Making Money

 For last 30 years or so I've relied on teaching English to make money.

At one point I was making about 40,0000 yen a month, about 2000 pounds at todays rate!

That was about 25 years ago. It's been down hill since then.

I've noticed that since the pandemic a lot of small English schools and cram schools have not recovered.

In my opinion there are a number of factors contributing to this. The economy in Japan is getting worse, everything has gone up except wages. Parents just don't have money to pay for English class, also young working people don't have money or time for hobbies like learning English. Also parents are so busy that they don't have time to take kids to classes!

I thought that we would just reopen near where we are moving to (that is still an option) but there are a few problems.  Where we are living is a few minutes drive to the area that is a good place to collect students. Until next year that would be okay as Mikey could take me, but from next summer Mikey is moving to another city!  Also the house is too small to have students come and to be honest I've had enough of kids wrecking things in my house!!

So how to make money?

I have one skill, teaching English.  How to use that now?

I have some ideas but they are rather vague.

I want to make a website to get online students. I think teaching online might work better than setting up a classroom.

Also I could make some materials and sell them.

Also a recipe webpage.

Plus start a YouTube channel.

And we still have land that has blueberry bushes and persimmon trees, but that is a longer term thing.

Then there is this little blog. I keep searching about how to make money with a blog but nothing seems to fit for me!  I have made some money, 4000 yen in 12 years!  

But, of course there is a but, when I look at what other people are doing I see a level of professionalism that I know I can't get anywhere near.

I look at materials and feel that I have no way to make things as nice or as well thought out as that!

Recipe webpages are so full of bells and whistles, "jump to the recipe" buttons and loads of videos and studio grade photos! Who would want to get my recipes?

The same with YouTube. A lot of these videos are very professional looking. 

I guess what my problem is is a lack of confidence!

The skills needed to do these things I can learn. Christopher can help set up a webpage, I want one in Japanese, so I really need help there!

I thought that I had more confidence than I do. I was talking to David about traveling in Japan. It was something Hisao and I planned to do. I still want to but the thought of going alone scares me. David pointed out that I don't shop alone because of the automatic register machines!

So I have a lot of thinking, soul searching to do. I want to make money, I want to travel, I want to live life not just survive or live vicariously through my kids! So I have to do something proactive and get over myself.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy! So much to do to move. Once we are settled I want to really start focusing on getting some of there projects off the ground! I'm already reading and trying to study things, but my brain freezes and I feel very dull, I think it's just stress and exhaustion.

A few photos of David and Hannah pratting with the phone camera!

David and Hannah