know it just screams “Let the good times ROLL!” but updating your business’s website, or creating one if you don’t already have one, is a great way to leverage this forced time at home.
I don’t know about you, but I’m actually not a fan of tech stuff. It messes with my head, I have trouble with the plug ins, and all the little fiddly stuff never seems to work. So if you are techie, this doesn’t apply to you. But if you are intimidated by tech, I’m going to give you my absolute BEST tip here: Check out Shannon Mattern’s 5 Day Website Challenge.
I used it for the first time about 2 years ago, and I – yes, the woman who can make a computer malfunction just by walking into the room with it – I built a website in WordPress. But wait, there’s more! Shannon takes you through all the fiddly bits step by step. Plugins and banners and email lists, OH MY! Shannon does it all, and makes it, if not easy, at least completely do-able.
Seriously, if tech intimidates you, but you want a professional looking and functional website, you’ve got to check her out!
And if you have a website, but it is not bringing you the traffic you want, Shannon’s got your back again! For FREE again! She also offers a Free Jumpstart Your Website Traffic Mini-Course that I am actually working my way through as we speak – or um – as we blog. And in case you think I’ve got a girl crush on Shannon (OK, so maybe she is my business crush. Is that so wrong?) here’s why I keep sharing her stuff: I recently paid over $200 dollars for a course. It’s not bad. I’ve learned several helpful tips from it. But Shannon’s free stuff totally blows the paid course out of the water! So if you are taking the time to read my stuff, I want you to benefit from the content creators who are really head and shoulders above the rest.
Create a media presence
Let’s say you aren’t about the headache of creating a whole website. That doesn’t mean you can’t let people know about your talents. If you pet sit, how about starting an Instagram account for your business? Posting pictures of you doing fun and cute things with your pet (or perhaps a borrowed pet) will help your friends and family, and even people outside your circle associate you with pets and keep you top of mind when people once again need dog walkers and pet sitters.
Learn a new social media platform and create a presence
I am NOT a Pinterest girl. But as Marie Forleo says, “Everything is figureoutable!” So I’ve been trying it, and I have to say, it is a bit addictive to see my stats update and trend upwards.
If you have an online presence, but it’s not getting you the traction you want, why not use this time to try out a platform you don’t normally use? Here’s the trick: Don’t try it a week and then give up. Commit to using it every day for at least 2 months. See what happens. Every platform has different algorithms and it takes time to figure out what works and what doesn’t in each different situation.
Build a mailing list…
So you have a website, but you don’t really have an email list, or you have a list, but it is not something you really engage with. Now is the perfect time to change that.
If your website isn’t set up to collect email addresses, you are letting potential customers just slip away. I was terrified by the idea of setting up a mailing list. But again, with the help of the FREE 5 Day Website Challenge, I did it. THEN, I tackled switching providers. I won’t say it went without a hitch, but I will say that I have an actual email list now.
…And use it to create a ‘know, like, trust’ relationship with potential customers
If you already have a list, but you have kind of neglected it, this is the time to turn that list into a real asset for your business. Potential customers are more likely to buy from you if you 1) have a product or service that will solve a problem for them 2) they feel good doing business with you.
As a business owner, this is a great time to provide real value to your customers for free so that they begin you see you as a trustworthy expert in the field. Give some thought to what frustrations or challenges your customers might be wrestling with right now, and provide free resources (to the extent you can) to help them cope. Chances are good, they will remember you the next time they are dealing with a similar issue.
This brings us to our next point.
Create and send valuable content
What does your customer need to cope with this crisis?
If they are a teacher, they probably need someone to cut through the million and one offers they are getting right now and help them figure out what online teaching aids are really worth investing their time and energy into and which are so-so.
If you provide pool service, perhaps they are trying to figure out how to maintain their pool on their own right now without access to their normal pool maintenance technician OR how to manage it on their own long term if their finances have changed.
If they are a parent, they probably need some assurance that they are not alone and that everyone is struggling.
My readers are probably a bit stressed about money, so this is the perfect time for me to promote my free 5 Day Free Money Challenge.
Figure out what you can provide to your ideal client that will massively improve their life at this point, and share it with them. And don’t underestimate your ability to do this. The people on your list are there for a reason. They have some need or desire for what you offer. If you can figure out what they need and how to help right now, you may have a customer for life.
Upgrade your business
In Steven Covey’s famous book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the 7th habit is “Sharpen the Saw.” In other words, invest in yourself and constantly improve your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Don’t allow yourself to neglect things that are truly important in favor of actions that seem urgent, but don’t move you forward. Here are 4 ways you can use this time productively to sharpen the saw by investing time in business systems and improvements that really are important, but might be pushed aside during more hectic days.
Free online trainings (or paid ones)
There is an amazing variety of online professional development trainings available that will allow you to add to your business skills. Today, you can find both free and paid courses on accounting, coding, marketing, creating online courses, running webinars, and about a thousand other topics that may apply to your specific niche. While you don’t want to waste time or money on a fluff course, reviews make it easier to find the courses that really deliver and the ones that are mediocre, at best.
One thing is for sure: When the economy starts up again, the competition is going to be fierce. Stratigic skills you develop now will give you more options and more credibility with potential customers and clients.
Set up tracking and accounting systems
Blec! Blec! Blec! Yeah, I don’t like accounting either. At. All. But as a small business owner who does her own books, I have to cope with them. So I’m investing a bit of time during these weeks to revamp my budgeting spreadsheets, run through my subscription services to see which ones I really use, and set up systems that will help me stay on track during this coming year.
It doesn’t have to be a weeks-long torture session. Just a few hours a week (with a nice reward at the end – I’m looking at you, Lemon Gelato!) can make a huge difference! Come on and join in the fun. Please? Misery loves company, after all!
Front load the work
Are there tasks you can do to get ahead or to give yourself a cushion in case something comes up and you can’t keep to your normal schedule? As teachers, we often have a folder of “emergency sub plans” just in case we wake up too sick to make plans or have some kind of accident that keeps us from sending work in. They are not the perfect, optimal plans. They are the “just got to get through this” plans.
Your business needs that kind of emergency plan, too. But we are often too busy to just sit down and do it. Have a blog? Write some extra blog posts? Teach private lessons in person or online? Create props or videos for upcoming lessons. Order books, or just pick them and put them in the shopping cart for later. Do you clean houses? Inventory your cleaning supplies, especially the ones you don’t use often so you know what you need and what you have an over supply of.
Figure out 2-3 little things that will make your life easier when it gets hectic again, and focus on those.
Build strategic partnerships
This is a great time to build connections with people who provide different services to a similar clientele. If you teach art classes to preschoolers, you could offer area preschools a video of 5 at-home art projects they can share with their families (who might be struggling mightily to keep those kiddos entertained). If you are a photographer, you could contact local florists or DJs and offer to write a blog post for them about how to pick the perfect wedding photographer or wedding shots you don’t want to miss. They may be willing to return the favor. That’s what we call a win-win.
The point is to think about other businesses, blogs, or individuals whose clients would also benefit from your services, but aren’t your competitors and use that connection to enhance both businesses.
There you have it. So whether you are totally into tackling the entire list, or just counting it a victory to make it out of bed in the morning, I believe in you. Remember, you’ve got this.
If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you know the story that really got me started thinking about financial independence for teachers. My best friend’s infant son had a health issue that caused him to ‘seem’ sick based on the criteria of his daycare. He wasn’t sick, and he had a note from the doctor to attest to the fact that his body just worked a little different from the norm. However, the daycare didn’t seem to care. Consequently my friend was getting 1-2 calls a week to come pick him up within an hour. Not an ideal situation for a busy high school English teacher.
I saw how stressed she was. I saw how she felt like she was failing both at work and as a mom. And I decided right then that I had to do something so that I could choose not to teach if I needed to. I needed to put myself in a position where teaching was a lifestyle choice not a financial requirement.
Taking action
I watched my expenses, increased my income, and stashed the extra away. I’ll skip the gory details – ok, they weren’t that gory, but they could be boring, so we’ll cut to the chase. Let’s just say that put me in a position fairly early in life to choose whether I wanted to teach or not. At four different points in my life, I’ve been able to step out of the workforce for various reasons. And each time, I’ve gone back to a job I liked even better than the one I left. Even better, each time I have returned to teaching with more energy, more joy, and more enthusiasm than ever. My breaks from teaching have made me a better teacher.
