Job Advice for Temporary Living Situation

[derekh]

Thank you in advance for any advice!

I am graduating college in less than two months, with a BA in Psychology!  I have accepted a teaching job through a nonprofit, and will be placed somewhere in Mississippi or Arkansas.  I will teach there for two years.  I do not know my exact salary, but it will be between 26 and 28k takehome pay.  I plan to save at least 50% of my salary for these next two years.  There will not be much to spend my money on, and while my salary is low, so are my living expenses (rent will be less than $300 if I live frugally.)

We have talked about it a lot, and it makes sense for my boyfriend to come with me- we have talked extensively about a future together, and spending two years .  He will have graduated with a BA in Classical Studies, and he has no desire to pursue graduate school yet.  In other words, while we could both easily live on my salary alone, he wants to try to figure out what kinds of jobs there are for him.

I know y'all have diverse backgrounds and skillsets, so I was hoping y'all could offer ideas for unconventional jobs or how to make ends meet.  The areas I will be sent to are likely economically distressed, and since we are only there for two years, he could not finish any skilled trade apprenticeships that are offered in the area.

He is bad with computers, loves working with his hands, and he is a people person!

Thank you again!

[projekt]

Farm labor is a rewarding way to spend your time if you're not concerned about paying the bills. You might also learn Spanish.

[Rural]

Tutoring may be a possibility. With NCLB, there are now lots of little bitty Sylvan and such branches in very rural places.

I'd also suggest he look for what he can do online. Book reviewing, editing, and that sort of thing technically involve a computer, but no more elaborately than writing a paper for a class.

Substitute teaching, either in the school system or in daycares, or both.

If you end up near a technical or community college, tutoring again (he won't qualify to teach with a BA).

He won't qualify to grade the SAT online but (if he decides to brave the computers) he might qualify to grade elementary and middle school standardized tests.

These are some of the things I did when we moved here, also rural South, for my husband to take a teaching job. I quickly built up an editing business, but I'd been doing it as a sideline for years already and had clients who were happy to hear I could take more projects. It takes longer to build a client base.

[Gerard]

Some good advice on here already. My first thought would be "whatever he can get" and/or "stuff at home to maximize your life and minimize your expenses" (e.g., put in a large garden, cook well). Also seasonal work like tax preparation.

But there's another way to look at this. If he's thinking of grad school later, and if you're earning enough to pay the bills, he should seek work that looks good on grad applications, even if it's volunteer or low-paid. Something academic or service-y or research-y. (And this is as well as the gardening and cooking, of course!)

[Rural]

I didn't think about gardening for some reason, but I'll second it. That's another thing I did, and I ended up growing about 50% of our food.

[derekh]

Thank you everybody!  Sadly, farming is more up my alley (my ERE goal is to buy a hobby farm and grow my own food) otherwise that would be perfect, but I think the suggestion about looking into volunteer work that teaches his useful skills is a great idea!