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10 Ways to Stretch a Teacher's Salary

Living on a teacher’s salary can be challenging- especially if you’re the bread winner in the family or live in an expensive city. The present state of the economy and price of gas isn’t helping matters. However, these ten ideas are just a few suggestions on how to make your salary as a teacher work for you. You may already be aware of a few of them, so here’s a friendly reminder to help inspire you to stretch your dollar further.

1. The Cable Guy

During the school year, subscribe to basic cable only (or cut out cable cold turkey). You’re probably so busy you barely have time to watch television anyway. Pick up those premium channels in the summer months when you’re not teaching and planning as much. Record extra movies during this time to watch throughout the year. Instead of paying $50 for cable, why not subscribe to a service like Netflix? For around $10 you can get movies or a TV series delivered to your door based on what you order online. My favorite thing about Netflix is that I never have to go to the store or put postage on the returns. Everything is included.

2. Use Bill Pay

The price of postage just went up again- and every penny counts. Most banks these days offer online bill pay. While it make take you around 30 minutes to set the service up online, it’ll only take you several minutes to pay bills throughout the month. The best part? No postage required. Less trips to the Post Office and less money spent on postage. You can even set up the service to send money to people in your family.

3. Buy in Bulk

When Saturday comes, my husband is dying to go to Costco- one of the big warehouse bulk stores. Some other stores like this in your area may be Sam’s Club and BJ’s. If you buy in bulk, you have less trips to the store- which saves you gas, money and time- needless to say that buying items in bulk is cheaper. If you don’t have the room to store a lot of bulk items, go in with another teacher or friend and split up some of the bulk.

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