But I would not have been able to check out and check back in if it weren’t for the fact that I didn’t need my teaching paycheck. And as I watch what is going on in education, I desperately want every educator to be able to make the choice of whether to continue teaching or not, especially today.
So why is financial freedom for teachers more important now that it ever was before?
Reason #1: Mental health
The pressures put on classroom teachers by administration, parents, and society in general are taking a huge toll on teachers’ mental health. According to a 2017 survey of 5000 American teachers conducted by the AFT, 58% of teachers polled indicated that at some point in the previous 30 days their mental heath was “not good.” (By comparison, just 2 years earlier, only 34% had responded similarly.) In personal experience, I have been amazed by the number of teachers who have told me they were on anti-depressants because of the pressures of teaching.
Look, we all want to be there for “our kids.” But at some points in time, you have to prioritize your own mental health. And let’s face facts, our students really deserve to have teachers who aren’t stressed and depressed. Just as importantly, we deserve to have professional lives that don’t require an anti-depressant to cope with the stress of our jobs.
Reason #2: Transition and uncertainty
Education is in transition right now. In some states, there are movements to privatize public schools. In most states, a teacher’s and a school’s value is based heavily on standardized test scores. And with the impact of the global pandemic on education, who knows when classroom teaching will return to ‘normal’ whatever that is. Even teachers who would never choose to leave the field of education might not have that choice. And if a teacher who loves teaching with every fiber of her being is pushed out of the classroom, the last thing she needs to be worried about is money.
Reason #3: Force for Good
In my most recent job, I was touched by an angel. No, not the Hallmark-esque 90’s TV show. A former teacher who made my classroom a lot more like heaven. Marla Tasch was a former classroom teacher who volunteered in my English as a New Language classroom 2-3 days a week. It was the best thing ever! You know how you sometimes wish you could clone yourself because there is Just. Too. Much. To. Do. Well, having Marla in my classroom was like having that often-wished-for clone. She still wanted to work with kids, and she had the skills and empathy to do so. But she didn’t need the paycheck. So she made my life better, made the kids’ lives SO much better, and I think we made her life better, too. Best of all – get this – she didn’t have to grade papers! Sounds to me like everyone lucked out.
But seriously, she was able to hold onto the parts of teaching she enjoyed and let go of the ones she didn’t. What kind of impact could we have on education if we had an army of Marlas? What if all those people who were leaving education to go into some other field, instead just hung around and helped out all the teachers who are still in the trenches? It would be a revolution in education.
Reason #4: The tough stuff
Strikes. There I said it. Across the nation teachers have gone on strike these past few years, not just for themselves, but for their students, as well. Kids deserve small class sizes; they deserve competent school counselors, nurses, and other support staff; they deserve specials like music, art, and PE. But if we teachers don’t stand up for them – and stand up STRONG – they often don’t get those things. Financial freedom means that if – God forbid – your school decides that a strike is the best way to stand up for teachers and students, you won’t be wondering what those days of lost pay are going to do to your family.
And then there is doing what is best for kids. I was once put in a situation where I had to speak up about some very popular and powerful people who were harassing students. Make no mistake, I would have done it no matter what. But it was super stressful, and I’m glad that the “How will I pay my bills if they make up a reason to fire me?” wasn’t part of the mental calculus I was doing.
But aren’t teachers above all that money stuff?
As teachers, we are often kind of told that we shouldn’t think about money. After all, teaching is a calling. And when you are doing something so noble, you shouldn’t even think about money, much less about having more than you need to pay for the bare necessities, right? Isn’t financial independence for teachers just selfish?
Hogwash! (Sorry, that’s the country girl coming out in me.) Being paid like the professionals we are, having extra money for things that just make us happy, and even financial freedom – these things can ease the worry and actually make us better teachers.
So if you are ready to learn more about financial freedom and how to make it happen for you – whether you want to quit teaching as soon as possible or never in a million years – read on. This blog is for you.
When you look at personal finance writers, you are usually going to find people who fall into one of two categories. 1) Those who emphasize increasing income with side hustles or asking for raises. 2) Those who emphasize reducing expenses by eating at home and foregoing the daily latte. It’s not true of every blog and podcast out there, but if you look at the majority of them, you’ll find they lean one way or the other.
People are the same way. Often, we either feel more comfortable reining in what we spend or ‘dream big’ and look for the side hustle or career breakthrough that will shoot our income through the roof and let us leave money worries behind forever.
Team Spend Less
Folks on team ‘spend less’ cite millionaire sports heroes who have declared bankruptcy and the fact that most lotto winners who cashed in to the tune of millions are broke again within just a few years. (True. You can look it up.) Obviously, they point out, all the money in the world won’t fix your problems if you can’t control your spending. So there!
Team Dream Big
On the other hand, team ‘dream big’ points out, you can only reduce your expenses so much, but your income can increase infinitely. Plus, while you’re trying to save $0.07 per serving by soaking your own dried beans instead of splurging on that outrageously overpriced can of beans, your life gets smaller and smaller. That’s no way to live. Mic drop.
Yup. And Yup.
Like most things in life, both are right and both are also a bit wrong. (Imagine that! Nuance. A life lesson that can’t be contained in a 10 second sound byte. Hm, who’da thunk?)
So here’s the short version. No, you can’t save enough to put yourself on sound financial footing if you make $15K a year and have 5 kids. It’s just not gonna happen. But if you ignore the saving side entirely, no amount of money will ever be enough. Just like your income can always increase, so can you always manage to find more things to spend your money on.
The trick – and this is the part that no one can do for you , you’ve got to do it for yourself – is to find that balance, an then stretch yourself just a bit beyond your comfort zone in the area that makes you uncomfortable.
Out of the comfort Zone
I’m naturally a minimalist. I don’t like wasting things and I am NOT a stylish person. So I just don’t spend a lot of money. Interestingly, I sometimes push myself to spend more. I don’t want my life to become small and stunted because I’m trying to save a few pennies. So I try to think about what really matters to me and spend on that. For me, that’s travel. So I make a point to travel, but I also figure out what does and doesn’t matter to me about travel. Fancy restaurants? Not so much. I hit the grocery stores and have myself a picnic on the grass. But yeah, I’ll spend a bit more on a larger AirBNB so my three kids don’t drive me crazy in a tiny studio. (Trust me, it works out better for all of us that way.)
On the other hand, I LOVE side hustles. I have owned rental real estate, worked on the side as a real estate agent, run a blog, taught private language classes, and created an online class. My advice here is to find something you enjoy doing anyway, and then maximize your income from it. Do you love dogs? How about doing dog walks in the summer or even pet sitting for owners who are out of town? Maybe you are into reading. How about doing indexing on the side? And if you are open for some teaching after you step out of your classroom, you can make awesome money teaching private group classes. (Click the links if you want to know more details.)
Like anything in personal finance, it comes down not just to knowing the facts and the numbers, but to knowing yourself. So if you are a spender, try one little way to cut expenses. No one is asking you to go all out. Or if your know deep down that you really need to increase your income, start trying on side hustles to find one you enjoy so much you’d do it for free. Because neither team ‘spend less’ nor team ‘dream big’ can win this game alone.
One of my best and oldest friends is also a teacher, also willing to talk about money, and also does pretty well financially. This means we know a lot more about each others’ finances than most friends because we just chat about that stuff without it getting all weird.
However, she has a totally different style than I do. TOTALLY. Whereas I am always ready to jump into the next new thing, she does NOT like change. She’s awesome, and whenever change occurs, she totally kills her new venture, but it takes a lot more time for her to get on board. So when she read my blog, she had some advice for me: Keep it Simple, Stupid.
OK, she didn’t use those exact words, but we’ve known each other long enough that I can read between the lines. And I may be stupid, but I know enough to value other perspectives, especially ones from someone whose financial advisor refers to her as a “financial rockstar.” (Seriously.)
