Author: Melissa

What to do when you're too bored to bother

Surviving the Summer Slump

Melissa

Diagnosing the Summer Slump

Ever since I was old enough to be in school, I’ve looked forward to that glorious time of year when the last bell rings and I’m finally free. Now, as a teacher, I feel the same yearly excitement. The freedom to kick back and do absolutely nothing has arrived.

Summer Slump
For me, classes don’t start until October. Wake me up when September ends 🙂

But then something inevitably happens partway through the summer. That something is called the Summer Slump. According to Urban Dictionary, the Summer Slump is “A period during summer in which a person performs inefficiently due to the excessive amount of free time on there hands.”

The truth is, an abundance of free time can become overwhelming. Maybe there’s nothing you specifically have to do, so you don’t feel bad bingeing on your favorite television programs. That’s fine. I feed my addiction through ORORO TV (Note: if you subscribe through my link, you and I will both receive a discount). But when you come up for air, you often find yourself feeling disoriented, and maybe even a little unmotivated to do anything about it.

When you find yourself slipping into the Slump, and you’re so bored that you can’t even bother to do anything about it, it’s good to have a plan in place to pull you back out. Here’s my plan:

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getting lots of meals from one chicken

From Whole Chicken to 12 Meals – Budget Cooking

Melissa

One of the best ways to save money on food is to cook at home. I have already written about how I keep grocery prices lower with cost comparisons from various stores. Today I’m going to focus on how to prepare 12 or more low-cost meals–and all from just one whole chicken!

The Value of a Whole Chicken

When I first started doing my price comparisons, I was looking for the lowest price per kilo on chicken breasts. If you remember from my notes, the best price was 5.19 euros per kilo at Mercadona. As I got more comfortable cooking, I started to look at other cuts of chicken, and was really impressed by the price per kilo of a whole chicken: 2.18 euros per kilo!

The only problem was that I didn’t know how to cook a whole chicken. But for a savings of 3.01 euros per kilo, I was sure willing to learn!

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Debt Management For Moving Abroad

Debt Management For Moving Abroad

Melissa

Raise your hand if you have debt. Yup, me too. According to Market Watch, Americans have $12.73 trillion worth of household debt as of March 2017, topping the 2008 peak of $12.68 trillion! About $1 trillion of that is in credit cards alone. How much of that is YOUR share?

the shame of debt
You, me, and about 80% of Americans.

We all know that debt holds us back, but what can we actually do about it? The first thing you should do is acknowledge it. Add it up and get a total. I like to use Unbury Me to visualize how different steps will affect my payoff date. Then, when I need to make a payment, I use TransferWise to send money back to my US account.

Debt Management Abroad

Moving abroad with no debt is ideal, but for many of us it isn’t realistic. If you can pay off all of your debts before moving, you will have less required monthly expenses. However, you should not use up all of your savings in order to achieve this, as you will need a starter budget to help yourself get set up in your new location.

debt
Control your debt or your debt will control you.

When moving abroad, you can’t just focus on your total debt. You need to break it down into individual loans and monthly payments. Many personal finance experts, such as Dave Ramsey and Suzy Orman will recommend that you eliminate debt by lowest debt first (Dave) or highest interest debt first (Suzy). I respect both of their opinions.

However, for people moving abroad, the most important thing is minimizing monthly expenses. When I moved to Spain, I had $262.27 in minimum monthly payments. That’s a lot when your steady income is 700 euros a month. Now I’m down to about $42 a month in required debt repayment. How did I do that? Let’s take a look:

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Planning Your First Class: Teaching English Abroad

Planning Your First Class: Teaching English Abroad

Melissa

First Class Anxiety

The first class. A lot of people, when moving abroad to teach English, get really excited about their new location. You might dream of all of the day trips and weekend travel that you’ll be able to do. But what makes a lot of new teachers nervous is thinking about that first class. What will the school be like? What will they expect from me? And the kids? Rest assured, these feelings are normal.

 

first class esl
Your brain on anxiety.

There is no one answer to all of these questions. Each school, administration, and group of students will be different. When you get there, you will be able to start answering these questions as you figure out your role in the classroom. But until then, what do you do?

Start planning your first class. You can do this without knowing much about your school, because the first class will be about you. What you will need to know about your school, is the age range. From there, you can create something adaptable to each level.

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Finding an Apartment in Spain after arrival

Apartments in Spain: After Arrival

Melissa

Finding an Apartment in Spain

This is Part 2 of Finding an Apartment in Spain. See Part 1 – Apartments in Spain: Before Arrival.

