At the beginning of every year I take time to evaluate where I’ve been, where I am, and where I want to go. I think it’s very important to do this to maintain motivation and to have a sense of direction. Below I share how much I made teaching in 2016 and compare it to 2015. I also share with you how I’m doing financially at the beginning of 2017, what my financial goals are for the year, and how I plan to achieve them.
I hope this helps!
Where I’ve Been
In 2016 I was fortunate to be added to the teaching rotation at two new schools.
One I attained through resume submission. I did a scan of job openings and applied.
The other I attained through personal relationships. An adjunct acquaintance of mine accepted a full-time position in another part of the state. He was nice enough to recommend that I take over for him at one of his schools.
I think this experience is important to note. There are many ways of landing a teaching position. For the most part, I have placed most of my efforts in the traditional scan of highered.edu, indeed.com, and by scanning openings at all the nearby teaching institutions. However, we should never forget that by simply being an active member of our teaching communities we may find ourselves in the hiring radar of department chairs and deans.
These two new schools were given to me for the Fall term last year. This boosted my monthly income tremendously from the previous year. In 2015 my teaching income was $44,500, which averages to $3,708/month. Of course this doesn’t mean anything unless you know my cost of living. But, just to compare, in 2016, with the addition of these two schools, I was able to boost my teaching income to $53,000, which averages to $4417/month. And I don’t have to tell you how much that extra bit helps!
This extra bit of income motivated me to take a closer look at my investments. I created a spreadsheet of all my retirement and investment accounts and placed almost all my money in various Index Funds. The key going forward will be to continually contribute as much as I can to these funds to grow my net worth. You’re probably already doing some of this through your school’s retirement account, but in addition, you can do this for your own IRA. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me know and I’ll think about discussing my investment strategy in more detail.
For the Fall term, I taught at four schools. Three were in person, and the fourth was online. This totaled six classes. Strangely enough, I was energized by teaching so many students.
Where I Am
As of right now, only two of these schools has given me teaching assignments for 2017. I have two classes for the Spring semester at one school, which puts me at $9000 for 5 months ($1800/mo). I have one winter quarter class at the other, which puts me at $6000 for the first three months of the year ($2000/mo).
Where I Am Going
From what I’ve been told for the Spring, it looks like the quarter school will be able to offer me at least one class. This, in addition to continuing with the semester course at the other school will keep my monthly income consistent through the beginning of summer.
However, I don’t want to rely on my teaching income as my primary means of making a living.
My goal is to make teaching something I do for a passion rather than what I “have to do” to survive. So, what I really want is to double my income, by supplementing it with alternative income streams.
INCOME GOAL for 2017: $100,000.
This equates to $8333/mo or $274/day.
2017 Strategy and Income Streams
Here were my income streams for 2015 & 2016:
- Adjunct teaching
- Rental Income
- Book Publishing
- Public Speaking
- Google Ads – through niche sites.
- Youtube Revenue
In 2015, I was able to make over $5000 in additional income through public speaking, but nothing in 2016. In 2016 and 2015, without doing detailed math, I averaged $2000/yr in additional income for book publishing. My Google ads for niche website and youtube revenue were less than $200 for 2016.
Here’s my strategy for 2017:
- Create more educational youtube videos. This will help me in a few ways: 1) as an ad revenue generator, 2) as a lead generator for book sales, 3) as a lead generator for public speaking gigs, 4) as a lead generator for tutoring or classes I offer through services like teachable or skillshare, 5) as an affiliate revenue generator through affiliate links for books.
- Publish more books.
- Create online courses.
I have other ideas, but what I’ve found is that I’ve stretched myself to thin in the past; so much so that I end up putting little concentrated effort on any one endeavor. My strategy for this year is to simply my approach and focus on youtube videos and book publishing.
What do you think? If you have other suggestions, or things you are doing, I’d love to hear it.
If you want help doing anything I’ve mentioned above, let me know!