Let me give you a little background info. She has requested to remain anonymous, so I’ll call her Anne. Anne is 40 years old, single, and has taught in the Midwest for 17 years. She owns a modest 3 bedroom home in a nice, but not fancy, neighborhood in a small town. If it’s not paid off, it will be soon. She buys a new car (not used) every 7 years or so.
She really enjoys going out with friends to restaurants and wineries. And travel is a big part of her life. She has been to South America, several countries in Europe, and more cool spots in the US than I can count. She volunteers for a lot of community organizations, but hasn’t had any other paying gigs since she started teaching. She is not into side hustles, but has invested in and managed rental real estate. From what I hear (and she is pretty darn modest, so I imagine she understates her success, if anything), she has done well in real estate, but in a slow, steady non-flashy way.
As you can see, she doesn’t live like a hermit. She enjoys a lot of wonderful things in life, and she isn’t working her life away.
What she has accomplished
When her teaching job got cut to ½ time just a few days before school started (She’s a specials teacher, so that stuff happens sometimes.), she didn’t blow a gasket. She just lowered her retirement contribution and started job searching. She literally lived on half her salary for a year while she prepared herself emotionally for the big change. She taught part time for a year (loved it!) and then found another job that suited her.
As a 29-year-old teacher, she had stashed approximately $45,000 in her Edward Jones account.
In January 2020, just before the big nosedive in stocks, she had $308,000 in her retirement account.
As I mentioned before, she has paid off her house (or very nearly). And not in 30 years, either. In about 15.
We were talking recently about our different approaches toward money, she underlined how it was really doing the simple things that made a difference for her. For example, she invests in her retirement account every month, no matter what. Even that year when her income got cut in half, she found a way to invest something every paycheck. She’s all into that low-hanging fruit. Do the easy stuff, she says. If you do the easy stuff, the payoff is often bigger than you can imagine.
So here are some tips from Anne, in her own words.
Always invest. ALWAYS.
Anne says: “When I think back to how I have gained my wealth, some of it has come from the rentals, of course. But really, it is because I have done little things that have made a big difference over time. (Sorta like you post about jill from 2003 and jill from 2012).
Let me explain: I have been cleaning out files and decluttering my filing cabinet. I just found my Edward Jones statement from 2009. Want to know how much money I had in there at that time? Roughly 45,000 dollars. Not too shabby for a 29 year old teacher. I was pretty proud of myself back then. In January 2020 before the nosedive that the stock market took, do you want to know how much money I had in Edward Jones? $308,000!!! Yes! For a single income public school 40 year old teacher. Do I have that much in there now, no way! But it will come back, at least, that is what I am telling myself. And it is all because I put in the maximum amount for my IRA each year. Either 5-6,000 dollars a year (It has changed over the years). Not exactly sure what it is now. I rarely put extra money in, money outside of my IRA, because I just don’t have it. Right now I am trying to scrape together some money to sink in to the stock market while it is down, because it’s a sale on stocks! So I have done minimal work for that gain. I have just let time do its thing. Lots of people don’t have 5-6,000. I get it. I don’t think I started out maxing out my contribution either. But the key is to put it in there and let time help you out. I think that is a crucial piece that needs to be hit on.”
Make your investing automatic.
Anne says, “When I was a young naive teacher, one of the smartest things I ever did (Besides switching to PE) is I started having money taken out of my paycheck and put in my 403B without me even seeing it. At first I noticed it. But then I forgot about it. And each year I got a raise, I automatically went in and raised the amount to be taken out by 25 or 50 dollars. This then comes out of my pay check before taxes, plus I never even knew I had it, because the raise covered it. I changed it by 100 or so dollars when I got my masters. Today, I am taking home only slightly more than I did as a new teacher. My 2 week take home is roughly 1100 dollars. I think I started at 850 or so. But here is the thing–$450 or 500 a month is going into my 403 B and the school district puts in a % of that. Is it a lot? Nope, but a little over time adds up to lot. Plus I have some of my paycheck directed into a savings account before I ever see it each pay period. Then at the end of the year, I use that money for my IRA contribution, or vacation, etc. Also that helped when my position got cut to part time. That was the only time I lessened the amount that I was putting into my 403 B and savings account. Even part time, I managed to put in 25 dollars a paycheck. Because I still wanted my employer to contribute their percentage. But that gave me back that extra money that I “Never saw” so I could live on 1/2 my usual salary.”
On rotten days, pay yourself, not somebody else.
Anne says, “After a really rotten day at school. You know the days–the ones where you are defeated and you think to yourself, “There ain’t no way I can do this job for another year, let alone 15 years!” I always come home and put in 25 dollars into my savings account. Instead of going and spending $25 dollars on retail therapy or at a restaurant or bar, I put $25 in my savings account to feed my retirement. And it wouldn’t have to be $25. It could be $5 or $10. Just something I started doing years ago when I needed to physically do something to better my situation. Might not be much. But it makes me feel closer to being able to walk away from teaching.”
Be like Anne
Here’s the bottom line: Anne is proof that teacher doesn’t equal poverty-stricken. She did have some major advantages like graduating from college without debt and not having kids. (Kids are wonderful, but expensive as all of us parents know.) But she has found a way to live and enjoy life while still socking away some major bank. And she has done it by doing the things that are easy and putting them on autopilot.
If you are thinking, “Sounds great, but I can barely pay my bills, much less have any money left over,” check out my 5 Day Found Money Challenge. See what you are spending money on that you aren’t even using, cut your costs, and keep the $$ for yourself.
No one likes to think about recessions. They can range from unsettling to completely terrifying depending on your financial and job situation. But when you couple a economic worries with the current anxiety about COVID-19, things get a whole lot scarier. If you are still earning a paycheck, but are starting to realize that your personal economy isn’t as strong as you would like, read on for 6 things you can do to prepare your finances for COVID-19, even if everything else in your life seems out of control.
Check your monthly bills
One of the best and fastest ways to make yourself feel as if you have more control over things is to lower your monthly bills. I know what you are thinking: “Dude, we’re in a lockdown, I am NOT getting rid of Netflix to save $20 a month.” But what if you could lower your bills without getting rid of ANYTHING? A few years ago, I decided to check all of my monthly payments, even the ones I didn’t want to get rid of. It didn’t take more than a couple of hours, and I lowered my monthly bills by $50 without cancelling a single service. Add to that some of those “free trials” that I had forgotten to cancel before they started charging me, and I lowered my monthly bills by another $100 on services I didn’t even realize I was paying for!
Here’s the big thing. Even though it seems like a drag, you need to call EVERY service you pay for monthly. When I did this for the first time after my husband and I were married, I found out we were still subscribed to the DVD-by-mail service from Netflix. We loved Netflix, but hadn’t seen those DVDs in years. I found them, sent them back, and cancelled that part of the subscription. It only saved us $12/month. But when you add it up, we had probably spent over $100 for those 2 DVDs that we never. even. watched.
If going through your bills sounds like a great idea, but you don’t know where to start, I’ve totally got your back. I’ve created a Free 5 Day Found Money Challenge. It will take you step by step to help you find money you may not even realize you are spending, including word-for-word scripts to request special offers and lower your bills. What would it mean to you to pay $150 LESS per month for things you totally don’t even realize you are paying for? So click here if you are ready to find some money.
Create an emergency fund
Now that we’ve got you a little bit of room in the monthly budget, let’s move on to step 2. The most important thing that will help the average person weather a financial crisis is an emergency fund. However, an astonishing number of people don’t have any money in savings at all. So if you’re in that boat, you are not alone. Knowing you’re not the only one isn’t going to pay many bills, though, so let’s change that fast. If you’ve started lowering your bills with the 5 Day Found Money Challenge, you’re in a great place. Take the money you used to be spending, and start – or add to – your savings.
By opening a bank account at a totally separate bank
Maybe you have the best intentions to do this. Maybe you have even tried before and the money just seems to evaporate. If so, here is the step you’re missing. This money can’t be at your normal bank. You need to open a totally new account at a totally new bank.
“Why? Why would I do that?” you’re thinking. “That makes it such a hassle to get my money out.” Yes, folks. We have a winner. That is exactly the point. This is supposed to be where you KEEP money, emphasis on the KEEP. We don’t want it to be easy to get to. We want it to be possible to get to it, but definitely not easy.
