10 Financial Tips For Teachers

hey everybody welcome back to Smarties style I am Latonya with a nother sit down video for you guys so today's video is going to be my financial tips for teachers now before I go into my tips let me just put out a disclaimer I am NOT a financial advisor I am no expert in finances and I'm not even living my perfect financial life right now but these are just things that I am either in the process of doing for myself lessons that I've learned over the years or things that have served me well over the years so I'm doing this because I put it out there my last vlog if you watch my blogs and a lot of you seemed like you were interested in a video like this for teachers and also because I think although I'm not exactly where I want to be in life I think given the fact that I am on my own living in Southern California on a teacher's pace schedule and salary and still surviving I think that I have a little bit to offer so I came up with 10 things that I think every teacher should try and think about when they're managing their finances and so this is what I have to offer I hope you guys find it useful and if not so so sorry so the first tip that I have is in relation to your district salary schedule and basically my first tip is just understand your district salary schedule make sure that you understand how the columns and steps work I believe for most districts you have columns that move you from left to right and your columns are usually based on the amount of education you have in the amount of units you can accumulate it and the steps are the ones that go from top to bottom and those are strictly based on your years with the district so when I got hired at my district one of the things that we were told as you want to move as far over as you can as quick as possible because you want to maximize your earning potential a because it's nice to make more money and be because you want to retire at the highest pay scale possible because that is what your retirement income is going to be based on I know in California I don't know if serves is a national thing or just specific to the state of California but stirrers is our form of Social Security so I wanted to movers pharr over as as possible so that I am compounding my income over the years and that when I do retire I'm making sure that I'm retiring at the highest rate possible also make sure that you don't just get blinded by the numbers that are on the salary schedule so I know that when I was still working on getting my credential and I was looking at different districts as I was applying there were some districts whose salary schedules seemed really high and so everybody was itching to get to that district because they thought wow they get paid a whole lot but you have to make sure that you know whether or not that pay on the salary schedule is just strictly your take-home pay and then also find out what's happening with the benefits in that district because if your pay is really high on the salary schedule but their benefits package is really low that high pay is not really going to make too much of a difference if you're comparing districts if you're having to spend a lot of money out-of-pocket when it comes to paying for your benefits so that's another thing that you want to look at my district personally we do pretty well as far as competitive salaries in this immediate area but we also have pretty good benefits they do a really good job with paying benefits at least for someone in my position who's single and has no kids so make sure you're looking at that as well and asking those questions as you're going throughout the interview process the other thing that you want to know about your district salary schedule is is there a freeze point on that salary schedule I believe in my district once you work for the district 15 years you're kind of frozen at this point where you don't get those automatic pay pay raises or you don't take those automatic steps down and increase your pay by the same amount of money that you were doing between years 1 and 15 so you got to make sure that you understand is there a freeze point when is that freeze point occur and try and get yourself over on that salary schedule before you hit yourself or gland yourself in that freeze point so that's also important so that's my first tip is just making sure that you know your district salary schedule what are the numbers really mean how does it relate to the benefits that your district offers is there a freeze point and how fast can you get yourself over on that salary schedule some of you like me to get myself over on that salary I maxed out I took some additional classes after I got my first masters and I just made sure I had all the units necessary and when I did that I did use a credit card to pay for it some of you will think that's a great idea some of you won't but the amount and pay raise that I got made up for the amount that I charge on my credit card could take a couple of classes to get those units in so just keep that in mind my second suggestion and my second tip for teachers out there comes to your summer pace so a lot of people who are looking at teaching or thinking about teaching or toying around with it a lot of you will get concerned about what happens during the summer how do you get paid over the summer or some people don't even realize that teachers are paid on a 10 month salary so some districts like mine have a service where they will pay you on a 12 month schedule based on your 10 month salary so what that means is for those 10 months that you're working your paycheck will be deducted from and the amount that they deduct will go into their little savings account that they're holding for you and then when the summer comes they will cut you a check during those summer months so that you can get through the summer and that's fine and great and that's how I started so I had the district take out money they set it aside in their account and everything was going great well when I started that first year something happened I can't remember exactly what it was I think it was something with car repairs or I don't know but I needed money and I didn't have any money and my checking account that I could use so I had to contact the district to see if I can get the money that they were holding for me and technically they weren't supposed to but they knew that I was in a tough situation so they gave me access to that money and I was able to