When You Arrive

Hopefully by the time you arrive to Spain, you will have already eliminated the places that either aren’t right for you, or are misleading. This will save you a lot of time. If you will be living in a large city like Madrid, you will need to have quite a few options on your list, because finding an apartment in the fall can be difficult. If you are in a smaller city, a smaller list will suffice. The quicker you can find an apartment, the less money you will have to spend on hostels or Airbnb.

By one week before I moved to Spain, I had narrowed down my search to just a handful of apartments. I made appointments with the girls who were currently living in them via WhatsApp. Talking to your potential roommates in advance is a good way to know if you’ll be a good fit, and save you from having to move out later. I ended up renting the first apartment I saw in Huelva, and I canceled my other appointments. The only reason I did this is because I was sure. I knew I would be happy living in that apartment, with those roommates, and at that price. Here are a few things you should look for to make sure the apartment is right for you.

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Apartment Hunting in Spain: Before Arrival

Apartment Hunting in Spain: Before Arrival

Melissa

Finding an Apartment in Spain

Before Arrival

Because your apartment will be your largest living expense in Spain, it is important that you start researching apartments from home. Ideally, your apartment shouldn’t cost any more than 25-35% of your budget, but in some places this may be difficult and you might have to go as high as 40%. There are definitely ways to increase your income with side hustles while living in Spain, but I don’t recommend including them in your core budget items, because they aren’t guaranteed income. I recommend checking out Numbeo to find out the average for apartments in your city.

Average Apartment Cost

Let’s look at mine, in Vitoria-Gasteiz:

apartment cost averages vitoria
Average Housing Costs in Vitoria-Gasteiz

You’ll see that the average rent per month for a one-bedroom in the city center is about 600 euros, or 85.7% of your auxiliar budget. This won’t work for anyone except for a couple. If you’re both auxiliares, and making 1400 euros total, it would be 42.9% of your budget. This is doable, but still high, and I would only consider it if your utilities are included.

A one-bedroom outside of the city center is 450 euros on average, or 64.3% of your income. This is also too high for a single person on an auxiliar budget. As a couple, you can get it down to 32.1% This is a good percentage, and is what my partner and I pay.

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Living Expenses in Spain

Living Expenses in Spain

Melissa

Research Your Living Expenses

Before moving to Spain  to teach English with the Auxiliares de Conversacion program, I did a lot of research to try to figure out what my living expenses would be. There are some really great resources with sample budgets from different cities, like this series by COMO Consulting. Obviously, there won’t be information for every possible city. Neither of my two cities (Huelva, Andalusia and Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country) were included, but you can still use them as a benchmark to get a pretty good idea.

Something to keep in mind when looking at other people’s living expenses is that even though you see WHAT they spend, you don’t often get a glimpse into HOW they spend. That is what I intend to do with this post. I’m going to use examples of my living expenses from Huelva and from Vitoria-Gasteiz, but the techniques for cutting costs should be applicable in any city.

MY LIVING EXPENSES

Rent: 225

Groceries: 65

Phone: 10

Electricity: 25

Internet: 16

TOTAL: 341 euros

budeting for living expenses abroad
Core Living Expenses: Make a list and check it twice.

 

This is my share of required monthly living expenses in northern Spain. Everything else is variable. If you can keep your core living expenses at around half of your income, you’ll have a lot more flexibility for some of the other things you’d like to do, such as traveling, shopping, and saving.

But how do you keep your expenses so low? The cost of living difference does most of the work for you. The north of Spain is considered an expensive region in comparison to other communities in Spain, but with a little planning, you can make it work. Here is a breakdown of my living expenses in the north and the south, and how different choices affect the price.

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Love Where You Live

Love Where You Live

Melissa

Do you love where you live? A lot of people don’t, and that is why they travel. They’re trying to find whatever is missing back home. Unfortunately, what is missing isn’t always external. I am now a huge proponent of slow travel, but I haven’t always been. I’ve still got  these big goals to see the world, and a scratch off map that sits beside my bed, but I’m no longer in a hurry. Because I love where I live.

see the world: love where you live
OK, maybe not THAT big.

 

One of the first travel goals I set for myself when I decided to move to Spain was to visit every province in the country. There are 50. To date, I have seen 18, but don’t let me fool you. I had a head start. You see, when I studied abroad in Santander in 2009, I had already crammed 7 of them into a 2 month period. The other 11 have been over a year and a half. Which visits do you think have been more meaningful?

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