If you are a teacher, regardless of what school district, county, or state you are employed, you know that sometimes it is a hustle to make ends meet or save a little extra cash for a vacation. Educators are undervalued and underpaid, and that is a fact. That being said, you have several options to help you make ends meet or add some cash to your coffers. Continue reading for some reasonable solutions to help alleviate your money woes.
Sell Your Products
As an educator, your classroom and curriculum are in a constant rotation of resources, paperwork, and topic-related classroom decor. You have spent untold hours (yes, hours, when you add it all up) on creating high-quality content for your students to learn from. You want them to thrive, and that is why you work so hard.
That hard work can pay off in more ways than one. You will help instruct your students, of course, but you can also benefit yourself and your family by selling your content, such as English worksheets. This way, other teachers can pay to use your content instead of spending too much time creating their own. In turn, you will also find exceptional resources in the same online venue to help further your efforts as an educator.
Become a Tutor
Teachers are in a perfect position to add the role of tutor to their respective resumes. If you are already a subject matter expert, all the better. As someone who works in education, you can likely assist kids in a wide array of topics, but many parents and guardians may wish to find a tutor with experience in their needed subject. If you are a high school math teacher or a college English professor, these are both fields of study, along with a multitude of others, that you can parlay into tutoring.
Tutoring is something that you can easily implement into your already busy schedule and full-time teaching position. You have the option to meet with students in-person or virtually or both. Do what works best for your current position and that of your students. Sessions are often scheduled in 30-minute increments, and you can parse these throughout the day, especially if you conduct virtual sessions.
Make Money from Your Hobby
You have probably heard of people turning their hobbies into full-fledged businesses. While this is possible, if you still wish to remain gainfully employed as a teacher, you may want to consider monetizing your hobby as a fun way to get paid for something you enjoy.
Enter the side hustle. In order to find a fulfilling side hustle that will bring in extra income, but still bring you a sense of happiness and accomplishment while doing it, you should look at your current hobbies. Take stock of what you like doing as part of your creative outlets or stress relievers. Look at the process of how you do it and how it could fit into your current work schedule as well as your family responsibilities. Here are some popular side hustles.
- Yoga instructor or fitness trainer
- Dog walker
- Painter (house or art)
- Seamstress or tailor
- Ceramicist or sculptor
- Landscaper or gardener
- Blogger or website designer
- Photographer (for websites or family and birth photos)
Watch this video for tips on how to turn your hobby into a side hustle.
Start Coaching
At most schools across the country, there are extracurricular activities such as sports, science olympiads, speech decathlons, and the like. There are after-school clubs, as well, that require adult oversight. The adults in charge of leading and guiding the students in those activities are not usually hired solely to fill those respective positions. Instead, they are sourced from current staff members. While it can vary from school to school, these coaching positions are usually entitled to extra pay beyond what a teacher is already making.
If you are interested in taking on more responsibility and earning more pay at your current school, talk with the administration to see what the particulars entail. Oftentimes, you will coach early mornings, after school, and on some game or tournament weekends. This occurs only throughout the sport or activity season, and then you have a break until the next season unless you want to pick up another extra duty.
Provide Childcare
If you have summers and the standard school breaks off from work, i.e. school, then many parents who work traditional hours that do not follow a school calendar may be interested in finding childcare options for the summer or other days off of school. Should you have young children, this may make the decision to provide childcare to others during your breaks even easier to make. If you have tweens or teens, they can take a CPR course and help out, too.
Sliding into a childcare provider role is seamless for many educators, such as yourself, as you already have current background checks and are presumably CPR certified through your school-provided training. In addition, you likely have a rapport with many students and their adults so it will be almost effortless to find clients.
You do not have to worry about missing out on any family vacations or summer activities. Simply notify the parents of your summer schedule constraints in advance and it will be a win for everyone. You get some extra money. Your kids will have built-in play dates right at home, and the parents have a trusted person to care for their kids.
Now that you have some reasonable and easy-to-accomplish ideas on how to make some extra money while still being gainfully employed in a field you love, it is time to get started. Go ahead and use your creative lesson plans to implement a retirement plan. Help others through your kind and effective teaching skills so they can better understand their lessons. Start a successful side gig. As a teacher, you can make a difference every day and in many ways for others and your own family. Thank you for all that you do.
