$280.05
I mentioned this on my personal blog a few weeks ago, but I was waiting for my first payday to log it over here. I recently signed a trial contract to teach online classes for a university. I won’t be publicly mentioning the specific university for contractual reasons (though it’s not a secret if you want to ask privately or via email), but as online learning expands, online adjunct faculty positions are growing (I found this aggregator of teaching opportunities through a quick Google search, though I heard about my particular job opportunity through fortuitous eavesdropping). When I was putting in ridiculous workdays to finish my thesis last summer, I was doing it for the love of my men in jail. The thought of teaching at a university, or the flexibility of doing it online, really hadn’t crossed my mind. But in what I now know was a miraculous little moment — I was unexpectedly in another state for crying out loud! — I just happened to overhear something about an open university position that sounded like a perfect fit. And BAM! nine months later, I got my first paycheck.
This sum is actually just a flat rate (minus taxes) for the online training process I’ve been going through, and thus not indicative of my teaching salary, which won’t start arriving until mid-September. The course that I was hoping to teach was Money Management because, seriously, who wouldn’t want to teach something so fun?! But there were no openings this fall so I’ll be starting with a survey course of family studies research. If I get good student reviews, I’m hoping that I’ll eventually get to start sharing the joys of budgeting and Roth IRA contributions with college kids. Sweet!
In my training thus far, I can’t imagine a better fit for me right now than this work. The courses are almost entirely asynchronous, which means I don’t have to be online at specific times. I need to log in at least once a day to check student emails and progress, but if I’m having a rough day health-wise, I can just defer more substantive work until I’m feeling better. Molding young minds from my own bed in my pajamas = one sweet gig. Wish me luck!
chronically ill finances 
I’ve thought about doing this as well especially since the online course industry is booming. Keep us posted!
With your experience, you could get a job in a heartbeat! I will let you know how it goes, but so far, I have actually enjoyed the training. It’s a change of pace from my diaper-changing routine and there’s a lot of creativity involved to think about how to reach students from a distance.
I’m glad you got a paycheck! I’m curious how it’s all going, so we will definitely need to chat. And, I’ve currently been reading a book, How to Save for Retirement Without Living Like a Pauper, and so have been thinking a lot more about retirement and stuff like that. I still feel pretty new to it, even though I had to have finance classes for my major (Accounting). I’d love to hear more about that from you.
Wow! That sounds like the perfect job. Congrats — and good luck! You’ll do great.
I’d love to hear your more from your brain on finances…we are going to try to get ours in order over the next year. We’ll be moving in the with the parents next month to try to make it happen. 🙂