take care of what I needed to take care of and go about my business that following summer I ran into a teacher friend of mine at summer school and she told me a lot on yeah what are you doing you don't want to have the district hold your money because they're just holding it you're not earning any interest on it and you don't really have any access to it should you find yourself in an emergency like I did you need to go to a credit union that is geared towards teachers and have them do the exact same thing for you so my second tip is if you participate in a summer savers program through your district meaning that they're taking your money you need to check and see if there's a creating union that is local to you that can do the same thing for you and the reason why I would suggest a credit union over your district doing it is because with the credit union you can determine how much you want them to take you have access to the monies should you need it without any issues and you earn interest on your money so on average for me I have them take out a thousand dollars a month which is more than I need them to take out I do that for two reasons reason number one is if something happens in during the school year and I need to dip into that money me dipping into that money isn't really going to hurt me when the summer comes secondly I put that much away because I know I'm earning interest on it so I put a little bit more so that I can make a little bit more an interest and by the end of the year I will at least make a hundred dollars in interest off of my money being put into that savings account that I have through the credit union I have had time so I needed to go into that account and it's been nice and easy it's just a matter of me transferring it to my checking account or just driving down to the credit union and getting the money that I need but I really try not to do that I really do treat that account as a non-existent account unless I'm in a dire situation that has happened so I highly suggest that if you're doing that through your district you want to shift that over to a credit union because you definitely have more control over having access to it and how much you put away and you earn interest now as far as when the summer comes the credit union is not in most cases and from my experience they are not going to pay you you're gonna have to go down there get your money and pay yourself you can either take all your money out at once and put in your checking account for the summer or you can pay yourself once a month like you would normally be paid if it was still a school was still in session or you were doing it through your school district I've been doing that for the past I'm going on my twelfth year teaching I think I've been doing that for each year except for that first year and I have absolutely loved it it's been hassle-free the only issue I've had is when I go and I get the money out of my credit account or my credit union account and I put it in my regular bank account sometimes they'll put a hold on the cashiers check because it's a large amount of money but typically when you explain this is coming from another account they're really quite friendly about in terms of working with you and usually if anything the whole does a day maybe two days because it is in the form of a cashier's check so that is my second tip if you have the district holding your money stop doing that you're not making any money off of it and I think somehow the district makes a little money off of you doing that for them don't quote me on that but I they might but the big point is you're not making any money with the credit union you are making money on your own money you have access to it and it's all good my third tip for you guys is dealing with investing things or investing your money in your classroom so if you have bigger purchases that you want to make and you really feel like you need that item in your classroom to either serve your students or help make lessons more effective I highly recommend making use of DonorsChoose I have done a total of three DonorsChoose projects over the past probably four years or so two of them have fully funded and one of them has not my very first DonorsChoose project was me trying to get Chromebooks in my classroom so I started with just one it funded and that very first one what was nice about it is that sometimes DonorsChoose works with companies who will match donations and that was how my first project was funded so quickly luckily I only had to do one for one Chromebook because soon after my project was funded the district that I work for went to 101 Chromebook so that took care of that the second project I did was for the camera that I used to make the math videos and then I ultimately started using to make videos for my separate channel the one that you guys are watching right now that one was about and it wasn't even that that one wasn't funded I cancelled it because I really wanted to have the camera before the school year started because I wanted to get a head start on making the video so I just stopped it and was able to use the funds that was there towards the purchase personal purchase of this camera and then the third one I just did was for picture books for teaching growth mindset in my class for the upcoming school year so if there's something bigger like that where it's going to cost you a few hundred dollars or maybe more than a thousand dollars definitely take the time looking to starting a DonorsChoose project let your friends and family know put it on Instagram for an Instagram and I found that people are really more than happy to donate to teachers if they believe in the project that you put out there and if they feel that it's worthwhile I've had a lot of people donate that I've either never met before or just anonymous donors so they're out there so make use of donors shoes if you have something really big you want to invest in your classroom but you may not be able to spend the money to do it or spending that money might be a financial burden to you my next tip kind of goes along with the DonorsChoose scenario or tip that I just gave and it's really just about spinning money in your classroom so my biggest thing is I see all these great things on Instagram and teachers are making all these cute gifts and buying all these cute things for their classroom and I love the idea of it but I have a really hard time spending money on things that I think have