As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. What does this mean? I recommend products (only ones that I like) and if you purchase a product through that link, I earn some money.

Side Gigs for Teachers: Ways to Actually Make Money

Side-gigs-teachers

Are you Ready to Change your Life? Get your Side Gigs On! It’s a fact that teachers around the world are underpaid. Maybe you’re one of them, and feel like you just can’t get ahead financially. You have bills to pay and you’re not sure where the money is coming from. Or, you just can’t seem to save for retirement, or your children’s education. It’s time to get your side hustle going on. You can…

Continue reading

Is it too Late to Start Investing?

I answer the question of whether or not it’s ever too late to start investing in this short video. For everything expat finance, check out Andrew Hallam’s excellent book, The Global Expatriate’s Guide to Investing: From Millionaire Teacher to Millionaire Expat.

Continue reading

Money Diet Challenge: Top 5 Tips

And so it Begins The money diet is starting tomorrow and although it’s been a few years since I’ve gone on a diet, I’m super excited for this challenge. In years gone by, I’ve totally kicked butt at money diet challenges and don’t think I’ve ever lost one. Here are my secrets and even though they’re secrets I’m going to share with you because I want to help my readers be as awesome as they…

Continue reading

The Wealthy English Teacher: Samples from the Book

My second book, The Wealthy English Teacher is hot off the press and now available on Amazon in both digital and print formats. Initial sales have been promising with more than 20 copies sold in just a couple of days with no paid advertising. I’m hoping that people will really like it and tell their friends-there really is no other financial book (or even resource on the Internet) that is specifically for ESL teachers. If…

Continue reading

Money Diet Challenge

One of my Biggest Fears I’ll be leaving my home for the last 10 years, Korea and going to Canada in about a year from now. In preparation for this move, I’ve been officially on money-spending lock-down and am all about the frugal living, even more than I was previously. There is truly nothing scarier to me than arriving in Canada with basically nothing more than what I can fit in 2 suitcases, nowhere to…

Continue reading

Too late to Start Saving for Retirement?

It’s never too late to start planning for retirement You might be reading this post when you are in your late forties, fifties or even sixties and thinking that your financial landscape is pretty bleak. You are perhaps thinking about if it is too late to start saving for retirement. Perhaps you have lots of debt, including credit cards, no emergency fund and nothing in the way of retirement savings or other assets such as…

Continue reading

The Wealthy English Teacher- Available on Amazon

 The Wealthy English Teacher: Teach, Travel, and Secure your Financial Future is now available on Amazon. It has a much bigger potential audience than my most nichiest of niche first book about how to get a university job in South Korea. I’m hoping that it’s the type of book that people really like, and tell their friends about, who in turn tell a few other people. So far, I’ve sold a decent amount of copies in…

Continue reading

Personal Finance Rules: Build Strong Relationships

Inspired by The Simple Dollar, I’m doing a series on personal finance rules and have previously talked about: Spend Less Than You Earn, Keep it Simple Stupid, Pay Per Hour Worked, and Ignore Professional Stock Pickers. Today is how you (and me too) should build strong relationships. Over at The Simple Dollar it is rule #19 and they offer some helpful reasons why you would want to do this.  I’ll add my own thoughts to…

Continue reading

Pay Per Hour Worked

Today I’m continuing with my series on personal finance tips, inspired by this post over at The Simple Dollar: 60 Simple Rules of Personal Finance. I’ve already talked about keeping it simple and spending less than you earn. Today, it’s all about knowing what your pay per hour worked is. This has been on my mind lately for 2 reasons: 1. I’m writing a book called, “The Wealthy English Teacher” and there’s a chapter about…

Continue reading

Spend Less Than You Earn

I ran across this article, 60 Simple Rules of Personal Finance over at The Simple Dollar the other day and thought I would do a series, talking about some of my favorite points. Spend Less Than You Earn This is probably my favorite personal finance tip of all time and if you do only this, and nothing else for your entire life, you’ll probably retire rich, or at least comfortably. I’m currently writing a book…

Continue reading

Respect the $10- It’s how you become rich

Thanks Mr. Money Mustache I was just over at Mr Money Mustache and was reading this article, “A Millionaire is Made 10 Bucks at a Time” and felt inspired to post. The Quick Summary Basically, the article talked about how we seem to have lost respect for the $10 bill and that we don’t actually think of it as that much money. We just spend it without even thinking about it, but it can actually…

Continue reading

Depending on the Government in Retirement: a Good Option?