Now that we’ve got that cleared up, here are the details. It can be a savings or a checking account, but it should be a FREE account. There are lots of no-frills accounts where you can just park money for free. As a matter of fact, a lot of banks will actually pay to to open an account, especially if you have some money to deposit when you open it. If you want to take the time to find a place where you can earn a couple hundred dollars for opening account, check out this link. Just be sure to read the fine print. And again, make sure that this new account isn’t costing you any of that hard earned money you just found.
Now figure out how much money you want to put aside each month, and set up an automatic transfer. This is the way my husband and I saved over $40,000 in a year. When I went back to teaching full time, I set up a separate account at a new bank. Then I had my ENTIRE paycheck deposited there. We never saw that money, so it didn’t get spent. And since we were used to living on his salary, we didn’t even notice. But that never would have happened if my paycheck had touched our joint account. It had to be separate.
How much should I save?
Honestly, as much as you can. Most experts recommend that a fully-funded emergency fund should be 3-6 months worth of expenses. If you’re starting from scratch it’s going to take quite a while to get there, so for now, get enough that you can sleep at night. Unless you have reason to believe you or your partner are going to lose your job, I would say no more than about 2 months expenses if you still have credit card debt.
Why not as much as possible? That’s a great question. The bottom line is no one can predict the future. But if you have high interest credit card debt, you are paying HUGE amounts of money in interest alone. So you don’t want to be sitting on a ton of cash at the same time you are paying 25% interest on credit cards.
Finding the right balance
One way around this Catch-22 is to set a certain amount for a starter emergency fund, and then switch to paying off debt. When all debt is covered, then you switch back and finish up the emergency fund. For me, I would have a lot of trouble sleeping at night if I didn’t have at least one month’s worth of expenses saved up. So maybe the logical thing to do is to focus on saving a one-month emergency fund, then paying off one credit card, then saving another month, and so on.
If you have read my series on Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps, you’ll realize that this is contradicting his advice to save only $1000 and then pay off ALL debt before finishing the emergency fund. But there is a reason I don’t like that advice at this exact point in time. There is so much uncertainty right now. Nobody can predict what the next week will bring, much less the next month or even the next 2 months. In times of uncertainty, cash is king.
For example, what if someone in your family gets sick and racks up huge medical bills? Cash gives you options. So let’s get some options, in the bank, OK?
Pay off debt
OK, so you have decided to get an emergency fund saved up. And you’ve chosen an amount to start with, one that’s enough to let you sleep at night, but not take 6 months to save up. Now it’s time to kick the debt pay off into high gear. For this, definitely start with your smallest debt. Why? Because every debt that you pay off is one less payment you’ll have if you get laid off. Even a reduction of $50/month in minimum payments can reduce the stress and make the emergency fund go a little further.
So this is what you do. Make minimum payments on everything but your smallest debt, and pound that sucker. Pay it off as quickly as you possibly can. Put every extra penny toward paying off that first debt. When the littlest debt is paid off, take that minimum payment, add it to the payment on the 2nd littlest, and pound that one.
Once you’ve paid off a few debts, you might want to re-assess. Does your job seem stable, or is there trouble on the horizon? If it seems stable, you might want to stay the course. But if there is talk of a RIF at work, or if your partner’s job seems shaky, you might want to increase the emergency fund a little more before you pay off any more debt.
Create a side hustle – or two
It sounds crazy to do when you can’t leave your house, but there are always ways to make money if you keep your eyes open. They range from a few extra bucks to over $2000 a month. Some will pay off right away and others will take time to ramp up.
For a little extra money, try doing surveys online. If you want to make some serious cash think about what skills you already have and how you can make money with those. If you’d like to get the real scoop on VIPKID, you can check out my interview with a friend of mine here. She’s been doing VIPKID for almost a year and it really works for her. Another friend has built a successful indexing business and earns a full-time income from it. You can read more about that one in this blog post.
The best thing about a side hustle is that this it goes hand in hand with the others and will help them to go a lot faster if you do it right. Ay extra money you make gives you more money to put toward your emergency fund or your debt. The important thing here is not to spend much money setting it up. Times like these bring scammers out of the woodwork, so if somebody wants you to pay for the chance to make money, do some serious research before plunking down any of your money.
There is one SUPER important thing to remember here, though. Any money you make from a side hustle might not have taxes withheld, especially if it is a small business you start on your own. Make sure to put about 25% of that money back so Uncle Sam doesn’t surprise you with a big tax bill next April.
Update your skills
If you feel like your job isn’t as secure as you’d like it to be, getting a few new skills under your belt might be just as important as income. Focus on skills that would make you more valuable in your current job or more marketable if you needed to go job hunting. Computer skills are always a good bet, but if you are almost proficient in a foreign language, that might be a good choice, too.
Again, spending an arm and a leg isn’t a good choice. But you can get an absolute TON of learning for free online. Check out this list of the 10 best sites for FREE learning. Or this one for specific IT courses.
Choose and implement 1 new frugal habit
One of the things that trips a lot of us up when we want to reduce spending is feeling like we have to rein it all in at once. We rush in, slash like crazy, and then give it up after a week and a half because it’s just too overwhelming.
Let’s not do that, K? Instead, pick one item, JUST ONE in which you could make some cuts. Then create a plan. If you have been engaging in a lot of – um retail therapy – cutting that out would be a huge one. Maybe you’re ordering take out, but have plenty of time to cook now that you’re at home more. How about learning just 2 new recipes? Or if you’re already comfortable in the kitchen, maybe try your hand at freezer meals so you can avoid expensive take out when this is all over.
Again, don’t try to do it all. Choose one thing. Just one. And do it until it becomes easy.
Again, I’m sure you have a LOT more ways you could cut expenses, but pace yourself. This ain’t no sprint. It’s a marathon, Honey! Give yourself time to really solidify one frugal habit before you rush into another one. My suggestion would be to aim for no more than one new money-saving habit every 2-4 weeks. You want it to become so routine that it doesn’t takes almost no willpower at all to continue it. That way, when you add another habit, the first one doesn’t fall to the side.
You’ve played with the idea of starting a micro-business teaching a preschool language class, but it just seems so overwhelming. How would you even get started? Who would you teach? Where would you teach? How would you find student? (When it’s a business, they don’t come to you just because it is on their class schedule.)
A few years ago, I was asking myself those same questions. Because I use Comprehensible Input, I knew I could make language learning much more fun and effective than with traditional methods. As the parent of two preschoolers at the time, I also knew that a lot of parents wanted their kids to learn a second language but didn’t speak one themselves.
There was market for language learning. But how on earth would I get started? Almost 5 years later, I looked back fondly on what accomplished in building the first part of my business, World of Wonders Learning, into a profitable micro-business. If you’ve been toying with the idea of using your teaching and language skills to create a side job that you love, here are some of the most important lessons I learned in the process.
Know your stuff, but don’t obsess over your plan
When I was still dreaming of starting a preschool language class business, I wanted to know what the options were. Online, I found a ton of info about other language classes and how they operated. Even though my situation was very different from theirs, knowing how others were making things work was a huge help in practical areas, such as pricing and scheduling. If you want to look at some similar business models, check out websites for companies that offer science parties, STEM enrichment, language summer camps,Spanish clubs, and soccer.
However, what I had envisioned at first changed as I began to actually take action. I discovered that people in my area were dying for their kids to learn Spanish, but kind of “meh” about French. So I switched. (I speak both, but my French is definitely stronger.) I pitched an after school care location that I thought was WAY out of my league, and they accepted my proposal. Which led to a couple of gigs teaching their staff Spanish for $95/hour.
But none of those things would have happened if I had been hung up on knowing exactly how things would go. I had to get out there and do it in order to learn what I needed to know.
Bottom line: do your research. Know what your first steps are. But don’t stress over knowing the whole path.
Ask for help from experts, but not competitors
One of the most amazing pieces of luck I had was to sit down with the amazing Olivia Roney of Crouching Tigers, who teaches karate in preschools across several states. She was doing almost exactly what I was hoping to do, but not with Spanish. She was so generous with her time and gave me tips that literally kept me from throwing in the towel before I even got my first class off the ground.
