We know teachers don’t go into education for the paycheck, but what happens when the bills start piling up?
In this episode, Miss MacNulty gets real about the financial challenges of being a first-year teacher. From rent and groceries to keeping her classroom stocked with supplies, she shares the stress of budgeting on a teacher’s salary—and what it feels like to live paycheck to paycheck.
Listen to hear how she’s managing, where the financial reality is hitting hardest, and how she's finding small ways to stay afloat—both in and out of the classroom.
In this episode, Jenna struggles to budget on her first-year teaching salary. She asked fellow teachers for their top budgeting tips, and we compiled the best ones to help other teachers, too!
Episode Transcript
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:00:00]:
Last time on Year One, we talked about the time and energy it takes for teachers to understand the whole student, both inside and outside of the classroom.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:00:09]:
Teaching is more than teaching. Like teaching is knowing all of these things about your kids, and it's placing it into action and it's treating those students with the care and respect that that situation deserves.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:00:20]:
On this episode, we check in with Jenna, now three quarters through her first year, to see how her initial expectations compare to the current reality of living and budgeting on a teacher's salary. Many teachers are told that teaching can be a family friendly career. You have the same breaks as your kids. Summer's off. But living on a teacher's salary as a single adult is difficult and only increases when spouses and children are thrown into the mix. This is Year One from Carnegie Learning, a podcast that chronicles all the ups and downs of one teacher's first year in the classroom. I'm your host, Kanika Chadda Gupta. Since the beginning, Jenna has been aware of the financial challenges that come with the teacher's salary.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:01:06]:
Here's Jenna from episode one, before her first day.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:01:11]:
Everyone knows that teachers don't get paid too much. There's not too much of a salary increase every year. So you know what you're getting into financially, and I think that's just something that you come to terms with. I think a lot of people put pressure on future educators to not look at the financial situation and to just be like, oh, you gotta do it for the kids. What's your. Why? Like, you gotta, you know, it's not about the money. It's about the impact that you're making on these kids. And like, yes, that's true.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:01:38]:
That's totally true. But also, it's a job.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:01:42]:
But expectations and reality are often two very different things. After months of living on a teacher's paycheck, Jenna is now experiencing firsthand the financial challenges that come with this career choice.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:01:56]:
I think the lifestyle of a teacher is complicated. Like, almost all of your paycheck will be going to all of these different things. And that's scary.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:02:07]:
In the past decade, teacher salaries have only gone up about 3.6%, while the cost of living has shot up around 20%. This means teachers technically make less than they did ten years ago.
JENNA MACNULTY[00:02:22]:
The amount and how it was going to impact my life did not hit me until my, like, first paycheck when I was living on my own, because I started off this year living with my parents for, like, probably the first three weeks. And then I moved out into an apartment for the first time. And it didn't hit me until I had to pay that first month of rent. And as I've gotten into the winter months, you know, utilities get more expensive as you're using more heat and using more things like that. So, like, I. It just keeps inching up and up and up and up. So, like, I had that big aha moment the first time I really had to pay for everything by myself when I bought my car. That was another financial thing.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:03:01]:
That had been one of those aha moments of, like, okay, now the extra, like, $300 I had to buffer are going to my car payments, and I'm really living paycheck to paycheck to paycheck.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:03:13]:
This type of financial stress is a leading cause of why teachers are struggling. According to the National Education Association, 30% of teachers leave the profession because of low pay and overall financial insecurity. While at times, money management can get overwhelming, Jenna and her boyfriend Liam, who's also a teacher, are able to work together to make ends meet and still have fun.
LIAM [00:03:38]:
I mean, I try and be pretty conscious about spending. I think we recently had a conversation of, like, okay, we can only eat out once a week because time we hung out, we were like, oh, should we go get some food? But, like, no, we can't afford to do that. Nor do I think anyone should afford to do that. Yeah, that was just a funny little aside we've had, but also, like, planning out trips and stuff. We went to Boston, and that was something that, like, in January, we were like, okay, let's start setting aside money. So just being more cognizant about where our money is going, which I think is, like, good for any job, that's.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:04:13]:
Just a transition to adulthood thing. But especially when you're at a job, like, being a teacher, obviously the pay is not going to be, like, a sales job, entry level or something like that. So, like, everyone goes through that of, like, learning how to finance and learning how to budget. As you get into your adult years.
