Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
Are You a "Cheap Substitute Teacher"?
Money matters in the substitute teaching world, especially when your paycheck doesn't match that of permanent teachers. The eternal question: Should you spend your hard-earned dollars on classroom supplies?
Greg Collins. Substitute Teachers Lounge. It's episode 296, july 8th 2025. You know, I talk to a lot of substitute teachers and I know a lot of them have the attitude that they don't pay me enough to be spending my own money on other things for the classroom while I'm there. So today we're going to talk about the cheap substitute teacher and how to do it.
Greg:Substitute Teacher's Loud. All right, guys, I hope you are having a great summer break. I just I couldn't believe it. This week I looked up the school's calendar and students go back to school on August 13th here, which a little bit later than some, a little bit earlier than some. Some don't go back to September, but I'm thinking, man, that's just barely what five weeks away. I can't believe it's going by that fast.
Greg:I've enjoyed the vacations I've taken. Can't talk enough about Epic Universe. I liked it a lot. I encourage everyone, if you're in the Orlando area, to check that out. I had never been to a Universal park before and certainly glad I did. In fact, I've already thought of I got to go back there at least one more time because I want to do this again. I want to try this one that I didn't do all that good stuff.
Greg:So today there are some things that if you want to save money, you can. I'm going to tell you what they are. I'm going to tell you the ramifications of them. I'm going to tell you the ramifications of them. Everybody's different. I will go on record now as saying I tend to error on the other side. I guess that's error when I use it that way, isn't it? I error on the other side. I probably spend a little bit more than I should, but I figure you know I can afford this much money. It's not hurting me any. Let's say I have to go without a couple of meals to pay for this. I don't really care. But you are correct in that substitute teachers are not teachers. It's difficult for them to come to the rationalization of buying supplies and other things you might need for the classroom when you're getting paid so much less. And let's see what we can do with this. First of all, you have heard me talk over and over about me buying candy for the classroom. I will go ahead and say I probably spent $30 the last school year for Jolly Ranchers, and that's a little misleading in that I give some of those to my grandkids. I'm not taking them all to school. So I'm not sure when I look back if I didn't actually give more to my own family than gave to school, but that's a way to save some money. I could have done some other things with those $30. I could have figured out a way to get them to focus without bribing them with candy. So maybe that's your first way to be the cheap substitute teacher. Stop buying candy. Look in the teacher's desk who knows Now teachers? You know for the most part they give candy to kids who go out of their way in class and in fact most of them tell me when I get there you're free to give this. You know children a sucker if they do a good job and all that kind of thing. So stop buying candy. That's how you can be a cheap substitute teacher.
Greg:Let's go to pencils Now. I've only bought pencils. When I was long term I got a box of I don't know it might have been a gross of sharpened pencils for about $8 on Amazon. I started out by using just the regular teacher's pencils. I started out by using just the regular teacher's pencils and then after a few days of that, I asked around. There was one teacher that when you got a pencil. She made the student leave their shoe at her desk and they had to turn back in their pencil to get their shoe. So I tried that a couple of days. Didn't really work for me because some of the kids were immature enough that they thought it was cool to leave their shoe whether they needed a pencil or not. But that's one way to do it.
Greg:Here's the way to really be the cheap substitute teacher. First of all, if you have pencils on hand, you will save some time because instead of rummaging through the drawer trying to find them a pencil a pencil that they should know, especially in the afternoon you know what were they using the rest of the day. If they don't have a pencil, but they know to bring pencils, so you shouldn't have to supply them. Will it make your life a little easier if you do supply them? Yes, it will, because then you can move on and not have to look for pencils. I'll encourage you to do this Every day. I've ever substitute taught. If I look on the floor at the end of the day especially if I am, schedule-wise, able to stay a little bit after the kids leave you're going to find multiple pencils on the floor. Just keep you a little box, collect those old pencils and you can use those for those that don't have pencils. The rest you know later days that you substitute, so pencils. That's another way you can be a cheap substitute teacher.
Greg:I buy my own dry erase markers. I shouldn't have to Dry erase markers, generally speaking, for what they are. It probably takes them maybe what 10, 15 cents to put one together, all material-wise, and the markup is maybe to a dollar a pen. I don't know. But those dry erase markers I keep them because I don't want to look for the teachers. But you know, should I have to buy those, maybe I should just send a student around to another teacher to get some dry erase markers. Why should I have to spend my own money buying dry erase markers just because they're missing or they're dry or you can't use them? I'm a very visual person and I have found that if I write something on the board usually get the kids to pay attention to what you're writing, whereas if you're just talking they're not paying as much attention. So should I have to buy dry erase markers? Well, maybe not if I want to be the cheap substitute teacher. It will save some time, all right, one other thing I bought. This is probably the biggest thing. I bought Two things the next two things they're both and software type things.
Greg:So I do have a Kahoot subscription. You can get free Kahoot but it's very inconvenient to navigate around their free Kahoot and when you find one you like you realize it's got a dollar sign down on it and it means that if you don't have a paid subscription you can't get to that one. The free ones aren't as good. You have some branded stuff in Kahoot, like Disney has a program with them and if you're with the younger kids that might be good but you probably can't get to it. But I do pay for a Kahoot subscription. I get a discount because of being a teacher. Should I have to do that? Kahoot does make some of the classes go more smoothly. In fact, one of the best ones I did last year was in a third grade class where we just did it as a class in total. I told them you all pick one student in your class to give all the answers, but you all can discuss with her before she gives the answers. But it's her job to decide what answer it is. And they pick one of the students they thought was one of the smarter kids in class because they knew if she had multiple answers she'd probably know the one to pick.
Greg:So I do have a Kahoot subscription, but why should I buy that for myself? That's something I can drop if I am a cheap substitute teacher. Now the other subscription is, of course, subalert. Why should I have to buy that? That's just more money out of my pocket. I should be able to go straight to Frontline, use their notification system to find the substitute teaching jobs that I want, and it's much better than it used to, and, as far as I know, it's still free. I haven't checked lately, so that's the other place as a substitute teacher. Why should I have to buy that? I want to be cheaper than that.
Greg:What about a whiteboard? I like to have a whiteboard a portable one is what I'm talking about now because I can carry it around to different classes. I might write something on it that I can use for the next class or that I'm using in multiple classrooms. But why should I have to buy that? Shouldn't I just be able to go to the office and get a whiteboard from them? Why should I have to do that? Why should I have to log on to my own Netflix subscription. If there's a movie that needs to be shown but I can't log into the teacher's computer to get to her Netflix, why should I have to buy all that? So all those are ideas about how to be the cheap substitute teacher.
Greg:Let me finish with this. I won't call this episode tongue-in-cheek, but I did bring those all to light to let you know I do all of those. I don't want to be a cheap substitute teacher. I want to have as many tools by my side that helps the class flow more smoothly, make your life easier. I mean, we'll go to a convenience store and spend twice as much on a bag of chips or a carton of milk because it's convenient.
Greg:I pay for convenience. When I went to Epic Universe, it took me a while to decide to do it, but when the price dropped $100, I said, all right, I'm buying the Express Pass because I like the convenience of walking past the line and walking pretty close to the front, the most significant one we did. The wait time was two and a half hours and it took us 15 minutes. So I pay for convenience. There are ways, just like I mentioned, that you can be a cheap substitute teacher. I'm not even saying it's wrong. It's probably correct. Why should you have to spend all that to teach when you get paid a lot less than regular teachers? In my opinion, I don't become a cheap substitute teacher because I want my substitute teaching life to be easier, but it's up to you to decide for yourself, and it will only cost you maybe half of a day's substitute teacher pay to get all of that done.
