We all hear about the big possibility of saving while working at international schools, but the reality is that many of us don’t. So, why aren’t these international school teachers saving money?
How NOT to save money when working as an international school teacher #1 – Go travel crazy! (Take a trip during every break opportunity you get!)
We feel uncomfortable when we don’t have our next trip planned. Some of us even feel uncomfortable when we don’t have 2 or 3 trips planned to look forward to.
It is even worse when your colleagues have their trip planned and you don’t!
And even worse than that is when your colleagues copy the same trips that you are going on. Ha ha!
So if you have enough money to travel with (because you are not paying for a car, car insurance, cable tv, etc…), then why not take this opportunity in your life and explore the world? But all these trips can indeed add up and deplete your bank account, and you can’t necessarily be traveling to the Maldives during every break you have.
It depends a lot on where you are living too; how expensive these trips that you may be buying. You might have to spend a lot of money if you are traveling from a rather small airport or from an airport that is in the middle of nowhere. Flying out of those cities can really ‘break the bank’ in your feeble attempt to travel and also save money at your international school.
Some say too that the day of finding cheap trips is over with. Low cost airlines are not really so low cost anymore with all their extra add on fees *e.g. to check in a bag. If you are not smart about when you buy the flights and what websites that you use to buy them on, then you will be paying a lot more money for your flights than you could be paying.
How sad when your friend has found a good airfare and then 5 minutes later when you buy the exact same trip, the price has gone up. Flight prices change all the time and can change rather quickly. Buying at the right times can help you save at least a little bit of money as you go travel crazy.
So, how many flights a year are international school teachers taking each school year? It is probably between 15-20. And to make things
worse, we feel like any number less than 10 flights a year is hardly traveling at all (‘Groan’…said all your friends in your home country). Maybe to save a little bit more money, we can try and cut down our number of trips a year, but that seemly is….unlikely!
To save you some money, we do have a comment topic related to this theme. It is in the travel section of the comments and information tab on the school profile pages. It is called: Sample travel airfares from host city airport to destinations nearby.
‘Just paid $2000 for round trip to U.S. in Dec.’ – Okpo International School (14 Total Comments)
‘It’s not the cheapest destination to fly from. Expect $1000 to fly internationally, and during holiday periods airfares to popular destinations (Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia) can get close to that.’ – Beijing BISS International School (32 Total Comments)
‘Since Bangkok is a major travel hub, airfares to surrounding countries are almost always available at less than US $1000, and deals can be found with just a bit of work.’ – Wells International School (Thailand) (17 Total Comments)
Checking out these comments before taking a job at an international school can give you a better idea of the amount of money that you can expect to pay for flights out of that city.
