Student Surveys Suck
So this thing that teachers love doing is having students fill out information about themselves for the new school year. It usually includes their name, grade, favorite subject, goals, and activities. Some teachers have them fill out a paper, some a google survey, and others just on a notecard. I used to do this too. I would spend the first day having students fill this out and then think I would read the 150 notecards that I got back. This was fine for your first period students as they were excited to start the new school year. By the last period of the day the students hated it as they had done the same thing in every other class. As for me, I was excited to read the first period's responses. But by the time I got to student 140 I was over it... probably more by student 50. Its not that I wasn't interested its just tough to really get a sense of the student without putting the information to a face and over a real conversation.
Relationships > Surveys
So while I don't think its a bad idea. I would much rather spend time the first day learning names (I can usually get all my students by day 3) and having the students talk to each other and to me about the same topics. Its creating relationships, having the students practice actual conversation and allowing them to do something different.Know where you stand
Okay so I personally think the notecard thing is pointless for school but I think it can be a great practice for teachers to think about themselves and their finances. From listening to Rob Berger this month and his 31 Day Money Challenge and Remit Sethi in I Will Teach You To Be Rich the first thing you need to do is understand where you are with your finances so that you can identify what you need to change and focus. With an understanding of the present you can focus on goals for the future.It takes two!
Be aware both my wife and I are teachers so numbers include both pensions and debts. I think its good to have a sense of where we stand as a family and not just count my assets against the liabilities that go against both of us. So here we go.My 2019-20 School Year Notecard
Home Value: $360,000
Mortgage: $-312,000
Cash Savings: $3,000
Credit Card Debt: $-12,000
Student Loans: $-50,500
Car Loan: $-18,000
Investments: $3,000
Pension total value: $1,530,000
Total Net Worth: $126,500
Short term goals (end of school year):
- pay off highest interest student loan ($1,900)
- pay off all credit card debt ($12,000)
- have one months income of savings ($7,500)
- have 3 months income of savings ($25,000)
- max out roth IRAs ($12,000/yr)
- be debt free excluding mortgage
So what now?
Getting down the details is the first step. Next you need to start understanding how to reach your goals. I highly suggest mint.com for understanding how your money comes and goes. The biggest thing I think is to talk to someone about it. Talk to your parents, talk to your spouse, talk to your friends. Have someone that will help keep you accountable to your goals and will help you build habits and routines to get there.
Connect
- Share this with a friend/co-worker. For some reason we as teachers feel talking about income and wealth building means we don't like teaching! We love teaching! We should share how we can maximize our benefits of teaching to help us become less stressed about money so we can focus more on building great relationships with students!
- Leave a comment below to share your goals for the upcoming school year or just your thoughs in general.
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Chad! This is a great post. It is important to take stock of where we are and where we truly want to be in a (month, year, decade). I have been hesitant to use Mint because of the need to connect all of the bank accounts in a rather public space. You would recommend it, though? Rachel mentioned it yesterday. I'll have to look at it again.
ReplyDeleteI have used mint for a number of years now to track spending and TRY to set budgets. Mint is the same company that does turbo tax, Intuit, and they seem to have security in mind for their users. Must use multiple account verifications almost daily (if checking it that often). We use it to set budgets on our monthly expenses and set goals for the future. It then gives you an amount you have left over after that which can give you a great idea as to how much play money you have to spend. You can choose to link as many accounts as you want. If you only want to have a checking account that your bills money comes from link to track your monthly expenses and a separate account not linked for play money its up to you.
DeleteI understand the reluctance of keeping all accounts in one place but you can't access accounts (move money) from mint. It is simply a tracking device.