“A smile is a facelift in everyone’s price range” 

Tom Wilson

Music teaching can be such a rewarding job.  

The privilege of introducing music to young children and witnessing the joy it brings them never fails to make me smile. Nothing can compare to the power of an assembly hall full of children singing a song they love, as one. It does wonders for your mood on a rainy Monday morning and makes it all worthwhile!

I qualified as a secondary school music teacher in 2012. I now enjoy a portfolio career as a peripatetic music teacher. My current timetable looks like this:

• 40% PAYE – Permanent Contract – Music Curriculum teaching in one primary school. This includes sick pay, holiday pay, and NI & Teachers pension contributions.
• 10% PAYE – Supply Teacher contract – Music assemblies and choral conducting – i.e. no sick pay or holiday pay. However, through this work I do still make NI & Teachers pension contributions. 
• 50% Self Employed/Freelance work – This work is extremely varied. It could be short term contracts that are invoiced for, one to one lessons that are paid for on a termly or weekly basis OR work where timesheets are submitted each academic term. This work provides NO sick pay, NO holiday pay, NO NI contributions and NO pension contributions. 

How did I get here? The journey of a self-employed peripatetic teacher! 

2007 – Coming out of university going straight into relying on freelance work would be an extremely daunting prospect to some. When I first started out in 2007 (pre-PGCE) it was! 

Fortunately I grew up in a household where the main breadwinner was self-employed. He had built up his own business through the years. Luckily, I received fantastic guidance on how to set myself up as a sole trader. This included creating invoices, managing expenses and learning how to drum up business. 

I was a part of the ‘Boomerang Generation’. This allowed me to build my business slowly and with less pressure, as I had extremely low living expenses.

2010 – By the summer of 2010 I had achieved several things: 

• Moved out of home – now living in a rented a flat. From here I ran some of my business (one to one lessons)
• Drummed up more work than I realistically needed (this was both a blessing and a curse)! 
• Had a lot of money saved as all I did was work!
• Had planned my next career move and was due to start my PGCE in the September. 

This all looks very positive and retrospectively it really was! However, I had so much work!! When I left to go and complete my PGCE this work filled the timetables of 3 other freelance teachers! I somehow was also managing to continue a long-distance relationship at the same time.

Workaholic – This work ethic is fine, if all you want to do is work, sleep and eat. It is not conducive to healthy relationships with friends and family. I was exhausted! I would frequently fall asleep during the only conversation I would have with my partner each day.

Fast forward to today – Since 2010 I have worked in various school settings and weekend music centres.  

I have experienced the absolute highs of conducting vocal performances with 150+ children. The joy of the sharing and discussing the experience with the performers and audience members afterwards is amazing. 

To the horrendous lows of having panic attacks, hidden away in a music department office. This was the result of attempts to teach an appalling class of year 9 students. They had completely destroyed a lesson I had spent hours planning.

The mental health pressures of teaching AND being self-employed 

The link between teaching and poor mental health is well documented.

In this article by Dave Speck in 2018 on the TES (Times Educational Supplement) website, he refers to research carried out by Education Support Partnership (ESP) charity it says:

“The research also reveals the ways teachers cope with stress, with half (47 per cent) turning to food, a third (32 per cent) to alcohol and 22 per cent to unnecessary spending. Another 5 per cent said they used drugs and 3 per cent said they turned to gambling.” 

All these coping mechanisms, alongside the negative impact they have on you physical and mental health, also have a negative impact on a teacher’s finances. They can make your hard-earned money disappear before bills are paid. It all starts to look very bleak when you add the pressure of being self-employed too!

Having struggled with my mental health even before starting teaching, combining teaching and being self-employed has been difficult. I have experienced a few of the above coping methods, particularly unnecessary spending to make me feel better

Mortgage payments – Being/Feeling Equal 

In 2010 my finances were looking healthy. I then used most of the money I had accumulated to pay for my PGCE course and living expenses during that year. The following 3 years were unfortunately plagued by bad spending decisions, mainly due to my poor mental health. I never felt like I didn’t have enough money to live on, but I had to ask my parents for help a few times and I certainly wasn’t saving anything!

All the above meant that by the time I met Mr. Way I had very little money saved and when we wanted to buy a house, I had to visit the ‘bank of Mum and Dad’ for a loan to help me afford the deposit.

However, by this point I was now determined to get back on track and build up my savings again. I had started to create the portfolio of work I referred to at the beginning of the post. 

When the mortgage broker suggested that we should not split the monthly mortgage payments 50/50 I strongly disagreed. I am a very proud and stubborn person and wanted to feel that I was an equal partner in our relationship and that I was contributing an equal amount towards our house regardless of my circumstances. 

The beginning of investing 

Mr Way began investing his money a couple of years before I did after he devoured blogs, books and advice about the stock market and financial independence. As I hadn’t read any of these materials, I was much more cautious with my money, especially as I was only just starting to enjoy having some spare money again.  It wasn’t until I read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, that I started to appreciate the benefits of investing and building my savings in a different way.

Being sanely self-employed and still saving! 

It is really important as a self-employed teacher that you balance your work and the desire to save whilst keeping a track on your mental health. 

I can’t profess to have the answer to this as I still find it a constant battle. The points I feel I need to consider are:

• My pride! – Feeling like an equal contributor to the household  
• Having enough money to cover the essentials – housing, food, transport and bills 
• Feeling mentally healthy 
• Feeling physically healthy 
• Loving my job! 

When you are self-employed it feels like you need to say YES to as many things as you can to make sure the money continues to come in. However, there is no need to say yes to everything. In fact, when your schedule is already full it is essential that you say NO to things. I have only just started to realise this and saying NO has become quite liberating for me.  

Putting my mental health first above working and saving for FI is a novelty for me but one that I need to do more of, otherwise I will reach burnout again pretty quickly!! 

Sanity, Saving & Singing 

If you enjoy your job that is FANTASTIC and you are extremely lucky! There are many who don’t. However, make sure you maintain that balance between work and life. If you are self-employed, do enough but don’t overdo it. Take the pressure off yourself. 

I love singing (essentially my job!) and I am passionate about saving for my future. As we mentioned in Our Version of FIRE, I also try make sure I am PRESENT every day and look after myself!!

We would like to hear about your experiences on manging a self-employed and/or teaching career alongside saving and how you are keeping yourself mentally fit?