Living abroad tips and hints for money savers

seven-day-weekend

Hmmmm. I don't THINK invigilation is classed as Teaching. Just thought - it can't be as you don't even have to be a teacher to do it. Some friends of ours do it - he is a retired teacher but she is a retired nurse. - and they told me I could do it, although I have never been a teacher.

There is some more info about it in the 'up your income' board.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=825187&highlight=exam+invigilation

Hope this helps

seven-day-weekend

clearmydebts, thanks for your support and I hope you have a good time in Ireland, even with the miserable exchange rate.

clearmydebts

droopsnout wrote: »

clearmydebts, commiserations. I hope you can enjoy your NYE as you would hope to do. I guess you have family to go to who will make a fuss of you?

.

Thanks Droopsnout,

Yes, have lots of family who will feed me but it is just so depressing to see the £ sink to such a low rate. I usually go home about 4 times a year, but I can see that being cut back to 2 now

clearmydebts

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

clearmydebts, thanks for your support and I hope you have a good time in Ireland, even with the miserable exchange rate.

Thanks s-d-w

It sounds like you have lots of options anyway and you sound like a very positive person so you will work something out.

Am heading over to Barcelona in January to look at some land (in the countryside). I don't have the money to buy it yet, but want to see the location etc. Am quite excited about that.

seven-day-weekend

Well, we try to stay positive. There are people a lot worse off than we are. At least neither us nor our son have mortgages, debts or dependent children.

And if the worst comes to the worst and we have to come back to the UK, well as someone said to me once 'I've had five years of living my dream and that's more than most people have'

Enjoy Barcelona - are you living in Spain at the moment?

clearmydebts

Well said, I would prefer a little bit of living a dream than none at all.

No, living in the UK. I wish I was living in Barcelona! Have been there many many times and even got married there, but it is my dream to live just outside there. Myself and OH have a 5 year plan to get there. We are in our early 30s so need to find a way of supporting ourselves over there. The area OH is in might allow him to work from home over there in a few years. We have had this idea/dream for about 5 years now but we like where we live so no urgency for it yet, although if the opportunity came up tomorrow I would be gone in an instant!

droopsnout

Go for it, clearmydebts!! Life's too damn short to muck around.

droopsnout

Right, I've just read it!! Thanks, s-d-w, for the invigilation link. I see the latest posts are for January invigilation. Now that could definitely be me in 2010. Especially as it is planned to go for Christmas at our nephew's in Belgium.

I did think I'd be able to do exam marking again, as I did it for years and years in the UK. But you're not allowed to take papers out of the country. I had thought that maybe a lot of marking was done online these days. Perhaps I should ring the exam boards and get myself properly informed!

Savvy_Sue

I'm glad you found out about January invigilation DS because I was going to tell you there's a lot of exams go on in January, and some at Easter too I think, all this modular nonsense where students can basically keep taking bits of their A levels until they get a good enough grade ... WRT marking, my sister has done this and there are quite a few meetings to attend as well: you work through the papers at one, then you have to do some test marking and then meet up I think. She finds it quite pressurised, but then she is still teaching part-time!

And I'm glad sdw found out about HB and CTB because I was going to suggest those as well ... See I can be helpful! :rotfl:

seven-day-weekend

My husband did exam marking - it was like watching paint dry!!! But the money was nice at the end.

Yes, that's something else he could do, and if they still have 'checkers' I can do that! We've earned money like that before when we've been broke.

Think we'll have to stay in the UK for a while.

Oh by the way, my son rang me and the short hours are continuing for at least five weeks. As his contract is only for eight hours he is eligible to sign on at the Jobcentre. He's going to the CAB on Monday to see exactly what he can claim.