a very short shelf life so spending money on treats or back-to-school gifts or things like that because I have done that in the past only to see my students be excited about it for a day or two but then day three day four the thing that I give them no longer exists or it's been damaged or they've lost it or something like that happens and it's just like a punch in the gut to know I spent all that time all that money in that and then that thing that I made for them is gone so I'm a big proponent of spending my money in the classroom on things that have a very long shelf life so I will buy books I will buy materials that I know can be used from year to year if it has multiple uses over the course of multiple years I will definitely spend the money on it so I have a lot of picture books a lot of books in my classroom library but I don't have a lot of fluff things or I don't really spend a lot of money on like treats and gifts and toys and gifts and gadgets because those are fun and they're great but they're so temporary that I just can't find enough justification for me to spend that kind of money I will also spend money on things that are just helping to create a nice classroom environment for myself because I think that's more than just a thing for me I definitely think having a nice environment for your students really makes a difference for them and how comfortable they are and the parents and coming in so just make sure that you spend your money on things that you know have multiple uses long shelf life just remember that just because it's at the Dollar Tree or in the dollar spot at Target it doesn't mean that you have to own it if you see something at the Dollar Tree or on the dollar bin and you don't necessarily know for certain how you're going to use it you might want to wait because even though it's a dollar those dollars start adding up really quick and just because teacher a down the hall has twenty thousand bins that does not mean that you have twenty thousand bins and I or you mean twenty thousand bins and I get it I can fall into that hole really quick but there's only so many paper trays paper bins pencil pouches pencil boxes that you need and before you know and you have all these things in your classroom and about half of them are actually being used on a regular basis so definitely take a moment to think about how you want to invest your money in the classroom spend wisely think about how much you're going to get out of it and then go from there all right my next tip has something to do with classroom decor so as you guys know if you watch my blogs and you follow me on Instagram I have moved to a new school which means I am in the process of setting up a new classroom and that in and of itself can be pricey in terms of buying materials so I am very particular about the space that I'm in I want it to feel very comfortable for me and my students I spend a lot of time there the kids spend a lot of time there so I want it to look good so what I have found over the years is that it is better to go with a color scheme versus a theme I think if you go with the color scheme you're less likely to fall down that hole of I need everything like right now people are all about this tropical theme and pineapples and cactuses and then it's very easy to get so wrapped up in that that you feel like you have to own every single thing that has a pineapple on it or a cactus on it and be money is just flying out the window color schemes you can kind of control yourself a little better and still get that up of a cohesive classroom when it comes to your decor so my previous classroom the color scheme was red black and gray and I that was based on a package that I bought from a company called schoolgirl style and I'll try and make sure to link that company below and you basically go on this website you find a theme or color scheme that you like and you can't want to say about $40.00 for access to this package of materials that includes the alphabet banners headers and it's all editable so you can make it say whatever you want and so I did that in my last classroom the last package that I had was called chalkboard charm and I've done that with this classroom and the package that I bought was just simply called I think yellow and gray and as long as you have consistency with your bulletin board headers and you get bulletin board paper that ties in with whatever you bought or whatever your color scheme is going to be your classroom will have that themed look without being super expensive or feeling overdone with too many items that are going along with your theme so I think that that are why I will say for me that has worked really well I'm just kind of keeping it simple and focusing on a color scheme as opposed to a theme and then when you do your classroom I highly suggest that you do something that isn't so trendy that you might not want to see it next year or in a couple years so when I'm done with this classroom I'm doing now at minimum my class one will probably stay that way for about three years because I know I can get a solid three years out of it because that's how long I left my last classroom up I spent the money I bought fayliss paper I invested in the things that I wanted and I said I'm gonna leave this classroom alone and that lasted three years and that was probably the smartest thing that I've ever done there's nothing like leaving for the summer knowing that my classroom is taken care of I don't need to go back in there over the summer and redo my classroom and I loved it and it looks good for three years so go with the color scheme versus a theme my next tip is I didn't know how to put this but I'm just gonna say try and be a little old-school with your spending and so when I say that I'm talking about things that I do that I feel are a little bit like old ladyish so I pack a lunch every day I rarely go to lunch the rule was at my previous school with Liza and Cindy we would go to lunch on the first Friday of every month and that was really all that I would allow myself buying a lunch a couple times a week adds up so I would just pack that lunch and just kind of stick with it every now and then if I just really needed a french fry because it was just one of those days I might allow myself to go out and get french fries but that was very rare and even if my friends went out to lunch and it was not one of those First Fridays and they wanted me to go along I would go with them but I would take