Tutors usually don't do so much during holidays. Apart from 11+ preparation, summer booster courses, marking as an examiner, helping with mocks and resits... Okay, there's actually a lot tutors can do over the summer holidays! But often it's not as much as during the school year.

So how do tutors afford their groceries during school holidays?

Full-time tutors like me often have to work periodically, with a heavy workload leading to the main exams. For example, for me, the crazy times start in early May for National 5, Highers, and Advanced Highers in Scotland and end with the last GCSE and A-level maths exams in June in England.

Teachers seem to be lucky – 13 weeks of paid holidays over the year, right? Well, yes and no. As a tutor, I don't have to do so much marking and all the other paperwork, so I rather have a normal work-life balance throughout the year, thank you very much, although I don't get any paid holidays (heck, not even sick pay – the caveats of being self-employed).

But every year of my tutoring career, which I love so much, I wonder how to survive summer, and I hear many colleague tutors asking the same (usually those who are just starting tuition and haven't been hardened by managing little to no income for 6-8 weeks year after year).

Summer without any income. Sounds scary, right?

Well, not so much when you're good with numbers, with money, and you know your budget, so you just plan for those 6-8 weeks throughout the year as you earn. But knowing that in theory still doesn't make it feel any easier in reality, at least not for many.

So what could a tutor do, (ideally education-related), to stay on top of the summer income dip?

For me, once, the inspiration came from several sources. Do you see my tee in the picture below? That's from my friend. It's sooooo cool! (Especially when you know maths and when you've watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)

It's so cool that I use it for all my promotional photo shoots (like the one above) and in my video lessons.

Later, I saw one of my students(!) wearing a really cool tee. It was a chemistry thing, but chemistry is full of maths too.

People do love nerdy science and maths stuff! It's not only me =) So, for example, for a good few years, I was creating cool maths tees (and mugs and the usual novelty gifts) for sale. They were usually gifts for teachers at the end of the school year, as I'd often find out from the happy reviews.

I do not sell them anymore. Covid was great for switching to online tuition but very bad for everything else, including doing post office rounds to ship my fun maths creations to the whole world. But Covid is gone, and post offices run as usual (not-so-well, but they do), so if you're a tutor and aspiring designer/comedian, you might want to give it a go and create some giftware for sale. I had loads of fun with it.

It was a very exciting little venture – a lot of ideas had been bubbling in my head for years, so I was able to unleash my creativity (and years of living surrounded by maths craziness) without taking too much time off what I love the most – and that's my maths tutoring.

But this may not be everyone's cup of tea. So is there anything else? Yes...

Now, a bit less fun but way easier should any Covid 2.0 happen, is selling digital/printable resources. A lot of educators do that to supplement their tuition income (not just for the summer, but throughout the year). I've done that a little bit, but it's really not as much fun as creating crazy maths designs and imagining how someone on the other side of the world is wearing them, perhaps on their school trip or even in the classroom (if their headteacher isn't a total buzzkill and lets the staff wear slightly informal clothes to work).

Or you can actually become a part-time comedian and do a few summer gigs to supplement your tuition income over the summer.

Oh, one for fun: For two summers, back in the days when I was NOT living in the UK, I used to be a London tour guide — before I actually moved there; flying with 20+ tourists and across the Channel and spending 3–4 days talking about local history (no, I didn't have "the tour guide's umbrella", that's just such an overkill).
Funny how things sometimes work out.

So, there's plenty you can do over the summer as an independent educator (when you don't have paid holidays).

What are you going to do? The choice is yours!

Update from the future Veronika: Nowadays, I just enjoy my free time (such as hiking across Scotland), so I don't do as much over the summer. For starters, I no longer tutor over the summer at all. Life's too short, and holidays are here for a reason (for both educators and learners).
I was working hard (and smart, because hard work alone won't get you as far as we were once thought to believe) to achieve my work-life balance, and I'm reaping the fruits of my labour now. The best part is that I continue to support my students over the summer; I don't just abandon them for two months. It's because I have processes in place that allow me to take a break and keep my income and happy clients. More about that another time.

P.S. Do you want to have more work-life balance as an educator? Head over >> here << to learn how I use networking for the greater good of everyone (myself, colleague educator and the clients). Win-win-win, the kind of win I like the most!