Tag: Earning

Does It Make More Sense to Go to College or Open a Nail Salon?

Last week, I decided to talk to one of my English Language Learner students about his job prospects. He’s in ninth grade, and just arrived from Vietnam last December. He’s made great progress on his English, although he is still reticent about speaking in his general classes. But he’s a jokester at heart (he likes that word) and we always have lots of fun in our classes.Does It Make More Sense to Go to College or Open a Nail Salon? My immigrant student schools his teacher. @lauriethreeyear @immigrantjobs #entrepreneur #makingmoney #hustle

His mother, like many Vietnamese immigrants to the US, works in a nail salon. I have talked to my student about this many times, but I, being his “well-educated” teacher, wanted to officially broach the topic of his prospects after high school. Several teachers and I had discussed how we wanted him to have more lofty goals than working in a nail salon his whole life. I wanted to expand his horizons.

Turns out, he had some things to teach me.

First off, a peak inside my head: “successful,” according to me, means having my kids go to a four-year university. If it’s Ivy League, that would be amazing. Mr. ThreeYear and I plan to pay for the majority of our kids’ college, so we’re looking at the majority of $45,000+ a year (currently!) for four years, the average total cost (tuition, fees, and room & board) for a private college, times two.

Then, they’ll graduate, study medicine, law, architecture, or engineering, get a great job, and change the world!

I wanted my student to know that he could and should! expect more from life than working in a nail salon. “I don’t want to work in a nail salon,” he said. “But… you can make a lot of money there. My mom,” he told me, “can make $1800 a week in the nail salon.”

Wow. I was impressed. That was a pretty good salary. “But the owner of the nail salon,” he said, “makes $30,000 a month.” Continue reading “Does It Make More Sense to Go to College or Open a Nail Salon?”

The Secret to Earning Big Bucks in Education

Our family is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent, so part of our strategy is earning more over the next three years. One of the ways we’re doing so is through my teaching position. But how do you earn big bucks in education?
The Secret to Earning Big Bucks in Education---www.thethreeyearexperiment.com
I admit that the title of this post is meant to reel you in. Because, as we all know, if you want to earn a big salary, then education is generally not the field to pursue. And, truth is, if you’re in education, you’re probably not going to ever make the big bucks that lawyers or doctors make (but kudos to you guys!).
However, if you’re already in the education field, or you’re interested in pursuing a career that gives you summers off, may I recommend a way to make more money in education than the average salary schedule of a classroom teacher?
Here’s the big secret: become a contracted service provider for a school district. I am a contractor for two school districts, and while I’m a part-time worker, my hourly rate is high enough that I’d be a six-figure income earner if I worked full-time, year-round.
Surprised? So was I when I first started teaching this way. Read on for more details. 
First of all, what is a contracted service provider? It’s a person who provides some type of service to a school or district, but not on a full-time basis. Usually, specialists like ESOL teachers (that’s what I do), Reading Specialists, Special Education teachers, Curriculum Developers, psychologists, Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, and Speech and Language Pathologists can work with a school as a contractor. Usually, these professionals work on a part-time basis with the district, and may provide services for multiple districts.
I am a contracted service provider for two school districts about fifteen minutes apart. I provide English to Speakers of Other Languages services for both districts. What this means, practically speaking, is that I am a 1099 contractor who owns my own business and provides ESL teaching services to both districts. In one district, I have two students with whom I work, and in the other, I have four. I work a total of about 30-35 hours per week at both districts.
Teaching---www.thethreeyearexperiment.com
A view of my ESOL teaching table at one of the school districts I work at.
Many school districts have just a few English Language Learners in their populations, so it’s hard to attract an ESOL teacher to work for just a few hours a week. If an ESOL teacher is able to find several districts with the same small population of students close to one another, then he or she can work part-time at several schools. This is not just true for ESOL teachers, but for Occupational or Physical Therapists, Speech and Language Pathologists, School Counselors, psychologists, and many other professionals.

Continue reading “The Secret to Earning Big Bucks in Education”

On Negotiating as a Woman

Sometimes it takes the perspective of time before we’re able to see situations for what they really are.

Recently, I had some insight into my job negotiations last year and I realized why women can have such a hard time negotiating for pay.

Last year, I started a new part-time gig as an ESOL Teacher for a school district in the next town over (an ESOL Teacher is a Teacher for Speakers of Other Languages, also known as an ESL Teacher). I applied for the job because my hours at my first district are quite low, and this district was very close to my house. I suspected the district was fairly desperate for a teacher.

The interview went great, and the superintendent who was interviewing me essentially offered me the job halfway through the interview. Despite this, when it was time to talk dollars, though,  I wrestled with myself a bit before telling her my hourly rate.

On Negotiating as a Woman--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

There were a couple of reasons for this.

