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Welcome to Money Diaries, where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking millennials how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we're tracking every last dollar.
Ahead of World Teachers' Day tomorrow, October 5, we're looking at one week of spending among five teachers in and outside of the United States.
Teaching isn't an easy profession, but it is a job with a tremendous amount of responsibility, despite being on the lower end of the pay scale — at least in some countries. In the United States, the average yearly salary for K-12 teachers is in the mid-to-high $40,000 range, and the OECD's 2017 "Education at a Glance" report indicates that pay for secondary teachers in the U.S. (at public institutions) is relatively low when compared to teachers' salaries elsewhere in the world.
As Dick Startz writes at the Brookings Institute, there are some fringe benefits not calculated in pay, including a certain degree of job security and access to a pension, but that doesn't hold up for everyone.
Earlier this year, CNBC revealed that "the lowest 10% of high-school teachers earn less than $38,180 and the highest 10% earn more than $92,920." (Oklahoma, Mississippi, South Dakota, North Carolina, and West Virginia paid the least at that level.) And, a recent blockbuster feature in The Guardian showed what life can be like for many adjunct professors in the U.S., some of whom have turned to sex work or sleeping in their cars to make ends meet.
It's not all doom and gloom, of course. A major reason that many people pursue careers in teaching is because they love it, and they reap personal and societal benefits from educating future generations.
Ahead, we take a look at what that's like for five women in different cities around the world, who teach part-time, full-time, are new to the work, work with children, or work with adults.
Have a money diary you'd like to share? Right now, in addition to our ongoing diaries, we're looking for potential diarists along the following themes:
1. #TransWeek Diarists: In honor of Transgender Awareness Week (Nov. 14-20), we plan to showcase diaries from members of the trans and non-binary communities. Submit your week in money here.
2. Couple's Diaries: We want to take a closer look at how romantic partners who live together handle their money together — and individually. Whether you're married and live together, are unmarried and live together, or are in any combination of partnership and maintaining a joint household, we want BOTH of you to submit a Money Diary tracking your expenses for one week. We'll publish both diaries in an upcoming Money Diaries Monday story. Submit here.
3. Diarists With Disabilities: Have examples of how living with a disability impacts your life financially? Simply want to give a glimpse into your life, and how you handle your finances? We want to hear from you! Submit here.
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