Why Starting a TpT Store is Better than a Side Job

1 – Less Time Away from your Family

Many teachers have to secure extra income to help make ends meet. Many of us work a second job after school, on the weekends, or over the summer.

However, these jobs take us away from our friends and family.

I used to work second jobs and summer gigs because our family’s finances were SO tight. And I felt so guilty about the time I lost with my family.

Now, thanks to my Teachers Pay Teachers store, I am working fewer hours and I don’t have to lose time with my family.

Instead of leaving school and going to my second job, or losing my summer vacation to this quest for a better financial situation; I now wait until my children are in bed, or when I have a bit of free time and I work on my computer in the other room.

Instead of working 9-5, Monday through Friday, for my entire summer break, I find thirty-minute lulls and get some work done. I don’t have to leave my family for the whole day, I can just find some breaks in the action to get some work done.

2 – Less Stress

It’s such a relief on your psyche, knowing that you have a way to make extra money when your family needs it.

Recently, our air conditioner died. This repair is several thousand dollars and would have been a major source of stress in our lives. However, knowing that I have extra money constantly coming in dramatically reduces this stress.

Not to mention how terribly taxing it is to work the type of hours a second job will mandate (especially after being a teacher all day, all year).

Working a second job puts unneeded stress on you. Your exhausted, and spend so much time away from your family. It’s very difficult on everyone.

Opening a Teachers Pay Teachers store is much less stressful than a second job. You’re not spending all that time away from home. You get to enjoy your family, and still earn extra income which will help with your finances.

3 – You can Use Things You’re Already Doing in Your Classroom

Teachers Pay Teachers really blew up when teachers began uploading their lesson plans and resources onto the site. As other teachers sought out valuable resources that aligned to the new standards coming at them, the demand was met.

But all these sales that started breaking the internet were not being done by full-time TpT’ers. They were done by full-time teachers who were just sharing their resources.

I know the game has changed slightly, and now there are full-time TpT-ers making crazy amounts of money. But that doesn’t mean that your resources don’t have room to prosper as well. Over 1 Billion resources have been downloaded from TpT. Yours can find their way into the computers of teachers who need them.

My point is, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can start on TpT (and grow on the platform) simply by selling and sharing resources that you’ve already created for your classroom.

Did you write your own lesson plans? Come up with a fun activity or game? Create a worksheet to meet a specific need? Do you create your own newsletters, bulletin boards, or anchor charts? What about a PPT slide deck on something you’re reviewing in class? Then you have something to share! And it won’t cost you much extra time to put it on TpT and start making money!

4 – No Alarm Clock

One of the most painful things about a job is that alarm clock!

I hated having to keep it set over the summer. Then, dragging myself out of bed, getting dressed, packing a lunch, and driving to work. All that time lost just getting to work…

Now I use that time to create things I can sell on TpT. And since I can work when it’s convenient for me, no alarm clock! (Well, no alarm clock when I’m not working my first job, at school).

5 – Work in Your Jammies

You don’t have to. But think about it. When you’re working your side job as a TpT’er, you can wear whatever you want.

I often tuck all my kids into bed and then go work in the living room, in my jammies, before going to bed.

6 – Make More Money

You really can make more money selling on TpT then you will working a side job. First, there’s no limit on your income. So the amount of money you make per hour can be VERY high – and it will keep growing the longer you do the job.

This is why you should start a TpT store NOW!

Because the longer you do it, the better you will be at it, and the more money you will make.

If you really want to start making good money from the beginning, make sure to enroll in my online course – Your First $1,000 on TpT – where I will walk you through all the steps of starting your TpT store, creating products, and drive traffic to your page.

7 – No Miles on the Car

Think of all the things you are saving money on when you work on your TpT store instead of a second job!

You don’t have to drive to work, no dress clothes, no lunch packing. All these things cost time and money. You can maximize both of these when you have a TpT store instead of a side gig.

8 – No Interviews, Job Hunts, or 2 Week’s Notice

It always stunk scanning job boards for open employment as we approach summer. And if it wasn’t a summer job, I hated giving my two week’s notice to go back to work at school.

Plus, all the time I lost looking for jobs and interviewing for them.

Now, I don’t have to worry about any of that. I focus on growing my business. And the more I focus on it, the more it blesses me and my family.

9 – Your Income Snow Balls

One teacher, who I constantly tried to convince to start a TpT store to sell his products, would argue with me that his side job paid him better than my TpT store was paying me.

Which was true. He was making more per week than I was (my store is now making more than his side job makes him, but back then, it wasn’t).

But this perspective fails to consider the snowball effect.

First. If we both had stopped working at that point in time, his income would have immediately gone to zero. Whereas mine, being online, could still be generating income – even with no work being put into it.

Now my income would have gone down if I stopped working on promoting my products. But they still would be online for others to find, with their ratings and previews, so the money could keep coming in.

Second, as I said, my TpT store now makes more than his side job. And I work less. This is because online businesses snowball. As people learn about them, they share the word – or return to the store to buy more, and the business grows.

I’m not working more hours than I did, I’ve just been doing it longer, so my snowball has rolled farther down the hill, and is thus a little bit bigger.