I have recently listened to the episode “What would your life look like if you valued your time as much as you value your money?” by Angela Watson from www.thecornerstonefroteachers.com. It made me think about hours and hours of time lost in my first year of teaching. I started reevaluating my time input and the value of my time during the second year of my career at a high school. Yep,  second-year new ng teacher become smart! Unlike in a community college where  I would teach the same course over and over again to different students, in high school, I would experiment a lot with a variety of materials and ditch those that did not deliver, keep those that seemed to give some value. At the end of the school year, I would end up piling stock and stocks of papers to get rid of because I knew I would never teach those materials for certain reasons ever again. To my surprise and dismay, the stock of materials for recycling was much more overwhelming in size than the small folder of lucky ones that I chose to keep and teach again. That made me ponder the efficiency of my work for the past one and a half years. What have I been wasting my time for? Why didn’t I see before that the two hours I spent on visuals and worksheets for that unit would be thrown away and never regained? Why would I bother? I cringe now when I find myself painstakingly and meticulously working out the details of a worksheet I most likely end up ditching and forgetting next year. “Never again!”, I promised myself. What I have learned is that time is the precious resource (for teachers especially), and I need to handle it wisely.

In the same manner I treat my time now, I am very detailed about how I spend my money. I really avoid dollar store trips, teachers-pay-teacher purchases, and Monday morning blues coffee from Dunkin Donuts because alternatives are possible. Don’t get me wrong, some ideas on Teachers Pay Teachers are lovely, and dollar store deals are irresistible; however, I evaluate whether framed and colored gains from TPT or extra pencils and board liners will yield the amount of educational value equal to my spending. If the answer is no, money cannot be spent. From my experience, millions of pencils can vanish without a trace in a classroom; thus you can never restock them. Students don’t see much difference between a pretty looking worksheet and the one I made in 5 minutes. With the abundance of resources online, it’s possible to find freebies and be creative with tools (take Canva, for example).

I want to share with you 33 different ways I save time and money as a teacher.

Time:

1. Grade papers at school during selected and scheduled slots. Never bring grading home!

2. Plan lessons and units during the time your students are working on projects.

3. Invest time only in designing materials you are likely to use for generations and generations of students, not just once.

4. Prioritize materials that teach skills. These will never be a waste of time.

5. If you need to read some PD materials, do it during staff meetings (unless your administration is too strict).

6. If you want to read some books, opt for podcasts while driving in your car. My choice: Cult of Pedagogy and Truth for Teachers. 

7. Be selective about the websites, resources you use. Choose top 5, study them, refer to them for ideas and materials. Don’t waste your time browsing through the ocean out there. My choice: 1) www.newsela.com 2) www.listenwise.com 3) www.readworks.org  4) film-englis.com 5) allthingsgrammar.com.

8. If there happened to be a day off during a week (holiday, for example) treat it as a workday. Wake up earlier and do the amount of work you would do on a regular workday. Save Saturday and Sunday for your family.

9. Utilize state testing days. These days often have altered schedule and you happen to have extra periods free.

10. If you can borrow something from another teacher, like a unit plan or a lesson plan you need or you like, do it. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

11. Laminate valuable materials like worksheets, anchor charts, games, information posters, etc. – they will serve you a long time.

12. Turn off your social media notifications when you are at work. Focus on being productive.

13. Avoid unnecessary chat with colleagues about the movie yesterday.

14. Lean to teach without copies. Students can always copy valuable information from the board. Save you time.

15. Make one set of copies (story, for example) and reuse it for multiple periods you teach. Save your time.

16. Use rubrics for grading projects.

Money:

1.  Avoid Dollar Store trips. If you don’t need something, don’t buy it.

2. Avoid Teachers Pay Teachers purchases unless the material you buy is extremely valuable, not just pretty.

3. Network for free resources at conferences and teacher lounges.

4. Laminate blank chart paper and use it as a writing surface for your students.

5. “Rent” pencils to students by exchanging for their ID’s.

6. Explore “storage rooms” with old teachers. There you can always stumble upon some dusted stacks of lined paper and compositions books.

7. Look for free materials online. Tons of options there. For example, 1) Elementary Vocabulary Games, 2) Intermediate Vocabulary Games, 3) Intermediate Grammar Games, 4) www.teach-this.com.

8. Take lunch with you (seriously).

9. Make your own coffee.

10. Ask other teachers if they want to get rid of something. Some people’s trash is one teacher’s treasure.

11. Stalk conference vendors. They will give you free stuff.

12. Ask colleagues to share materials they already have. Don’t buy them.

13. Explore your paycheck. Is there something you don’t have to pay? Like 403b for teachers? Read my considerations here. 

14. Utilize libraries as resources instead of buying something.

15. Podcasts are free. There are tons of valuable resources there.

16. Invest in online workshops that give back 100% value. Example, 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club by Angela Watson provides hundreds of fantastic resources after you sign up and pay.

17. Don’t waste your money on clothes for work. Kids don’t care how you look. Administration cares about the value of your lessons.

 Download a reminder of these ideas here: 33 ways to save TIME and MONEY as a teacher.

Talk to you later!