So how did I make contact with her? Simple, I posted a message to FaceBook. We lived in the same city, and I thought we might have some friends in common, so I asked my friends if any of them knew her well enough to introduce us on FB. Turns out the wife of the best man at our wedding was on a community committee with her and introduced me.
How I did it
When I contacted her, I gave her some very genuine but effusive compliments. I made sure that I had already learned everything I could about her company so she would know that I really had spent time researching and that I respected the work she did.
However, I made sure to respect her time and generosity. First, even though we were both in the preschool enrichment class space, we weren’t direct competitors. Additionally, her business was already massive, so I was no threat. And even though I couldn’t reciprocate by giving her advice or help, I did drop off a bottle of wine at her office and make sure that I paid when we went out to lunch. Also, I tried to mention her business positively whenever I could, which was super easy to do because she really is a class act.
Bottom line: ask for help, but appreciate the help you are given. Most people who build a business are incredibly proud of what they have created and are willing to talk about it with someone who is genuinely interested.
Educate parents
OMG. This one is huge. Let me tell you a little story here.
When I started my first language class, I was stunned to have 22 kids sign up. I was thrilled beyond words. That month I made almost 50% of my teaching salary doing just a2 hours a week after school. I thought I had this thing figured out.
But the next class cycle, my enrollment dropped almost 50%. When I asked the parents why, there were some kids who had legitimate conflicts and such, but there were other parents who said things like, “I asked them to say something and they couldn’t even say one thing.”
The parents didn’t understand how language learning (especially comprehensible input) works. And it was my fault. I knew what they should expect, but I hadn’t told them.
How I fixed it
Soon, I started sending them e-mails to explain the advantages of the methods I used. I told them that while kids wouldn’t be able to speak right away, they were already starting to actually understand Spanish and they would retain it much better than if we focused on lists of vocabulary. Slowly, I helped them understand how language acquisition works and how to best support their kids as they acquired Spanish.
But wait, there’s more
But there were other perks, as well. First, because I was communicating with the parents regularly and also teaching THEM, the perceived value of my classes went through the roof. Second, I became someone they trusted. No longer was I just some anonymous business. I was Jill, and I was invested in their kids and in helping them to give their kids the best. And the proof was in the numbers. My retention rates went from horrible to stellar, and I very rarely had kids drop my program once they started it.
Bottom line: Don’t expect the parents to understand what you understand. Start from the basics, and explain what they should expect and why.
Hold yourself to high standards, but give yourself grace
My goal was always to leave parents with more value than they were expecting. If I had a parent complaint (and you will, because you are learning), I tried to figure out what I could do to fix the problem. And I always looked at dissatisfaction as a marketing opportunity. What could I do to fix the problem and turn the parent into a raving fan? Of course, it depended on what the complaint was, but my goal was to never leave a parent dissatisfied.
The Hand, Foot, and Mouth Debacle
For example, my daughter came down with hand, foot, and mouth disease. I had to reschedule 2 weeks of classes. Since it is contagious and symptoms don’t’ show up right away, I couldn’t possibly set foot in a daycare center until I knew I didn’t have it. So I rescheduled the classes that we would be missing AND offered parents a refund on those two classes if their child was for any reason unable to attend. I also explained that I wouldn’t normally cancel, but I was doing it in the best interest of their children. I had one parent e-mail me back thanking me profusely for cancelling since she had a newborn and didn’t want to take any chances on him getting sick.
Make like Elsa: Let it GO!
With that said, I also made a point of letting it go when I did make a mistake. I had to give myself the grace to make mistakes without shame. Sometimes I got overwhelmed and didn’t communicate as well as I should have. There were other minor mistakes. Since I’m a recovering perfectionist, I had to really struggle not to let those mistakes get in my head and bring me down. Beating myself up wasn’t going to make me a better teacher or business owner. But learning and changing was.
Bottom line: Do your best, and accept that your best will never be perfect. Talk to yourself like your best friend would. (Assuming your best friend ROCKS like mine does. And if not, I’ll be your surrogate best friend. Talk to yourself like I would. Note: I’m honest, but affirming.)
Have you ever noticed that when you start looking at new cars, or maybe buy one, it seems as if that you notice that same make and model everywhere. Suddenly the roads and parking lots are filled with Camries, or Volvo station wagons, or Odysseys. You just can’t believe how many there are. There were never that many of them before, were there?
Actually, there were. This is explained by something psychologists call “selective attention.” It basically means that your brain filters out the majority of stimuli so it can focus on what is important. Once you’ve chosen a specific model of car, or you have recently bought one, that becomes “important” and your brain takes notice of it.
So what does that have to do with transitioning out of teaching or starting your own business? The possibilities for making money on the side – or creating a business to support you and your family – are limited by only one thing : your mind. As you start focusing more on moneymaking ideas, you will train your brain to see them, and train your brain to look at your skills from a new perspective. Things that you never would have considered before will make you think, “I wonder if…” And that ‘s a great thing, because people have made successful businesses by using an amazing range of skills and ideas. Let me give you a few examples that I never would have thought of, but that have been built into successful businesses.
Karate Kids
Olivia Roney was putting herself through college when the karate school she worked for bounced a couple of her paychecks. Since she was paying her own way, she knew she had to fix the situation – and FAST. So she started contacting daycares and preschools and offering to teach on-site enrichment classes. She found one, and grew from there. Today, Couching Tigers is offering karate classes in almost 100 locations in Indiana, as well as licensing its curriculum. Her programs now include character development and have touched the lives of thousands of children. What’s more, her eyes light up when she talks about her company.
How you can make this side job work
So you don’t know karate and you don’t like preschoolers? How could this idea work for you? I don’t know karate, either, but for about 4 years, I taught Spanish and French to both adults and preschoolers as a side job/micro-business. Preschools were definitely my biggest and most reliable locations, but I also taught adults at wineries and after-school caregivers as a professional development option.
Is there something you love to teach that others would pay you for? Art? Soccer? Computer skills? Knitting? Vegan cooking? Couponing? (No joke, a lady in my hometown was advertising couponing classes and a lot of people seemed interested.) How about pet training?
The point is that if you have a skill that others want to learn and you can find a way to share it, you can earn great money per hour AND have fun at the same time. Cause let me tell you, teaching French at wineries to people who actually WANT to learn it?!? That is a French-teacher dream come true. For more ideas on locations, check out the blog post I wrote for The Comprehensible Classroom or for Fluency Matters. And if you want details on my Spanish classes, here are some posts on switching to preschoolers from older kids, pricing (part 1, part 2 and part 3), and tips for getting started.
Teaching French at a Winery
This is one I have done personally, and you want to talk crazy AWESOME! This is it. I’ve taught French for over 15 years in high school, but teaching French to adults who actually want to learn it at a winery and having them pay you? Trust me, it doesn’t get much better than that!
“But I don’t speak French,” you say. Well, the same winery where I taught French offered a ton of other fun stuff to get customers in during off-peak times. Tuesday? Henna tattoos. Wednesday? 10-minute chair massages. Another night it was tarot card readings. Each of us partnered with the winery to provide our service. The winery generously swiped payments through their system, and then cut a check. We had no overhead and the winery had an ever-changing line-up of attractions with no up-front cost. They just passed through the payments to us.
How you can make this side job work
Get creative. Do you have a trendy or unusual skill? Find a winery that offers fun activities, and see if they are interested in offering yours. You’re probably not going to be raking in the cash at first, but as you develop a clientele and they tell their friends, your numbers grow and it can be really lucrative.
Will Caricature for Cash $$$
When I heard of a woman who has created a side business around drawing caricatures, I knew I had to check it out. She was frustrated by her $8/hr job working for an amusement park as a caricature artist, so she decided to strike out on her own. Now she charges between $150 and $300/hr. drawing caricatures at weddings, corporate events, and other venues where people are looking for a unique and fun party favor.
