Building a Family Economy - Can You Do One Thing Well?

If you know how to do just one thing, and you know it well, you may be able to teach that to other people and make money.

Now, not everyone that can do something well ‘can’ teach. Our girls took piano lessons most of their childhood. One year our piano teacher had quit teaching. We asked the lady that played piano for our church if she’d be interested in teaching, and she was. After about 3 lessons we realized that although she was a good pianist, she was not a good teacher.

When I was a girl and in Girl Scouts (I’m not endorsing Girls Scouts at all) and we had to earn a badge, the goal was to know that skill well enough to be able to teach it to someone else, then we knew we had earned the badge. This is a great way to encourage a teaching mindset.

Not everyone is able to teach, even if they excel at their trade/skill.

If you know how to do at least one thing and do it well, being able to teach that to others, either one on or one or in groups, you could add to your income.

You can teach in your home and most churches will let you use a room if you are a member. You can also offer to go to a person’s home for private tutoring, you can charge more for private lessons.

Hobby Lobby (and probably other hobby/craft stores) will let you teach in their classroom if you use their merchandise. Many of the stores are looking for people to teach classes in:

drawing
painting
cake decorating
knitting
crochet
quilting
scrap-booking
woodworking -birdhouses
jewelry making

You can advertise in your local paper, your homeschool group, your church group/newsletter and email lists. Word of mouth is the best way. Talk it up for a couple of months before. you plan to teach.

Things to Consider When Teaching

Age- Not everyone is good teaching children. Their attention spans are short and many times their mom is ‘making them do it’. But with easy projects that can be finished in a short amount of time and if YOU are patient, teaching children can be VERY rewarding!

Fees- You have to keep in mind the amount of time. If it takes you 2 hours to teach a skill and you have one person come and you are charging $10, it may not be worth your time, especially if you are driving to another location and have to supply materials. You’ll need to check around your area to price your skill/class accordingly.

Class Size- You don’t want more than you can teach. I will not teach more than 3 people at one time how to crochet. I have taught about 10 at one time and I thought I was going to go crazy, it’s just too much for me at once. Be sure have a class size limit (minimum and maximum).

Choosing Projects- When teaching someone something new the student may get overwhelmed, so keep it as simple as possible. The projects for beginners should be ones that can be finished in a fairly short amount of time so they can experience the satisfaction of accomplishment!

You’ll always be tweaking what works best for you, times, fees, projects, etc…

You can see some of our past classes HERE.

HERE is this year’s schedule and what we charge.