LIAM [00:04:30]:
I think you have to realize, like, this is how much I make, and then you got to assess, what do I prioritize? What do I have want to spend my money on? What do I have to spend my money on? I need to spend my money on rent and groceries and gas. I want to be able to get a comic book every now and then, so I need to budget accordingly for that, which I think is something every. Yeah, it's something every adult goes through, but I just think. I'm sure there's more flexibility if you're a entry level software engineer making $140,000 a year versus a teacher making, like.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:05:03]:
50,000, like, I will look at my paychecks every week and be like, well, after paying my rent, I have about $200 left over, and that's got to go to my gas and my food. That's that on that. Like, it's just. It's very tight, and it can be very stressful. Like, I'll have probably a breakdown about it, like, once a month when I'm actually paying my credit card bill or paying my rent, where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I have no money. And then when the next check comes in, I'm like, no, no, no. I made it. I'm good.
JENNA MACNULTY[00:05:33]:
I made it. We can do it. But, like, that's what the people call living paycheck to paycheck. Like, I'm literally like, all of my paycheck is going to all these things that I need to be able to pay every single month. And I don't think it's very fair to teachers. I don't think it's a very stable way to live your adult life. Like, we spent four years of our lives getting a degree to be a professional. We took exams.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:05:58]:
We are professionals. We should be treated like such, and we should be paid like such.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:06:05]:
On top of her regular living expenses, Jenna is discovering that she still needs to budget for classroom supplies, a big expense she thought would just be at the start of the year when setting up her classroom. But now she's realizing it's a consistent line item in her budget.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:06:22]:
We're like, we are literally out of pencils in my classroom. Like, no pencils left. All of the pencils they brought in at the beginning of the year, poof, gone. So I decided, I don't know. I heard this from someone, saw it somewhere, where, like, it's a pencil challenge. It's not uncommon. A lot of teachers do it where, like, you write their number or their name on a specific pencil, and if they still have that pencil by the end of the week, then they get, like, a piece of candy or a prize or, like, a check mark or whatever your incentive is. So I did that for, like, three weeks leading up to Christmas break, because we literally had no pencils.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:06:51]:
And me being my stubborn self, I was like, I'm not going to go spend my own money on pencils for the classroom, so they're going to deal with what they can do. So that worked. But then when we came back from break, I had a few more pencils for us to use, so that I stopped doing that. And now we're about a month ish back in, and we're back to having no pencils. And it's mostly because my kids break them, and they also break the sharpener. I have had to, with my own money, buy. This is my third pencil sharpener of the year because the first one was broke within the first three days of school. I didn't buy another one just because we had so many other pencils to use because it was the beginning of the year.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:07:40]:
So I just kept replacing them instead of resharpening them. And then I. They get thrown away, they get broken. I bought another pencil sharpener. Two days. Two days it lasted in my room before someone put their pencil in the wrong way, and the metal part got stuck in, like, the blade. Two days. And then my kids get mad at me, being like, we don't have the power, we don't.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:07:59]:
We can't pencil us. We can't sharpen our pencils.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:08:01]:
We can't.
JENNA MACNULTY[00:08:02]:
How are we supposed to write if there's no pencils? I'm like, guys, it's your problem. You are the problem. If you treat your materials with respect, this will not be a problem. So now I have my third pencil sharpener, and it is no longer a student's job to be the pencil sharpener because we cannot handle it. So now I have to spend, like, five minutes every morning sharpening the pencils before the kids get here, which is annoying. But if that's what needs to happen, that's what needs to happen. I don't know. As a first year teacher, it's discouraging.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:08:35]:
Not only mentally, but when you add on the financial aspect to it, it's like, man, you're just getting hit at all the angles. So it's kind of a surviving game. And that sounds super sad and super intense, but, like, you're just figuring everything out at the same time, financially and mentally. And, you know, you're figuring out how to be adult, and you're figuring out how to be a teacher, and you're figuring out how to manage your finances, and you're figuring all these things out at the same time. And it can be overwhelming. But, like, I take every day of teaching day by day by day by day. I take my finances paycheck by paycheck by paycheck by paycheck. It's going to be tight.
JENNA MACNULTY [00:09:11]:
It's going to be tight, but it's doable. You just have to be really disciplined you have to be very, very disciplined is what I'm finding.
KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:09:22]:
This is Year One, an exploration of one teacher's first year in the classroom, brought to you by Carnegie Learning. Join us for the rest of the series as we follow Jenna through every moment. And be sure to follow Miss McNulty on Instagram and TikTok to keep up with her. For additional exclusive content, free teaching resources, and more, visit yearonepodcast.com. Next time on year one, Jenna has her first evaluation with her principal.
JENNA MACNULTY[00:09:53]:
I'm so embarrassed, but I started to cry in front of my principal. I literally had like, maybe like, not a lot, but I had like four tears streaming down my face and I was like, oh, my God, I'm so embarrassed. So it was one of those things where I was like, oh, I thought I was being braver than I was. Like, I thought I was putting on a brave face, but obviously you could see through it.