I encourage all teachers to start a Teachers Pay Teachers store to generate a little extra money. Often, when I do, I am blasted by this holier-than-thou Mindset that it’s more noble to give something away for free than to make $1 or $2 on it.
TpT has Provided a Way for Many
While we all kick and scream and post nasty things on social media because teachers are paid poorly, and every few years we go on strike, we have yet to cause real change.
However, TPT has created a path for many teachers to make that extra income.
If you’re a teacher, you are aware that we don’t get paid a lot. What would an extra $100 or $200 a month do to your life? You could get that with just a little time and effort on Teachers Pay Teachers.
I started selling on TpT a year ago now, and am making several hundred dollars a month consistently. That income has made a huge difference for my family – giving me more time with them (since I’m no longer hunting for side and summer jobs) and less stress (since I no longer have to dear unexpected bills).
TpT has Helped Improve Teaching Across the Globe
Prior to teachers pay teachers, if you were doing something great in your classroom how could you share it with the rest of the world?
How could other teachers benefit from the great things you were doing? It wasn’t easy. But now, you can put something on teachers pay teachers and hundreds or even thousands of teachers can take advantage of.
Some of these resources are free, which is amazing! And some have a cost, which is a benefit to both the buyer and seller! (Read on to see why)
Paid Resources Benefit Everyone
If I create a resource, and you purchase it for several dollars, we both benefit. (It’s weird to think about it this way, but it’s true)
You benefit because I am giving you something of value and it has saved you lots of time. Or, it will increase your effectiveness as a teacher. Which is why you willingly gave up some of your income to acquire it.
I have benefited because I’ve been compensated for my time and efforts.
We are both wealthier because of our transaction, otherwise we would not have made it.
Earning Money Motivates us to Share More
Once you start making some money on teachers pay teachers, you will be motivated to continue to do so. You’ll want to earn more income. To do so, you must create more and better resources to share with other teachers. So the profit motive has encouraged you to create valuable resources for others.
These teachers who always tell me that they’d rather share their resources for free, I always encourage them to do so. They can open the teachers pay teachers account for free, post all their resources on the website, make them all available for free, and then be a benefit to everyone else.
But they never do. Because that takes time and energy. And they don’t want to spend their time and energy without being compensated for it. I don’t blame them. That’s why the profit motive helps create quality products, because when you start making a profit, it will suddenly be worth it for you to post all those great resources onto the website, thus benefitting others.
If you go on my teachers pay teachers account, or any person’s account who’s making a decent income on teachers pay teachers, you will notice that they all have many resources on their page for free.
There’s lots of reasons why we post free resources on our site, and one of those reasons might be to help future customers become familiar with our brand so that they will want to purchase from us at a later point in time.
Here, again, the profit motive benefits everyone by producing free content that many can benefit from – what a great thing!
My larger point is this: even those teachers who are selling things on Teachers Pay Teachers are still giving away more free resources to more teachers than all those teachers who belittle them for making a little extra income for themselves and their families.
Did you Know that Before you can Sell Anything on TpT, you have to Upload a Free Product?
As I mentioned above, the most successful Teachers Pay Teachers sellers have lots of free items. But did you know that all sellers have at least one free item?
So before you go looking down on anybody trying to make some extra money on Teachers Pay Teachers, recognize this fact: They have at least one item on their store that they give away for free. And usually, that’s one more than the people throwing stones at them.
The Real Issue
I think that many people who say this are just making excuses for why they haven’t started selling items on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Are you making these excuses?
Think about how different your life would be with a few extra hundred dollars coming in each month! What would happen to your stress levels? How would you treat the holidays? Outings with your families? What would your summer look like with this disposable income?
It’s within your grasp.
Download this free eBook that will get you on the path to starting your TpT page and creating products to start making money.
