The Real Costs of Going Back to School

Well friends, I know it’s been a while. Over 13 months, to be exact, since my last post. Sorry about that.

If you recall, in my last post I share about how I decided to go back to school to do my Masters in TESOL. That is what has been keeping me so busy! I have literally been taking courses non-stop and haven’t had a lot of free time (more on that later). However, I am proud to report that I am 64% done my MA TESOL, and have 3 more semesters before I am finished! As a teacher, I love learning, so it has been super fun for me to be back in formal schooling again, but of course, also quite time-consuming.

Now that we’re all caught up, I thought I would share with you about the real costs of what it has meant for me to go back to school.

1. Tuition

Obviously, this is a big one. I am very fortunate that I was able to get some scholarships from my school to pay for a part of my tuition, but since I’m going to a private school, it is expensive. Since the last time I went to school I needed to take out loans, I wanted to be careful in going back to school that I wouldn’t repeat that foolish decision. I am happy to say that we have cash flowed all of my tuition costs and have not taken out any loans.

We received a modest inheritance last year which has helped greatly, and we have been able to set aside a bit of money each month and put it in a savings account that is only used for my school. When it comes time to pay for a semester, I just transfer the money out of savings and make my tuition payment. It has been so relieving to be able to just pay for school without taking out loans. 100% recommend this method!

2. Textbooks

Ah, yes. Textbooks. For each course I take, it costs about $100-$150 for the course textbooks. I have been able to use the savings account I mentioned before to buy these books when I start a new course. I try to buy as many used books as I can on Amazon or Half.com, but I sometimes need to buy them full price.

It’s also worth noting that since I live in Guatemala, I need to be really proactive in getting the textbooks well in advance since the postal service is non-existent in this beautiful country (it’s a little crazy). So I need to think several month in advance of when I will need the books, and then I mail them to someone who is coming to visit, or to a place I will be visiting. (For example, for my courses that start next month, I mailed my books in June to my sister’s house in California and picked them up when we went on a family vacation.)

Some people I know share books to save money, which can help cut costs (not really an option for me because of my location). I also know that some people sell their books at the end of the semester to help recover the costs of their books (which I definitely did in my undergrad program). At this point, I’m keeping all of my books to build up my professional library.

If you’re thinking about going to school, definitely make sure you factor the cost of textbooks in!

3. Time

This one isn’t necessarily related to money, but this has been a huge cost of going back to school. I work over 40 hours/week and I also take 2-3 classes a semester, so things are busy. School is basically my hobby right now. That means I have less of a social life, I don’t read a lot for fun, and I have to put things that are less pressing (like this blog!) on the back burner so I can focus on school.

I am so grateful to have my amazing husband who now does most of the cooking and cleaning so I can focus on schoolwork. I know not everyone has this luxury of having someone else in the home to pick up some of the slack with chores, so I try to remind myself often how grateful I should be for this.

So there you have it! Although it’s a bit of a brief blog today, I just wanted to catch you up on my life and get the ball rolling since I hope to start posting again semi-regularly on here.

I also want to let you all know that I’m working on some new content (I’m currently on a month-long break from classes, hallelujah!) and I hope to roll out some new posts in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for some of my most recent money saving tips related to groceries, travelling, periods (yep, that’s right), and things that I’m into lately!

Thanks to all of you for continuing to follow along with my journey! I’ll be back with some great frugal tips soon. 🙂

Note: There are no affiliate links in this blog. Amazon and Half.com are mentioned because I do use them, and I received no compensation from talking about them. I just want to be open about how I shop for books on the cheap!