After doing a little research, I found out there is actually a centralized web site where caricature artists can advertize. Who knew? You can check it out here. If you think you might be interested in being a caricature artist (or caricaturist, as they are actually called), face-painter, balloon animal creator, clown or other type of party entertainer, you can read the story of how Jeremy Drysdale started the Phoenix Caricature Company here.
How you can make this side job work
The point here is taking a common skill and niching it down. Maybe there are a ton of caterers in your town, but you just focus on selling your amazing frozen cookie dough. Maybe you do only vegan or gluten-free foods. Sometimes niching down and focusing on one tiny segment of the market actually sets you apart.
Cinderella Carriages and Horse-Drawn Wagons
A friend of mine since childhood (yep, we actually went to the junior prom together back the day!) supplements his yearly income to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a year by building horse-drawn wagons and carriages. He makes both really practical people movers for country-themed resort areas and fancy “Cinderella” carriages. He also offers carriage rides at weddings and other special events. He has welding and woodworking skills and has always had horses, so what started as a novel idea has become a large portion of their family’s income. Because of this extra income, his wife (who is a big part of the business) has been able to stay at home with their kids for the past several years. You can check out boylebuiltwagons.com for some inspiration.
How you can make this side job work
And this is the example of super niching down. As far as I know, Tony Boyle is one of the only people in the US who makes custom people movers. There were times he wasn’t getting a ton of orders, but he didn’t give up or offer to make other items. He just stuck with what he washing and trusted that he would built a following. last I heard, he had as much work as he wanted and even some names on his waiting list.
The last word
So there is a good chance that you don’t feel like welding and hammering together a wagon is part of your skill set. And you might not be someone that others would willingly pay for their art. (Lord knows I’m not!) It’s even conceivable that the idea of teaching karate to 3 year-olds makes you break out in hives. So why did I even mention these ideas if they will work for only a small fraction of people?
Well, there are two reasons. The first one goes back to the very first few paragraphs of the post. Hearing about the ways other people have created a side job – even with unusual skills – trains our brains to start thinking in that way. What could I do with my skill set, that I would really love doing, and would also make me some crazy awesome extra money?
The second reason is it shows us how to niche down. There are a ton of welders and woodworkers out there. But how many of them weld Cinderella carriages and horse-drawn wagons. Artists? A ton! But people who will come to your wedding reception, give your guests a truly one-of-a-kind favor, and have them asking, “Do you remember so-and-so’s wedding where we got those hilarious caricatures?’ for the next 20 years? Not too many of those! Tons of karate teachers, too. But ones who will come to your kids’ preschool so you don’t have to drive across town? Um, I think you get the picture, right.
Here are the two takeaways: get creative, and niche down. Oh, and one more thing: don’t dismiss ideas too quickly. Who would have known that horse-drawn wagons could be a viable home-based business? What’s your crazy awesome talent?
Years ago I was involved with a Multi-level marketing company. It wasn’t a monetary success, and I never netted a penny, but I credit it with one of the most important and life-changing lessons I have ever experienced. Are you ready? Sitting down? Taking notes? Well, you probably don’t need to, because like most really transformational lessons, it is maddeningly simple. So what is it?
Your brain, like your body, is only as healthy as what you put in it.
Most of us know that you can’t eat fast food 10 times a week and gorge yourself on soft drinks if you want to have a strong, healthy body that can withstand sicknesses. However, very few of us realize that the same it true for our brains. Yes, I am telling you to brainwash yourself. Why? Because that crap you put in your brain is nasty, and it needs a good washing.
“Hold on,” you say. “I never watch dirty stuff. I would just not do that.” Well, I’m not talking about racy material, I’m talking about the trash that gets thrown at us all day long. Like, you know – the news. NCIS. Reality TV that highlights the very worst of human nature. And it doesn’t just come from the media. Teachers’ lounge talk, any one? Maybe your sister who can’t put three sentences together without complaining. It takes its toll, just like soft drinks and hamburgers.
How it started
When I was in the MLM, one of the things they were always pushing us to do was listen to a business-related CD every single day. (Of course, the profits for this particular MLM came more from the CDs than the products, so their motives weren’t exactly pure.) I wanted to be successful, so I did it. Now, I’ve told you that I never made a penny from that company, but that one habit was probably worth more money than I could have imagined.
Changing what I put into my brain has changed how I see my life. I would listen to something inspirational and it would drown out the little voices in my head that kept telling me I could never accomplish anything really great. I would listen to a story about someone who had it way worse than I did, but just kept going, and I would find the strength to make one more phone call, or set up one more meeting.
After three years, I realized that the MLM I was working with was simply not a quality company, and I should just cut my losses and persue other avenues. However, I couldn’t quit the CD’s. I kept them in my car. I listened to them instead of the radio. And my life kept getting better. I felt happier. I was more determined.
Saying Goodbye to SVU
Then I realized that if putting good stuff into my brain made me feel better and live better, maybe I should cut out some of the crap I’d been putting in my brain. I cut out the 24-hour news loop and only watched as much as I needed to. Then I started toying with giving up Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. It was my indulgence, my guilty pleasure. I kept arguing with myself. “It’s just a show. It’s not doing any harm. It’s just entertainment.” But I knew that,watching shows about the most depraved ways humans can abuse other humans, well, for me it just wasn’t healthy. So I quit. I missed it at first, but I replaced it with positive and inspirational messages.
Now, when I’m feeling down (usually because I’ve been on FB too much and am not following my own advice to keep it positive), I have 2 or 3 go-to videos on Youtube that I watch. I also have some favorite podcasts. No matter how down I am, putting something positive in my brain gives me a boost. Does it solve all my problems? No. I’m still sad sometimes, angry sometimes, and stressed quite often. (I do have three children, remember?) But a burst of positive puts the brakes on the overwhelm. I might be sad, but I don’t get hopeless. I might be stressed, but I don’t get panicked.
Your turn
I’ve posted links to some of my favorite Youtube videos, and in future posts, I’m going to highlight some incredible speakers and podcasts you might enjoy. You might not like them as much as I do because we have different personalities and different needs, but if you start searching, you’ll find your own. We are beyond lucky to live in an age when we can access whatever we want, almost whenever or wherever we want. So stop using the power of the universe to watch cat videos. Feed your brain. Give it the good stuff. I promise, you’ll thank you.
Podcasts I L-O-V-E
Since I’m an entrepreneurship and micro business junkie, mine will tend to be business focused, but they always make me feel better, more alive, and more capable. Check out Shannon Mattern’s Pep Talks for Side Hustlers, Marie Forleo’s MarieTV, and Amy Porterfield’s Online Marketing Made Easy. And please, please drop a comment below about your own favorites.
After we had our dog for about a year, I had to arrange for dog care while we were out of town on a family vacation. This was a whole new deal for me because I grew up in a close-knit community with loads of family around. When we’d travel, we just had neighbors or my grandparents take care of our pets. So I was calling around like a crazy woman (I didn’t realize you had to book more than a week out) and was lucky to find a kennel that would keep Sasha. However, taking her there just about broke my heart. She was fearful, stressed-out, and confused, and I felt like a massive jerk leaving her there. Even though the kennel was clean and the caregivers kind, I decided I would never do that again. So I started looking for another option.
After some digging, I did find an alternative. I could have her stay in a person’s home. She’d still be scared and confused, but somehow I imagine that being in a home with people and lots of petting would be a lot less stressful than being in a kennel, even a nice one. And besides overnight care, you can also offer dog walking or drop-in visits.
The best parts of pet sitting as a side job
Income
If you love pets, pet sitting could be a side job that would add $1500 or more to your monthly income. Rates for overnight care (per dog) in Indiana ranged from $20-55 in a small town, and $28-55 in a large metro area for normal dates. Sumiko, a dog sitter I spoke with, said that with work to build up your clientele, pet sitting could realistically add $1000 or more to your monthly income. That’s no small change for doing something that you enjoy anyway!
Flexibility
While you will want to accept as large of a variety of pets as possible, you can set some parameters as far as size, breed, and number. You can also block out dates that you aren’t available, so you don’t have to forego your own vacations or visits to family. (Of course, the more dates you are available, the more you will make. That’s only common sense.) Finally, you set your own price. If you have a lot of experience with dogs, you can charge higher rates. Many of the online pet sitter sites also allow you to list reviews, so as you gain more positive comments and review, you can also adjust your rates upward.