Depending on the government in retirement might not seem like a terrible plan because you can just work, enjoy your life, spend your money freely and then get your retirement taken care of. No sacrifice, or giving up any fun required! English Teacher’s Precarious Situation I’ve been thinking about the question of when is too late to start saving for retirement as I’ve been writing my book about personal finance for English teachers. I think…

Continue reading

What about Investing in Gold and Silver?

My Old Coworker’s Obsession I remember a few years ago when I worked with a couple guys who were obsessed with buying gold and silver. They were totally and completely convinced that stockpiling these two assets, physically was the best way to put their hard-earned dollars to work. I remember thinking that this seemed like a complicated endeavor because you had to go buy the product and hope you were not getting ripped off, then you…

Continue reading

Is Insurance Necessary?

Of course there are times when insurance is necessary like it you have a car, but other times it’s a lot more ambiguous and really depends on individual circumstances. I’ll talk about 2 kinds of insurance (supplementary health insurance and life insurance) where it really depends on your individual circumstances whether you’d need them or not. Supplementary Health Insurance For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to assume that we’re not talking about the USA,…

Continue reading

An Emergency Fund is Necessary

This topic is especially relevant to English teachers abroad who seem to be some of the worst offenders when it comes to not having an emergency fund and then when something bad happens, they post all over Facebook asking for donations But, an emergency fund is necessary! I don’t want to be all judgey because some of these people are totally legit; I’ve actually donated a good amount of money to them over the years.…

Continue reading

Rabbit Holes and what is all comes down to in the end

I’m writing a book about personal finance for English Teachers abroad. While Andrew Hallam has this topic covered pretty well in The Global Expatriate’s Guide to Investing: From Millionaire Teacher to Millionaire Expat, his book is quite technical and not exactly easy reading for the average somewhat financially illiterate person. I’m taking a broader view of things and trying to target the absolute financial beginner. As I’ve been writing, what I’ve discovered is this: there…

Continue reading

5 Truths for Wealth-Builders

I was just cruising around on Yahoo Finance and I ran across this article which sums up pretty nicely what I think about personal finance. 5 Power Truths for Wealth Builders by David Ning. I particularly liked the ones about considering the downside and a little effort can lower your expenses. With regards to considering the downside, he mentions stocks and how many people don’t consider that that hot stock which seems to be going…

Continue reading

Short-term vs. Long-Term thinking and how it relates to financial success

These past few days, I’ve been working away on my new book about financial freedom for teachers abroad and the following thought has been running through my head. Financial success all comes down to short-term vs. long-term thinking. There are lots of people who don’t think beyond the immediate in front of them-today, this week, this month and next month. These people often struggle to pay their bills each month and live in the land…

Continue reading

Indecision

I waver back and forth when it comes to moving back to Canada, quite possibly forever and making a life there, or living the expat life which is kind of amazing in a lot of ways. I mean, who wouldn’t be happy working at a university in Korea where you get paid an astounding amount of money for a very little amount of work. I go on exotic vacations a couple times a year, cruise…

Continue reading

Writing an Ebook: it’s a big project

I’ve started writing my new book about personal finance for English teachers abroad, which I hope will have a broader appeal than my first book, How to Get a University Job in South Korea: The English Teaching Job of Your Dreams and have now realized just how serious of an undertaking this actually is. There are so many rabbit holes one could get lost in and never escape out of. Thankfully, I have plenty of…

Continue reading