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Sep 9, 2015    |       5 comments

Teaching Pays the School Bills

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We had open house at our homeschool co op this week.  As of today, I have 16 paying students registered for classes.  I am so excited!!!

As this last month of summer break has dwindled towards the end.  I have been filled with remorse at having committed so much of my time to teaching especially spread across the week so long weekends won’t really be an option.  But I knew it was the right decision financially as it truly will pay the way for all my kiddos classes and that is a HUGE financial burden lifted.

But as I got to mingling with the other mom/teachers I could see the passion in them.  And as the families and kiddos started trickling in, I felt that passion rise in me.  I am so excited to get to be a small part of these kids lives and teach something that I truly LOVE.  And I’m really grateful for the support this particular co op gives to the teachers…complete control over our curriculum and our classrooms.

So while I have spent hours this summer prepping my classes and content, now that I have met most of my students I will spend this weekend revising my expectations and class schedule and assignments.

I won’t make any money on this per se, but 1) the tuition from my students is fully covering the cost of my kids’ co op classes and 2) I will have 3 full prepared classes if I ever chose to teach these classes again – Multi-level Geometry, Intro to Computer Programming and Advanced Computer Applications.

Classes start next week!

Sep 8, 2015    |       12 comments

Month in Review- August ’15

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Hello on this Tuesday evening. I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend.

I realized over the weekend that it is time for another month review, so let’s dive into it:

  • At the beginning of the month, we (GF and I) decided to do a garage sale (here). The thought was launched after reading a book about de-cluttering our house. However, after much work, we still have not done the garage sale :(. It’s still on the forefront of our minds, but the stars just haven’t aligned, where we’ve gotten a weekend free of no plans to just do it. Plus, we still have a lot of work to do going through our house. The basement is done, but the attic is only 25% cleared. My fear is that we are too late for garage sale season. Should we just hold off until the spring?
  • Here, I posted about my plans going forward for paying off my debt, albeit with some caveats. I’m keeping the fun fund going, continuing my contributions to my nephew’s ESA fund, continue contributing 10% of my pay to my 401k and pay weekly towards my mortgage ($150/week).
  • It the same post, I also outlined my timeline for paying off the debt. Hope fully this will occur in 18 months (now 17) before I hit 30, but most likely to happen in 22 (now 21) months.
  • In this post , I showed everyone the less than professional card I made for my dad for his birthday. I also highlighted some of the other things we did for him. He loved our gifts for him and we had a great time celebrating his 55th.
  • In that same post, I also shared my budget with everyone. This is the budget I’m going to use from this point moving forward.
  • In Weekly Update #22 (here), I shared my plans concerning my life after debt. This stirred up some controversy, particularly my plans concerning my retirement funding. My ultimate goal is to become financially stable without having to worry about a traditional job. This isn’t saying I’m not going to work at all; I do plan on making making still in some capacity.
  • The following week (here), I outlined my past, present and future stances on my retirement contributions. I received some great feedback from all you which I’m using to more carefully outline my post debt retirement plans.

Financially speaking, this was a very successful month back from vacation. All together, I was able to pay off $1,883.94 this month! Not bad.

And to update my balances since last week, here you go:

Loan NameInterest RateOriginal Balance- May '09Current BalanceTotal Paid OffPaid Since Last Week
Sallie Mae 015.25$27,837.24$23,719.92$4,117.32$0.00
Sallie Mae 024.75$22,197.02$18,604.04$3,592.98$0.00
Sallie Mae 037.75$20,692.10$0.00
$20,692.10$0.00
Sallie Mae 045.75$10,350.18$3,342.10$7,008.08$703.13
Sallie Mae 055.25$6,096.03$0.00$6,096.03$0.00
Sallie Mae 06 and 074.75$6,415.09$0.00$6,415.09$0.00
Sallie Mae- DOE 015.25$5,000.00$0.00$5,000.00$0.00
Sallie Mae- DOE 025.25$3,000.00$0.00$3,000.00$0.00
AES6.8$9,000.00$0.00$9,000.00$0.00
TOTALS$110,587.66$45,666.06$64,921.60$703.13

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

 

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