Busy January

January was quite a busy month for us. This was mostly due to work at school.  January marks the end of our semester, so we both had to finish grading assignments, semester exams, and also writing comments.  This meant a bit of a stressful month.

Summer plans

Along with this busy January, we also booked our flights home for the summer.  Luckily, it seems like we have quite a long summer, so we will be able to stay in the US for 9 weeks.

Since our school will be reimbursing us for the flights, we didn’t bother to use any miles or points.  All told, we were able to get our flights for about $4000 or the 3 of us.  We will be stopping over in Amsterdam for 2 days on the way there and overnight on the way back to break up the trip a bit.  We also booked a nice Airbnb in June and the Crowne Plaza at Schipol airport in August.

Site Update

We added a few new pages to the website in the menu bar at the top of the page under ‘Things we like“.  One page is a number of products we use to make our lives as Expats easier.  We also added a page about the Financial Products that we use. Finally, we show you How We Travel.

Net Worth Update

The stock market had the best January in 30 years.  This meant absolutely nothing for our investment strategy.  If the market goes up, we invest.  If it goes down, we invest too.  The S&P 500 rose 6.95% this month (after the disastrous past few months).  Our net worth did a bit better at 7.23% (but that includes a bit of cash that we transferred from Saudi Arabia at the end of the month)

2019 Net Worth Summary = +$22,256

We use Personal Capital to track our net worth. Click here to try it for free!

Side Hustle Status

January is usually a quiet time for the side hustles.  Just before Christmas, I agreed to a gig that didn’t end up taking too much time.  The specific class that I teach (Theory of Knowledge for the IB) will be going through a curriculum change and they piloted a new assessment.  I was asked to mark 35 ‘Exhibitions’ for a total of $400.  Each paper took me only 10-15 minutes so not too bad of an hourly rate!

2019 Side Hustle Summary (so far) = $400

Two Teacher Trek made money!

This was quite a surprise when I got an email saying that our affiliate link was used.

Someone out in the interwebs used one of our affiliate links at Elegant themes (we use their DIVI theme for our website). This netted us a cool $124.50!  Now if I can get 600 people to do that this year, I won’t have to work!

Affiliate Links

If you didn’t read the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, we occasionally use affiliate links to help us make a bit of money (maybe).  We take care to only promote things that we actually use.  If you take a look at the right-hand side of the page or in the Homework section at the end of each post, these are the products that we believe in.

For example, we really like the website Ebates.  We use it often when we shop (not on Amazon) to get cash back.  Sometimes it is easy to forget to use it.  That is why I use a Google Chome plug-in that tells me if I can use Ebates with a particular website.  So I might put an ad on the site that tells you that this is something we like. (see picture below)

So if you were to click on this picture and install the Ebates Chrome plug-in, we would get 96 cents.  Not a lot but it adds up if people do it.  It never costs anything extra if you click on it; however, we get a little kickback for drawing your attention to the product.

If you have a website and are interested in adding affiliate links, check out FlexOffers!

Amazon also uses affiliate links and all the products we link to Amazon have it (like our bookshelf).

Did you know that this is the most expensive thing sold on Amazon?  (Yes that is a self-serving link in the hopes that we get a kickback on a $2 million item on Amazon, but the comments are well worth reading!)

2019 Blog Profit = $124.50

On our bookshelf

Kevin

Over Christmas break and in January, I read two books of note.  The first is the last book in a Knightsbridge trilogy by Ken Follett, called A Column of Fire. I am a big fan of Follett and the way that he is able to weave character and plot in multiple historical time periods.  This book takes place during Elizabethan times, and the struggles of the Protestant Reformation in England and France.  His Century Trilogy (about the 20th century) is also amazing!

The second book is another special from the ‘library’ here on the compound, called Stolen by Daniel Palmer.  It is an interesting ‘chiller’ about a man who commits identity fraud to help his wife with cancer, only to be hounded by a serial killer.  An interesting concept, but a bit predictable.  Not bad for the price of $2 on Kindle.

Lindsey

My sister got this for me as a Christmas gift because most of the humor exchanged between my two sisters and me is in the form of Friends quotes.  This book gives a thorough, if perhaps sugar-coated, account of some of the show’s backstory including the stage of career and life the actors were in at the time of casting and so on.  It discusses the writers, producers, some drama, and the trajectory of the show through the years.  In addition, it tells the story of the role the show plays in the lives of fans.  I found this enlightening and spot-on for everyone I know who watches the show.  I think it’s a good read for any Friends fan.  

Simon

When we were in Scotland we picked up a number of books for Simon.  Two of his favorites at the moment are from the same pair, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

If you have kids, you definitely need to pick these up.  They are absolutely brilliant, and Simon loves them!