The Best Side Hustle for Teachers – Earn an Extra $10-20K Per Year!

Educators, could you stand to have about $10,000 to $20,000 per year more than you make right now?

I ask you this question because I help educators start side businesses as well as full-time businesses as academic life coaches. Over the years, I’ve talked to hundreds of educators who are either ready to leave education or who want to stay in schools—but also want to start learning what it’s like to have their own academic coaching business, work with a few clients, and have a little extra money on hand.

Why So Many Educators Explore Coaching as a Side Hustle

So often we get caught up in the day-to-day grind of teaching and coaching that we forget we need to continually build our businesses. I’ve been there, friend—and in some ways, I still am.

If you’re running or dreaming about an academic coaching business or an executive function coaching private practice for educators, this tension can feel especially real. You want to serve students well—often neurodiverse learners—and you also know that your work won’t be sustainable if the business side never gets any attention.

Today I want to break down some basic math so you can better imagine what it might look like to have a few clients and some additional income while you’re also holding down your job as a teacher or educator.

Starting With Simple, Realistic Numbers

The first number we’re going to look at is $2,000—specifically, $2,000 per semester. Why? Because in my work supporting educators who are building private practices, I teach people how to shift away from an hourly rate model. Many educators charge just $50–$75 per hour for tutoring or coaching, which can cap both income and sustainability.

Instead, I encourage educators to use a package model, offering a per-semester or per-quarter rate (depending on the calendar system in the school where you teach). A common starting point is a $2,000-per-semester package per family.

Some of you might read that and think, “Oh my god, that’s way too much!” Others might think, “Oh my god, that’s not enough!”

I’ve been doing this for about 15 years, and I’ve stuck with this number because it’s one I’ve seen many families—especially those seeking support around executive function, organization, and learning skills—both able and willing to pay. Of course, there are always people who can pay more, but this is a solid place to start when you’re just beginning.

Matching Your Schedule and Energy to Your Income Goals

The next number to consider is how many students you might actually want to work with.

One helpful way to think about this is to look at your weekly schedule and notice what time you realistically have available for coaching. Maybe you’re willing to take on a couple of extra hours on a Tuesday after your teaching job. Maybe Saturday mornings feel more doable, and you have time for three students in a row.

As you think this through, start with your energy. When do you actually have the capacity to show up well? This matters a lot if you want to avoid burnout. If you’re hoping to enjoy coaching—and possibly grow it into a lasting side business or even a full-time executive function coaching practice—you don’t want to be meeting with students when you’re already exhausted or stressed.

Once you know how many hours you have available, you can use one hour per student as a rough planning number to determine how many clients you can take on.

Let’s say you have one afternoon where you’re willing to spend two hours coaching. That would allow you to work with two students at $2,000 per semester each, for a total of $4,000 for the semester. One nice thing about packages is that you can often ask families to pay up front, which means you receive that full amount at the beginning of the semester.

Most schools operate on two semesters per year, so we’ll double that number. That puts you at $8,000 per school year—and this doesn’t even include any coaching work you might choose to do over the summer. (When I was a classroom teacher, I personally needed to crash over the summer, but everyone’s situation is different.)

You can keep playing with these numbers based on your availability and interest. For example, if you have time for three students, three times $2,000 is $6,000 per semester, or $12,000 per year.

Common Questions (and Where to Explore Them Further)

At this point, you might be thinking, “Yeah, but how can I plan for more students when I don’t even know where I’d find them?” Or maybe, “It wouldn’t feel appropriate to work with students from my own district, so I don’t know where they’d come from.”

Those are great questions. They’re also very common ones. I talk about them often in my work with educators who are exploring business-building alongside teaching. For now, my invitation is simply to play with the numbers, see what feels realistic, and notice what questions come up for you.

If you want to explore those questions further, including how educators ethically build coaching practices that serve neurodiverse learners and families outside their own schools, you can find free resources and upcoming opportunities to ask questions inside the Visitor’s Center:

https://antiboringlearninglab.com/resources

I also offer regular free office hours where educators can ask questions about coaching, pricing, boundaries, and what it’s really like to run a small practice alongside teaching. Information about those sessions—and how to submit a question in advance—is also available in the Visitor’s Center.

If you’re still in the wondering phase, there’s also a free email series called Should I Grow My Business as an Academic Life Coach? that walks through this kind of math and some of the practical realities of coaching work. You can find that resource in the same place.

Have fun playing with the numbers—and imagining what you might do if you had a bit more financial breathing room in your life.

A version of the following article was originally published here on October 27, 2022.