Summer budgeting and money for teachers

I’ve had a lot of people ask me lately how, as a teacher, I make my budget work. Two-three months without a paycheck is quite a challenge, and requires some advanced planning. Over the past few years, I’ve seen people achieve this in several different ways and have tried a number of them myself. Here are just a few of the ways to get through the summer:

A summer job

For those of us without kids at home, and with free time and energy, this is probably the best plan. There’s no reason why we need to take two months of complete vacation every year. I’ve known teachers who mowed lawns, waitressed, painted houses, worked at bookstores, went to summer camp, and any number of other things. Some teachers will do anything in the summer as long as it is with kids; some will do anything as long as it’s not. The key is often to do something that is strenuous in a different way than teaching is, so that you still feel like you’re getting a mental rest.

“Summer savings”/ “12 month pay”

Many schools will split up your pay checks and pay you over 12 months instead of over ten if you would like. The first school I worked at did this by making a monthly deduction from your check and placing it in a credit union account. They then paid you from the account during the summer months. If your school doesn’t offer this, you can accomplish the same thing yourself. Simply divide your salary by 6. This will give you your savings goal. Now divide that number by ten. This is the amount you should deposit in a high interest savings account every month. Do it first, before you pay any of your other bills. When the end of school rolls around, you will have two months’ salary in the bank that you can draw from to pay your bills. You’ll also have the interest from that money. Bonus!

Frugality

The summer after my first year teaching, I managed to eat for almost no money by a combination of grocery couponing, using up what was in my pantry, cooking from scratch, and eating at my mom’s (okay, I was awfully young and single at the time). I had a salesman tell me once that because his parents were teachers, they went fishing a lot in the summer and he had never realized as a kid it was because they needed the free/cheap food. When you are off from school in the summer, you have a lot more time and brain power to dedicate to saving money. Sure, that won’t pay your rent, but it can definitely cut down on your expenses.

So what do I do? Right now, a combination of the above. I have a part time job, but I can’t bring myself to work full time. I scrimp and save, and explore the more bizarre recesses of my pantry. I beef up my emergency fund in preparation for the lean months. I plan major purposes so they fall in the winter or late fall. Most importantly, though, I plan and prepare and am very aware of where my money is going.

Carnival!

The Carnival of Debt Reduction is up over at the No Credit Needed Network. Please check it out.

Happy Monday!

Roundup and I'm out

I'm heading out of town for two days to visit friends, so while I'm gone, I'll leave you with some cool links to check out:

English Major's Money's cheap food experiment

Frugal Homemaker's really sound take on being a bridesmaid

Frugal Finesse's reflections on being frugal

Enjoy and have a great weekend! See you Monday!

Saving Money, saving the world through small changes

(Originally posted on writingup 3.25.07 and 3.26.07)

Last month's issue of Body and Soul magazine had an article on Small Changes, and how many people making small changes on a consistent basis can start to make a very noticeable difference in the environment. That article inspired me to make my own list of small changes, and to commit to actually making those decisions consciously for at least the next month. Hopefully after one month these will have become a habit.

Change #1: Turning off my computer's power strip at night
In college, I used to leave my computer all the time. Within the past year, I started shutting down my computer at night because I realized that it was sitting idle for almost 18 hours until I got home from work the next day. Now, though, I'm going to commit to shutting off the power strip, so my monitor, speakers and printer are also off, and none of it is drawing phantom power. I've always thought of this as a miniscule money saver, but in an environmental context, it seems more meaningful.

Change #2: Unplugging chargers
Our phone chargers are plugged in all the time, even though we each charge our phones for about an hour a day. I am going to unplug these unless our phones are in them.

Change #3: Printing on both sides of the page
When I print lesson plans and worksheets at home, I usually print them one sided, then take them to school and make double sided copies for my students. It would only take another few seconds for me to just double side the originals as well.

Change #4- Defrost things in the refrigerator.
When I need to defrost things, I'm going to take them out of the freezer the night before and put then in the fridge. This does two things: it keeps me from using the microwave or stuff and it cools off my refrigerator, thus saving energy and money twice.

Change #5- Eat one fewer beef meal per week.
Beef is one of the most expensive things we eat, and to tell the truth? It's not my favorite thing. It's also terrible for the environment, full of saturated fat, and much more concentrated in chemicals than non-organic foods lower on the foodchain.

Change #6 - Use reusable containers instead of freezer bags.
I have a cabinet full of tupperware, rubbermaid, and other permutations of leftover containers, but I find myself using freezer bags. So many people talk about washing out freezer bags, which is a serious pain. I'd much rather wash out plastic containers.

To pay off or not to pay off

In my post on why I hate Debt, I wrote about how my car payment is my second biggest expense every month, and how I want to pay it off rather than sell it. After that discussion, I got online and checked the payoff amount of the car.

$5,794

That is a much smaller number than I expected. I mean I know that I’m two years into a three year loan, and I know that I’m paying a very low interest rate (1.9%), so most of my payments have been going toward principal, but somehow that number just startled me.

Now, it’s been a very good month. I just got a larger than normal check from my part time job, hubby got a small but noticeable raise in his stipend, we got a MUCH larger than normal tax refund check, my family sent me some checks for my birthday, and we’ve been doing a pretty good job saving. So, when I combine what’s in our checking account once our bills clear, a good chunk of our emergency savings, and some savings bonds I just found in the back of my closet, we have just about $6000.

I know that numerically it doesn’t make sense to pay off this debt instead of paying toward the bigger student loans, which have a much higher interest rate. It would, however, make it much easier to breathe and to figure out what I want to do if I didn’t have this payment anymore. But would that make me lazy? Would I start spending the extra $400 a month, instead of snowballing it into my next biggest debt?

Then there’s the biggest reason why I’m wary of dumping this much money on something right now. It’s summer. I’m a teacher. That’s the biggest chunk of our household income right now, and it’s gone for the next two months. I think I could find a way for us to break even, between my part time job, hubby’s raise, and various freelance work, but I can’t be sure. It’s a little scary to go into a summer without a big chunk of savings.

So what do I do? The payoff is within reach, and I’m itching, itching to grasp it.
What would you do?