Meaning
As teachers, we know that giving back sometimes matters just as much as the money you bring in. (Boy, do we know it!) If you really love animals, offering a loving home or a fun walk is a way to serve animals and their owners.
Ease of start up
While anything that has a realistic chance of being a good money maker is going to take some commitment, thiWhat’s more, it is a low-commitment gig. You don’t have to have a ton of money up front, just a love of animals. Finally, there are nWhile ow websites available, so you don’t have to do it all on your own (although putting the word out there to family and friends is probably a very good idea). And if you use rover.com
Of course, there are some cons, too. It’s hard to know how other people’s animals are going to act. Sumiko had been hosting with Rover.com for over a year when I talked to her, and she says that sometimes her yard has gotten pretty torn up by energetic dogs, especially when it’s pretty muddy out already. A second down side is that the high-demand times (when you would make the majority of your money) are also the times when you might want to travel or have houseguests – holidays and weekends. Finally, if you use a portal like rover.com, they take 20% of your fees, so be sure to figure that in.
Sumiko has really enjoyed her time pet sitting. She told me, “The best part of hosting is getting to sample every breed imaginable as your pet, the companionship/ playtime, and income. We’ve had some challenges with high energy dogs such as muddying the yard when it’s rained a while, dogs hopping baby gates in the house…but it’s not constant and you can restrict breeds, size…” She estimates that people who commit to building their clientele and really treat it like a business could make $1000 a month or more. Of course, it will take some time to get to that level, but it’s one of the few businesses you can start right away with very little investment of time or money.
People overestimate what can be done in one year, and underestimate what can be done in ten. -J.C.R. Licklider
So I’m going to give a little shout out to someone to whom I owe a great debt. That person is Jill 2003. Yes, you guessed it. Me 17 years ago.
In 2003, I bought my first rental property. It was a 5-unit apartment building. After living at home for a year, I had saved enough to put $17,000 down, and with my best friend from college, we had a 20% down payment.
I also need to give another shout out to Jill 2012. Because in 2012, my partner wanted out. I tried to dissuade him. Real estate prices still hadn’t recovered from the great recession in 2009. But he was adamant. So I bought out his half for a price about 25% lower than we had originally paid.
For years, those apartments brought in about $1500/month. That’s money that I didn’t have to work for – very much. It certainly wasn’t what I’d call passive income, but it wasn’t a 40 hour a week job, either. The time I put in was minimal.
Then, in 2018 when the real estate prices had rebounded, and our family was trying to move overseas, I sold them and deposited a check for over $200,000 in the bank.
So those two chics (Jill 2003 and Jill 2012) really hooked me up!
Now why am I telling you this? Do I want to impress you with my riches, and how smart and disciplined I am, and possibly make you feel like a loser? Well, actually no. It’s because it’s a personal example of what can be accomplished over time.
Let me repeat that quote from the top of the post again.
“People overestimate what can be done in one year, and underestimate what can be done in ten.” J.C.R. Licklider
This is what I want you to remember when it all seems overwhelming. Whether “it” is raising a child, getting out of debt, building a business, or becoming the teacher or the person you dream of being.
When I was 25, and hyperventilating because I was writing a check for $17,000 (six months’ income for me at the time), I literally couldn’t have believed that I would later deposit a check for over $200,ooo because of the action I took that day. And let me tell you, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. There were tears, and tantrums, and that fun time we got sued for something our tenant’s kid did. There were a hundred times I felt like quitting.
And no single year made a big difference. It just added up. Pay off a little bit of principal. Chase down a tenant who hadn’t paid. Replace the carpet between tenants. Wash and repeat ad infinitum. It wasn’t one thing that did it. It was all those things.
So give yourself some grace on those days when it doesn’t seem like you will ever get there. And keep at it. Even when it seems like you’re making no progress. ESPECIALLY when it seems like you’re making no progress.
So you want out of teaching? Scratch that. You feel like your life will end if you have to teach for the rest of your career, but you see no way out financially. Maybe you have a spouse who works or another source of income, but you continue to teach because of a budget gap of $500. Or maybe $1000. What if you could earn extra money, pay off some bills, and between those two things close that gap? “But I don’t want to drive for Lyft or Uber,” you say. “And I do NOT want to open an in-home child care center or trade teaching for another rat race. I just want to retire, or stay home with my kids, or not have to teach.” You get the picture.
So get creative. Here are some ideas to get your income-creating ideas flowing. Not all of them will work for everyone, of course. However, there might be a gem in here to get you started. Or a gem that gives you exactly the idea you need to put your own unique talents to use and start your journey to freedom.
Extra space? Rent a room to a student
Have a spare bedroom or two? Enjoy meeting new people and learning about foreign cultures? Everyone has heard about AirBNB, and that’s one option. But there are others that no one seems to know about. For example, you could look into home stays for English Language Learners. Schools such as ELS language school, American Language Academy, and others have locations in over 40 US cities. Many of their students prefer staying with an English speaking person or family to further practice their developing skills. With only 1 spare bedroom, you could earn between $400-$600 per month. Also, don’t assume that there isn’t an English school near you just because you’ve never heard of it. My husband works only 10 minutes from an English school, and I lived here for 5 years before I knew that.
Use skills you already have to offer group classes
Use your special expertise and teaching skills to start a small educational or entertainment business – one that can grow. This is my personal favorite because it can be so many different things. I’m a foreign language teacher, so I offer enrichment Spanish classes at preschools. In a good location, I can bring in $400/month with minimal overhead and only about 8 hours of work. You could also offer group tutoring, ceramics painting, knitting or crocheting lessons, or computer instruction in your own home. Good with cars? Teach a basic car care class for women. Coach folks who want to improve their public speaking. If you use your imagination, the sky is the limit on this one. Just remember to begin with the end in mind. If you want to make money (and that is at least part of the goal, right?), you’ve got to structure it so you can earn some bucks. In other words, no one-on-one tutoring unless you are charging over $60/hr.
Love pets? Try pet sitting, dog walking, or doggie drop-ins. I never knew that there were people who would watch your pet in their own home until I was desperately searching for a kennel at the last minute. And as a pet owner, I’d much rather have my dog stay with a reliable person than shut in a dog run at a kennel. Sumiko, who has been hosting with rover.com since May of 2015, says, “The best part of hosting is getting to sample every breed imaginable as your pet, the companionship/playtime, and income. We’ve had some challenges with high energy dogs such as muddying the yard when it’s rained a while, dogs hopping baby gates in the house…but it’s not constant and you can restrict breeds, size…” Since the normal charge is over $20/night per pet, people who commit to building their clientele, can make over $1000/month once they are established.
Visiting the elderly
Not a fan of pets, but love people? Many people are looking for someone to stop in and check on an elderly relative or help them prepare a simple meal. Here, word of mouth is king, so talk to some folks you know at different houses of worship. They often know some people who need a helping hand, but not really nursing assistance yet – and they are more likely to trust you if you have a mutual friend. Alternately, you could contact senior centers or support groups for caregivers. The bonus here is that if you don’t want to pay for childcare, but your kids are reasonably well behaved, many older people see having children around as a bonus, not a drawback. Just be sure to spell out exactly what the expectations are and what you are comfortable doing beforehand. Light housekeeping? Help preparing meals? Or just a friendly person to chat with? Don’t be pressured into doing more than you are capable of. If you won’t give medications, state that up front and stick to your guns.
Search Engine Evaluation and other tasks
Work in search engine evaluation. Search engines use algorithms to rank the results they bring up. However, they also need actual humans to check those rankings. Leapforce, Appen, and other companies use people who can work from home to do just that. While it’s not a job with room for advancement, it is something that could be worked into an income of over $1000 per month. Some companies require that you pass a test, which by all accounts is challenging, but not impossible, if you have carefully studied the test materials. Another caution is that like any job that requires you to use your brain, there is a learning curve, and you will need to give yourself time to get to higher levels of earning.