my packed lunch my packed lunch with them and just say hey I'm here I'm here for the company but I'm not gonna buy a lunch I bring my own coffee to work every day I make my own iced coffee now I know if you watch my vlogs you guys know that I'm all about McDonald's iced coffee and I actually have one sitting right next to me but the only time that I did that was when I got gift cards or if I didn't have a gift card I recycle cans and bottles and all the money that I get from recycling goes towards my McDonald's gift card or I add it to my Starbucks gift card any time you see me with Starbucks I am not paying out of pocket for it I'm using gift cards with that I also with things like cars I have had three cars in my life my first car was a black Saab that I got in college my dad bought that for me but he really bought it because he wanted that car that's just a side note to tell you about my dad my second car I bought brand-new was a Volkswagen Passat I bought that when I was 22 or 23 I drove that for 12 years until it just got to the point where the cost of repairs exceeded the value of the car and now I have another Volkswagen and I will drive that car until it just gets to the same point where the cost of the repairs made me start to outlay the value of the car so I love a new car smell I love the idea of a new car and it's great but I what I love more is the idea having a car payment so I'm a big believer and go out buy a brand-new car get the car that you want so when I got the Volkswagen I got the car that I wanted I made sure it was comfortable I've paid a little bit extra for leather seats it has navigation on all of that stuff in it because I knew that this was going to be the car that I was going to be in for years to come so make sure you keep your cards you don't have to have the newest phone gifting gadget I still have an eye an Apple watch because I just feel like that would be a waste of my money so just try and be a little bit more conservative and I think that's why I call it kind of old lady ways because the older generations tend it to be a little bit more conservative in their spending and just really think about things before you spin I think my years working at the bank helped me to see that you can eat out a couple of times a week but when you start to multiply that by the number of times per week times the number of weeks in a month and the number of months in a year you really start to see how much money that you're wasting on eating out and how you could have used that money elsewhere so definitely try and be a little more conservative in your spending pack your lunch go out to lunch often bring your own coffee make your own iced coffee buy the car you want keep that car and just do things like that I think that really does help out quite a bit my next tip has to do with shopping so if you're someone like me you enjoy shopping and quite honestly I enjoy shopping for just about anything the majority of my shopping though is spent on clothing items shoes things like that so my tip is to go ahead and set up a small account that is strictly for your shopping habits so I have a separate savings account and I put $100 in there a month and that hundred dollars a month is just for shopping it's not for bills it's not for gas it's not for groceries it's just for shopping and so anytime I go somewhere and I feel like I want to buy something new in terms of clothing the money has to be in that account if I don't have the money I don't get it if a month goes by and there's nothing that I saw that I wanted to buy that's fine the money just sits there and accumulates so I definitely recommend doing that because it's kind of unrealistic for me to say I'm not going to shop ever I just hold shop period because everybody gonna have a day when you just want to kind of treat yourself to something or you see a cute top or a cute dress and you really want it so why not have an account for that so that you don't have that guilt associated with it if you do buy something the other tip that I have is just make use of stores that offer great styles at great prices so you guys know that I level it may be and one of the things that I love about Navy is that their clothes always look great they work for school as well as just casual wear they always have sales and what more do I have to say the clothes are great they're pretty decent quality and they always have sales I also buy things at Target same thing the quality at Target has kind of come up over the years they always have great sales I have a target red debit card so I know I'll get 5% off no matter what and I just make use of that but you guys do know that I have some more expensive items primarily things like watches some of my shoes are a little bit more expensive but I definitely have some purses that are more expensive because I do like purses but know that all of those things have been purchased through things like birthday gift cards Christmas time so when things like that roll around and my parents or my family asked me what I want for Christmas I'll usually say you know what I really have my eye on this new purse if you can just give me a gift card to this store that I'll help me purchase it and that has worked really well for me as well so definitely set up a shopping account for yourself don't be afraid to go shop at places like Old Navy Target and if you want something that's a little bit more expensive save those birthdays anniversaries Christmastime those are great time to try and get a little help in making those purchases next step is set up an emergency fund so this is a fund that I have started that is just for emergencies so something happens with my house or something happens with my car that's unexpected that is the account that I would go to to kind of take care of that and I found this little plan I think I found this on Pinterest where it gives you a month-by-month breakdown of how much to put into this emergency fund and I think you start off with $25 and the next month it might be $50 and I think this month I have to put 150 dollars and every month I just put it in there and I think the goal is after 12 months you should have saved I think $1,200 I'm not a hundred percent sure but I will try and put the link to that in the description box or kind of type out what the plan is if you want to follow it and it's perfect for someone like me where I can't say that I'm going to take 20 percent of my paycheck and put that in