One is, I’m new to being paid hourly. As a contractor, my hourly rate is higher than my salaried wage. This is because I’m not fully compensated for all my prep time for my classes. I’m not paid for miles, insurance, retirement, or any other benefits. If a child doesn’t show up for class, I’m not paid. The school district doesn’t have to pay half of my Social Security wages, which is a full 6.2% of my earnings they would pay if I were a W-2 employee. When I started working as an ESOL Teacher, the hourly rate felt high to me and I had no experience in the field, so no one to ask.

But over time, I’ve realized that my hourly rate isn’t as high as I thought. At the end of the year last year (2016), my first full year as a contracted worker, I realized that I made somewhat less per year than I did as a salaried worker. This is because I worked 15 hours per week instead of 25, and didn’t work summers.

Since I’m paid and compensated hourly, it was difficult for me to know exactly how much I’d make as a contractor until the year was up. I often don’t know exactly when I’ll work because of testing, field trips, and holidays. I can estimate, but it’s just that–an estimate.

However, when I was negotiating with this school district, I was still wrestling with the “large amount” of money I made per hour. So when the superintendent looked at me and asked my rate, I had an internal struggle. I don’t know if she could see it on my face. I finally told her my rate, but rounded down to the dollar below.

Something interesting happened after that. She started in on a bit of a verbal tear. “That’s a LOT of money,” she told me. “I don’t know if we can pay you that. I don’t know if my current ESOL Teacher makes that much money. I can’t pay you more than her. I don’t know if we have the budget for that. I just don’t know if that will work.” Continue reading “On Negotiating as a Woman”

Thinking of Changing Careers? Why and How I Did at 36

Have you ever dreamed of changing careers, but don’t know how to start?

I haven’t. Seriously. Except for my first few years in the workforce, I’ve always worked in marketing or sales in one capacity or another, and I had always loved it. Two years ago, this month, I was a marketing manager for a theater company. But here’s why and how, two years ago this month, I changed careers.

Changing Careers--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

I really liked my marketing job. It was part-time, flexible, and the first real job I’d had in the almost-eight years since my first child had been born. I loved the autonomy, the professional identity, the praise I was getting for a job well done. Everything about the job, basically… except the summers.

See, I worked for an opera company, and the “season,” the time when we staged our three big productions, was the first week of June through the second week of August every year. During the season, my part-time job became a full-time job, and I worked nights, weekends, whenever. I was salaried, so although I could work less during the rest of the year to make up for the summer weeks, I earned exactly the same paycheck through the summer while I worked like crazy.  Continue reading “Thinking of Changing Careers? Why and How I Did at 36”

Are You Camp Earning or Camp Saving?

I have subscribed to Ramit Sethi’s emails for years, ever since he was a fledgling blogger at I Will Teach You To Be Rich. His websites are now slickly professional and he runs a multimillion dollar empire, selling courses on how to increase your earnings. I’ve never bought a course, but his emails are full of advice about negotiating and growing your business, and he writes compelling headlines (if you don’t believe me, sign up and see what I mean). He’s helped thousands of people earn more money in their businesses.

Are You Camp Earning or Camp Saving--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

Three days ago, he sent out the email, “What Successful People Don’t Tell You.” It linked to an article by the same name. The premise of the article is that people who truly love their jobs will never stop working, no matter how much money they make, because “you would enjoy being on the beach for about 3 weeks…then you would get bored and want to get back to work.” Apparently everyone that this guy has ever met who’s made big money feels this way. Okay. Let’s accept that premise for a sec.

Ramit goes on to slam the FIRE community, for delaying gratification and staying at a job they potentially hate, eating rice and beans, and leading colorless, boring lives (including WALKING as a hobby for God’s sake), only to retire early and then have no purpose for the rest of their lives.

Apparently, there’s a subreddit detailing the dark underbelly of FIRE, which is that once people have sacrificially saved for 14 years, they then have no purpose beyond amassing their $600,000 so they can live off the $24,000 a year in perpetuity.

The article ends by asking you to pick a camp: Continue reading “Are You Camp Earning or Camp Saving?”

The History of Our Side Hustles

In last week’s post, I laid out several streams of income that Mr. ThreeYear and I expect to utilize during early retirement. That led me to remember all the times we’ve had side hustles during our fifteen years together.

Mr. ThreeYear and I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit that runs through our collective veins.

Side Hustles--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

I grew up as the daughter of a small-business owner. Although my dad was a pediatrician, he was also the owner and operator of his practice, and I grew up listening to him talk about managing his business for ultimate profitability. He was great at utilizing available resources to help him grow his practice in an extremely poor region of the country (rural South Carolina). Seventy-five percent of his patients received Medicaid, and despite the very low payout rates for those patients, he applied for government subsidies and programs to not only allow his business to survive, but to thrive. When he sold his practice a few years ago, he had over 14,000 pediatric patients in a town of only 4,600 inhabitants! Continue reading “The History of Our Side Hustles”