(Insert YOUR idea here)
No, that wasn’t just a place-holder that I forgot to delete. It’s a reminder that your ability to think of side hustles or earn extra income is limited only by your imagination. So have we got you thinking that it might actually be possible for you to make the leap out of education? There is a lot to think about, and a lot of ways it can go wrong. If you want to make the switch out of teaching, but you are terrified to make the leap, click here for our free guide to the 4 biggest mistakes people make when leaving the classroom, and how to avoid each one.
The times are hard in the teaching world right now. It seems like everybody is just piling on: parents, politicians, and worst of all, payroll deductions. A lot of teachers I talk to love their profession, but just don’t feel like they can handle 10 or 15 more years (sometimes more like even 10 or 15 more MINUTES – ahem – I’m looking at you, Friday before Spring break!!!!).
So they dream of finding a side hustle that could give them money for some extras, or maybe someday even replace their teaching income. But every time they think they have found something, it turns out to be a scam or earns a whopping $1.50 per hour.
There is an option out there that no one seems to know about. And I wouldn’t know about it if it weren’t for my friend Meridith Murray, who turned it into her full-time(ish) job. It isn’t a get-rich scheme. It’s an actual side job that can replace a teacher’s salary with work and minimal investment, AND it doesn’t involve sales!
Here’s the best-kept work from home secret of 2020: Indexing. An indexer does exactly what it sounds like – create the index at the back of non-fiction books. While most publishers have in-house editors and proofreaders, indexing is a function they often prefer to contract out to reliable freelancers.
Pros and Cons
Indexing has a ton of upsides, like good income potential, flexibility, and the ability to work from home. But it is a real job, and it requires hard work, a willingness to learn, and it doesn’t produce income on the first day. So let’s look at the pros and cons one by one to help you decide whether indexing might be your ticket to one again being the master of your own life.
Pro #1: Flexible location
Because the books indexers work on are sent via computer, you can work from anywhere there is reliable internet. Home: check. Starbucks: check. Tahiti: DOUBLE CHECK!
Pro #2: Flexible hours
Even though indexing usually has a firm deadline (and sometimes a short one, at that), the time you work on the project is up to you. Whether you’re a night owl or do your best work at 4AM before the family is stirring, there’s no problem for an indexer. As a teacher, you can also accept fewer jobs during the school year and more projects during the summer months.
Pro #3: #willreadforincome
Yes, you got that right. You get paid for reading books. OK, there is more to it than that, but reading books is definitely part of the job description. What’s more, you get to read and learn about topics from adoption to children’s book publishing to cookbooks to who knows what else, all while getting paid for it. If you are a book addict, it doesn’t get much better than that. Of course, since only non-fiction books have an index, you’re not going to be reading a page-turner novel, but once you have a steady stream of clients, you can actually choose which jobs to accept and which ones not to. A number of indexers are known for a specific type of work, often one that they really enjoy learning about.
The other side of the coin
“OK, sounds good,” you say, “but nothing is perfect.” True, that. This is a legitimate, long-term work at home option. And that means it’s going to take some commitment and investment before you see the money starts rolling in.
Of course, as with any legitimate work-at-home business, you will need to set up record keeping systems and have a quiet, distraction-free work environment. In other words, don’t plan on doing indexing while watching your kids out of the corner of your eye. That could be dangerous both for the kids and for the index.
Investment of money
Indexing is a side income that does require some up front investment and a little business acumen. First, you’ll need to learn to index by taking a class, which usually runs about $750 and can be done online in a self-paced course. Once you’re trained you’ll need to purchase indexing software, which varies in price from $225 to almost $600.
Investment of time
Besides the initial investment of money, you also have to allow time for your indexing business to take off. At first, you are not going to get many jobs because you are not well known and have no client base established. The jobs might trickle in pretty slowly, so don’t quit your teaching job after you’ve completed one project.
Unpredictability
Also, even though indexing is flexible, it is also somewhat unpredictable. The index of a book can’t be started until every other detail of the text itself is finalized, so if there is an unexpected delay, you might receive a project 1-2 weeks later than projected – quite a problem if you were counting on finishing it before a family vacation or if you have another big project that comes in at the same time.
And just like the timing, the income can’t always be relied on like a teacher paycheck can. There may be times when it seems like there aren’t any jobs coming your way, and others when you can’t accept all the jobs you’d really like to do. So if you are someone who spends money the minute she has it, indexing as a primary income could cause some pretty serious stress.
Paperwork
Unlike in teaching, you don’t have an employer who will be withholding your taxes, Medicare, or social security, you will need to educate yourself on how to set aside funds and avoid a big, nasty surprise come tax time – AND have the discipline to actually do it! If you have never had a side hustle before and that thought freaks you out, don’t get too worried. It is absolutely do-able. I just want to warn you beforehand.
The friend of mine who I mentioned earlier, Meredith Murray of MLM Indexing (her initials are MLM. Don’t worry. It has nothing to do with the MLMs that most people think of, I promise!), has been indexing either part-time or full-time for over 20 years. When we worked together, she did it as a way to make extra income. When she retired from the school system, she had established a reputation for timeliness and accuracy that allowed her to make a solid living through her indexing business. After 20 years, she is still enthusiastic about indexing and says she often has more work than she can handle.
In summary, if you are looking for a work from home activity that allows you some control over your work schedule, but is a legitimate way to potentially match a teaching salary, indexing is a strong option. It works better for fast, avid readers who are also detail oriented. For outstanding resources, check out the American Society of Indexing website.
And if you found this article helpful, please feel free to share it on social media. You might have a teacher friend who has been looking for a work at home side job exactly like this one.
Life. It’ll get you. Just when you think you have it all figured out, you get a curve ball. So I admit I have gotten distracted. I’m going to bring you up to date on life and business, even though it’s going to mean a serving of humble pie for me. It’s not all bad. As a matter of fact, some of it is downright awesome. However, some of it is admitting that the online French class I invested so much time in has kind of ground to a halt, and I just don’t have the energy to fight the tech and face my mistakes at this exact moment. And part of it is admitting that I still struggle with my old nemesis – biting off more than I can chew.
First, an update on the French. I did complete and launch the beta of my free French course. There were some really strong positives and some really big negatives, as well.
Online French class struggles
On the negative side. I didn’t get a commitment from people that they would complete the class and report back to me what they liked and what they didn’t, so a lot of them didn’t complete the course. Worse, I got very little useful feedback. I was really disappointed by that.
Second, the tech just wasn’t fun. I really did work at it, but some of it I never did figure out. I don’t think I’m ever going to love tech.
Third, after making the French class a MAJOR priority for almost 6 weeks solid, after it launched, I just didn’t want to deal with it again at all. I was so drained by fighting with the tech and making deadlines, and communicating with people who had tech issues, that I shut down. I really haven’t even touched it for 3 weeks, even though I have several re-works I need to do.
And perhaps the hardest thing is something I wasn’t expecting at all. Impostor sydrome. “Who are you,” my brain says, “to think you can create an online course that people are willing to pay for when there are so many other people doing the same thing, not to mention apps that teach language?” I don’t usually struggle with impostor syndrome. While I’m not conceited, I’m real. I admit that I’m not perfect, but I also allow myself some credit where I really rock. And I really rock at teaching languages. But somehow my self-confidence has taken a real hit lately, and I’m not sure why.
And Successes
But it wasn’t all bad. I actually built an online course. WHOA! Let me say that again. I, Jill Wiley, created an online course entirely on my own. I wrote it, filmed it, organized it, and uploaded it. WOW! For me, that is huge.
And while I was building it, I was learning. I was learning what did and didn’t work in more areas than I can really count: tech, presentation, marketing, and much more. I made a crap-ton of mistakes, but I try to be like Anne of Green Gables (my favorite literary character ever!) who says, “I never do the same wrong thing twice.” I might make the same mistake more than once, but not much more, so I’ve learned a lot about what I need to improve, and I’m going to do that.
Finally, I received permission to use an animated short in my paid content. I won’t go into all the details here, but basically, I finally had to wad up my courage and text – yes, text – a person I had never met and ask permission to use her work and how much she would charge. The response was a win-win. She said that the content was free to use, as long as I included credit to her, and I gave her some tips on how to learn Spanish. We both left the exchange feeling a lot happier, I think.