a savings account because I just can't that's a little bit too much for me to do right now I can't afford to do that but it's not for me to feel like it's manageable and to know that little by little I am putting money into that account so definitely look into setting up an emergency fund and remind yourself it is an emergency fund and a great sale and norstrom does not constitute an emergency my next tip is in terms of retirement I have retirement through stirrers which means they are taking money out of my check every single month and that is what I will be paid from when I retire and again stirrers for us here in California I'm not sure how it works in the rest of the country or in other parts of the world is our form of Social Security but in addition to that I went to the same credit union where my summer savers account is and I set up a 403b account which is another account that is strictly going going to be used for retirement so I've dictated how much a month I want to put in that and the crediting it takes it for my check and then they invested in different types of stocks and you can either be very aggressive with the types of stocks to invest in are very conservative based on your age and you dictate like I said how much you want them to take and what's nice about that is that would be money on top of Meister's money so I just I'm trying to make sure that when the time comes I'm retiring I want to just relax I want to be able to travel and do things without really worrying about my finances or feeling like I have to live paycheck to paycheck the other nice thing about a 403b account is it is what is the term it's money that's taken out and it helps so that you are being taxed less so I don't remember the term there's a financial term that describes that but basically let's say you put $500 a month in your 403 B accounts that's 500 ollars less that you're being taxed on on your paycheck if that make since so you can set that up through your local credit union Union a lot of times reps will come to school districts or school sites to kind of set one up for you if you're interested in doing that but I highly suggest that because you're never ever ever too young to think about retirement because you want to be comfortable when you retire alright my last and final tip is one of the things that I am very very heavily working on and that is paying off credit card debt so when I was younger I swear to God when I was younger I really thought that I just had to have a lot of credit cards because that's what adults did however many slots were in my wallet I had to have a card for you to those slots and I was out doing the most I was shopping I was doing this but also a lot of it I was using to do things like pay for car repairs or buy groceries because there things were tight so I do have credit cards that have payments that need to be made and especially when I moved into this house some of my appliances I used a credit card and so I am working on snowballing my day and by schmuck snowballing my dad this is what I mean and I've heard this from someone so this is not my original idea I think I heard a financial advisor suggest this so I looked at the credit cards that I have I rank them not by their interest rate which is what some people will do but I rank them by the lowest balances to the highest balances psychologically it's easier for me to focus on paying the lowest balance off and then work my way up to the highest balances so what you're going to do is you're going to take your credit card with the lowest balance and you're going to make the minimum payment but you're also going to pay more than the minimum so right now the one that I have it is the lowest I am paying about $400 a month on that credit card which is about $350 more a month than what I need to do once that credit card is paid off I'm going to take whatever I was paying on that small credit card so that would be the extra $400 a month plus the minimum payment and I'm going to apply all of that to the next card that has the lowest balance and then when that one's paid off I'm going to apply it to the next card and in the next card and so on and so on what I like about that is it gives you enough all right it just makes it more manageable so when I look at that smaller credit card very manageable and when I pay it off I feel accomplished like I'm proud of myself I did it and then that gives me the motivation to keep going to pay off the next one so if you have credit card debt out there it is frustrating and it is hard to deal with but it's a part of life for some of us but you can pay it off just little by little piece by piece and just be very diligent about paying more than what you need to and when that one's paid off apply it to the next credit card and keep doing that don't pay it off and then charge it or say okay I've paid one off time to relax and just not worry about it so that is something that is probably out of all the tips I've given the one that I'm the most focused on because at some point I really would like to be debt-free I don't know if that's going to happen because I have student loans that I will probably be paying off until the end of time but that's a whole other subject so snowball those credit card debts pat yourself on the back when you get one done and then keep going so those are the tips that I have I think I gave you guys about ten again I hope that they were helpful to you these are just things that I have either done and had success with or I'm working on like with the credit cards or that I just live by and it's helped me to kind of maintain myself in Southern California on a teacher's salary because Southern California fornia as I'm sure you all know is very expensive to live to live in and you got to really think about what you're doing as you're spending money as a single person on a very tight budget in terms of the pay schedule for teachers and making sure that you have enough to get yourself through the summer so that was it I hope it was helpful to you guys if it was please give the video a thumbs up and I would really appreciate it aside from that I will see you guys in the next video and I hope you are having a great day bye everybody

Channel: SmartieStyle

Views: 15,133

Rating: 4.9701862 out of 5

Keywords: money, financial tips, financial advice, teachers salary, teachers, being single, teaching, i teach too

Id: kpx4__Ht0UA

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2017