Personal Finance for English Teachers Abroad
Nearly 5 years ago, I wrote about building up your pantry on a budget. Now that I’m leaving Spain in just 4-5 weeks, it’s time to do the opposite. Care to join me in a pantry challenge? Let’s use everything up!
Although I’ve moved within Spain several times, this will be my first international move since I arrived in 2015. With each previous move, I left food behind with local friends, since pantry food was the last thing on my mind, and I never planned for it.
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You may be wondering if teaching English abroad post-Covid is a good idea. Will there be travel restrictions? Is my job guaranteed? Is it safe? All of these are great questions, and the answer depends not only on what country you choose, but also on the specific job. Teaching English abroad post-Covid is going to require a lot more research than prior years, but it can be done.
First you should ask yourself why you are going. Is it to earn money? To travel? To escape an unpleasant home situation?
It’s that time of year again. The holidays? Yes. But rather than a white Christmas, I’m dreaming of airports in Spain. Why? Because it’s time to start thinking about renewal as an auxiliar de conversacion. Or maybe next year will be your first year, and you’re not quite sure how to choose a region.
Since the application period will open just after the holiday season, it’s a good idea to start planning where you’d like to go now. Maybe you want to go to where the auxiliar income is the highest compared to the local residents. This is a great plan for living your day-to-day life in Spain, but what about our international adventure seeking readers?
For those of you who want to see as much as possible in a relatively short amount of time, it may be a good idea to make your regional choices based on which communities have the best access to airports.
There’s just something romantic about the idea of a road trip. From watching American classics like Thelma and Louise, to reading books like On the Road by Jack Kerouac, the inspiration is everywhere.
But, believe it or not, I have never actually been on a road trip in America. Although I would love to step back in time on Route 66, road trips in America are often very long and very expensive.
In Spain, on the other hand, you’ve got a variety of cities and landscapes all within a relatively small country. The entire country is slightly smaller than Texas, after all.
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.
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:
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.
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?