Hello curious person
It’s time for the third instalment of Diary of a Part-Time Yoga Teacher and the topic is expenses! I’ve very briefly mentioned the invisible costs of teaching yoga previously. I wanted to elaborate on this because a lot of these costs are fixed whether I teach one class per week or 10. These then impact how much you are charged to attend a class.
You guessed it! You have to be very cautious with money when you’re embarking on a career as a part-time yoga teacher to avoid losing more money than you earn. One of the goals I made when I started this was to create Sam Turner Yoga with a setup amount and I had to sink or swim. Fortunately, I’ve swam! (Thank you wonderful, loyal clients)
Off the top of my head, these are some of the expenses I can think of immediately: insurance, website, booking system and Zoom subscription. This is quite a bulk of annual costs and I haven’t taught a class yet. It’s one of the reasons I relied so heavily on social media when I started so I could keep costs down. As I’ve built more money, I’ve invested it back into the business to create better processes and presence.
Current Yearly Expenses Breakdown
Service | Cost |
|---|---|
Insurance | £150 |
Zoom | £100 |
Booking System | £275 |
Domain Name | £12 |
Website Hosting | £75 |
Total | £612 |
I hope this helps shine a light on what your investment in me is spent on. This is the starting point and is the backbone of my financial forecast. I need to create enough money to cover all of this before I’ve even taught a class. As the year goes by, I then have the on-going cost. This includes venue hire, transactions fees, equipment and training.
One of the biggest challenges, as a part-time yoga teacher, is that these figures do not adapt based on the size of my business. These costs are fixed and hold that price regardless of whether I teach one class per week or 20. For example, I know the booking system I use (which is super simple and well worth the investment) is used by studios with multiple classes per day and a full timetable of teachers. They pay the same rate as I do!
Teaching yoga is this wonderful, fulfilling, community-building career but there is a lot to think about in the financial background. There’s an army of teachers, like me, who are embarking on this journey and embracing these financial commitments to share what they love.
I hope this entry is helping to paint a bigger picture of what goes on as a part-time yoga teacher. I am certain that I have missed things as I have composed this blog post so feel free to add to this list in the comments.
Comment your thoughts and questions below or on social media. I love to hear from you.
Sam