The Grind

February seems to be a grind when you are a teacher.  It doesn’t really matter if you teach in your home country or internationally.  This isn’t helped by the fact that we have two 6-day weeks ahead of us.

On the Saturday of the first weekend in March we have to work, but it is a bit of fun.  It is the school’s annual Spring Spectacular.  This is an international fair/carnival where there are games and bouncy houses for the kids, and also stalls selling various arts and foods from around the world.  All teachers help out, and Lindsey and I will be manning the bouncy house for an hour-and-a-half collecting tickets and making sure everyone is safe and having a good time.  The rest of the time, we will spend enjoying the day with Simon.

The third weekend in March, we have Parent Conferences (an important but not fun event to have on the weekend).  Sufficed it to say, we are thinking of a quick break of some kind for that weekend in between.  Maybe a quick overnight trip to Bahrain is in store??

Spring Break

The first week of April, we have a one week holiday for Spring Break.  We don’t really have anything really extravagant planned, but we will probably end up somewhere. (This wasn’t meant to be cryptic, but we just have nothing set in stone yet)

Stay tuned for updates.

Blog Redesign

I decided to get rid of that annoying pop-up that asked you to subscribe whenever you clicked on each page.  It was more of a distraction than anything else.  From now on, there is a subscribe box at the bottom of the page (near the disclaimer), and I will try to put it into the body of blogs instead of popping up.  (see right below this)

On a side note, if you want to subscribe that would be awesome!

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Ugh, Taxes…

Taxes are slightly easier for us when we live abroad.  However, the US is one of the only countries in the world that taxes its citizens instead of its residents.  Because of this, even though none of our income was made inside the US, we still have to file taxes.  Luckily, we are eligible for the entire Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.  Unfortunately, all of that awesome side hustle income produces 1099-MISC income.  As a result, we still have to pay self-employment taxes (Social Security/Medicare) on it.  This is 15.3% on income made.  For us, the bill was $2403!  Unfortunately, I don’t really have access to the normal types of things that people do to minimize this tax (increase business expenses or use a home office) The only positive thing was that I was able to contribute to a SEP-IRA so at least I get some tax-deferred advantages.

Net worth update

We use Personal Capital to check our net worth.  It is an easy way to have all of your accounts in one place.

Our net worth went up $8,097 in the month of February.  This was a combination of a 3% rise in the S&P as well as the salary that we sent home.  It is sometimes difficult to budget and save when dealing in multiple currencies and multiple countries.  Our strategy is to conservatively set an amount of money we have in each of our bank accounts for the month(for some strange reason in Saudi, it is easier to have separate accounts rather than a joint account) and transfer the rest home.  For example, at the start of the month, we each keep 8500 SAR ($2,267) in our accounts.  That is very conservative and there is no way that we can possibly spend $4500/month living here.  When we get paid, we top up our accounts back to around 8500 each and send the rest of the money home.  Not sure if this is the ideal system, but it works for us and we have never run out of money.  In a worse case situation, we still have the credit card that we can use.

2019 Net Worth Summary = +36,724

Side Hustle Status

So if you read January’s wool-gathering post, you will know that I am involved in a curriculum review for a course that I teach.  The good thing about curriculum reviews is that it always takes multiple steps.  I was asked to mark another 30 presentations using an updated rubric for another $400.  Pretty sweet gig!

I also did some more work for a company called Edtrove. This time, I was reviewing some work that they are putting out for teacher training.  It was only $150, but that is not bad for about 3-4 hours worth of work.

2019 Side Hustle Summary (so far) = $950

Our bookshelf

Kevin

Another two books from the library here on the compound.  Both are pretty easy reads and kept me somewhat entertained.  With the picture of Jennifer Lawrence on the cover, I take it that Red Sparrow is also a movie.  I thought the ending was weird and then I realized, only later, that it is the first book of a trilogy.  That’s kind of annoying!  It was good, but not sure if it is worth buying the sequels.

Ever since the Netflix show Making a Murderer, I have gotten into true crime a bit more.  I really enjoyed The Innocent Man and recently saw that Netflix has made this a series as well.  I will add this to the queue!

Lindsey

We picked this book up in the airport in Edinburgh, as Lindsey likes Phillipa Gregory.  A bit tedious and the discussion of the different sisters separately was in a formulaic manner.   

Simon

We got this at the book fair, and it is a favorite so far.  I think Simon knows it by heart!