By Jill McDonough
Are you ready to learn about a phenomenal side hustle for homeschool moms?
Like me, a lot of homeschool moms are actually former teachers. This great side hustle for homeschool moms is not just for former, certified teachers. Anyone with something to teach can do it!
I’m excited to introduce Becky Zerr (pronounced czar). She is an amazing homeschooling, side-hustling mom. One of her side hustles is teaching online through Outschool.
Why is this side hustle a perfect fit for so many homeschooling moms? Every day we are exercising our teaching muscles. Why not get paid for it? Let’s learn how she makes this side hustle work for her.
What’s your side hustle?
I teach mostly English, writing, and literature classes online through Outschool.
How did you get into this particular side hustle?
A while back, we saw an advertisement for Outschool on Facebook, and we decided to try it out for my daughter, who was a preschooler at the time. She liked it, and since I have a teaching degree, I always kept it in the back of my mind as an option. I finally decided to dive in at the beginning of June 2020.
How long have you been doing this side hustle?
My first official day of teaching on Outschool was June 12, 2020.
Talk about getting started, startup costs, how long it took to start making decent money, time commitment, etc.)
As long as you have a webcam and microphone, you can get started on Outschool. Some people just teach from their iPad or smart phone.
Outschool does have an application process to go through, and that will take time to complete and perfect. I was accepted on my first attempt, but I heard of others that tried three or four times to be accepted.
I taught off of my little laptop for a while, and since I use Google Slides to help illustrate and guide my classes, I wanted to have a second screen to see all of the smiling faces of my students while still seeing my slides.
I bought a nearly-new monitor off of Facebook Marketplace for $25. Additional purchases were a ring light for better lighting in my basement, a headset with a microphone to be able to hear and be heard well, and a webcam for my desktop so I could have a “home base” to teach from.
I also bought a flexible support arm for the webcam and/or phone, as I like to use it as a document camera or to show a sewing technique for my crossover classes.
All said and done, I have spent less than $150 on extra equipment for class. I did reuse much of what I already had, though, and decided to sign up for Intuit Self-Employed, as all Outschool teachers work as independent contractors.
I taught 36 classes ranging from 45 minutes to 90 minutes each, including one flexible-schedule class where you prepare video lessons and post for the students to complete on their own, three camps that meet for five days in a row, and two multi-day classes where the same students meet multiple times.
Much of the material I already had created from teaching in public schools, but I would say I put in another 20 hours during the month in prepping lesson materials. So all together, I would estimate I had 56 hours invested, mostly during nap times or after the kids went to bed.
In July 2020, I earned $1,060, so including my time teaching and prepping, I came out earning just under $19 an hour and covering our mortgage by working during naps and after bedtime. Not too shabby!
Do your kids help you with this side hustle?
No, the girls usually are sleeping while I teach. I will occasionally take my laptop with me to the back porch to work on lessons while they play, but they don’t actively participate.
What are the pros and cons of this side hustle?
The pros are that you have excellent earning potential.
The average class goes for $10-15 per learner per hour. If you had full classes of 6-12 learners (depending on the age group), you could earn $60-180 an hour, and there are some that do!
However, it does take a while to get going and reviews are everything. Parents look to your star rating and your written reviews to decide which class their child will take. If you are just starting out, you don’t have any of that!
I posted a few of my classes for half-off or free to get the ball rolling and get some honest reviews. I’m still considered new to Outschool, and I have only sold out a class one time.
I still teach to 1-2 students frequently. I would say I get 3-6 students on average for my middle school and high school courses, and I usually set my price at $12 an hour.
I’m not getting rich like some others, but I am happy to have an outlet for my English nerd side and to help contribute to the monthly budget.
How do you juggle homeschooling and this side hustle?
Honestly, it can be tough some days. It’s especially hard when I have a flexible-schedule class coming up. For that I need to create all of my lesson resources, record the video lessons, upload the videos, design the lessons (usually in Nearpod using video embedding, polls, question checks, polls, matching games, Flipgrid video discussions, collaboration boards, and class-wide competition games), and schedule the post to push out at the start of each week.
It can be a lot, but once your materials are created, you’re good! You can reuse them as many times as you like until the end of time.
I try to keep my work time to naps/quiet time and after they go to bed, but sometimes I need to meet a deadline and work while they watch a movie or play. It’s not my favorite thing in the world to do that, but it’s necessary sometimes.
We do our homeschooling in the morning, so I focus on Outschool in the afternoons and evenings. My number one goal is to provide my girls with an outstanding education, so Outschool comes after them, every time.
And with a world-wide audience, you could even teach just at nights, if you wanted to! The European and Australian families are starting to flood in, which makes it easy to teach during “non-typical” school hours here. But if you wanted to just teach during the typical American work day, you can do that, too!
How long have you been homeschooling? What homeschool curriculum do you use? Kids’ ages/grades?
We started homeschooling right at the end of December of 2020, right before COVID hit the US. We didn’t know that was going to happen, obviously, but I am sure glad we got our feet wet last year so we were prepared for this year.
My oldest daughter was only 3.5-4 last spring, but she was so very bright and begging to learn. We bought The Good and the Beautiful’s Pre-K coursebook, and she FLEW through it! She loved it so much and was begging for more.
So this year, we are doing the Level K Primer for Language Arts from The Good and the Beautiful, and will use their Level K Language Arts coursebook when she completes the Primer.
We are using Mini Masterminds Kindergarten workbook for Math with lots of Math games, and for Science and Social Studies, we are using Tara West’s KinderScience and KinderSocial Studies curriculum packs from Teachers Pay Teachers.
We also throw in plenty of arts and crafts projects, a daily children’s devotional podcast from Keys for Kids, and whatever else she becomes interested in!
She was interested in Spanish for a long time, so we did a few Spanish classes for preschoolers and kindergartners on Outschool.
I play the piano, and she has been interested in learning to play, so I have a beginner’s piano book all ready to roll when her interest grows further.
Would you recommend this particular side hustle?
Overall, yes, I would. There good days and bad days, days with tons of prep work and days where you roll out things you’ve already created, days with good reviews and days with bad. However, overall, it has been a pretty positive experience for our family.
I’m so grateful to be able to contribute meaningfully to our family budget while still getting to be home with my girls, and homeschooling my oldest daughter.
Going forward, I am trying to shift to more flexible-schedule classes where I can take care of comments and questions over lessons at night after the girls have gone to sleep, or through quick emails throughout the day without having to be live on a Zoom meeting. It allows more flexibility for the students, and for the teachers!
You have to check out Becky’s classes on Outschool! She covers so many interesting topics but in a fun way. She has several courses with an Escape Room theme. Teens love this! She also teaches “creepy literature”, SAT/ACT vocabulary, and the classics like The Great Gatsby. You can view all of her courses here:
https://homeschoolmomsidehustles.com/vv26
If you’re interested in learning how to teach with Outschool, Becky will help you through the application and starting process. Contact here through the Outschool Teacher Referral Program:
https://homeschoolmomsidehustles.com/j5is
Thank you Becky for sharing this great side hustle! We wish you all the best! This really makes me want a side hustle on Outschool as well!
Want to learn about more side hustles that involve using your teaching skills? Go to our growing list at https://homeschoolmomsidehustles.com/make-money-teaching/
