How do you go about hosting students? I'd love to hear more about this or get a website. Not only would our kids learn a lot but we would too.

God Bless,
Katie

Earlier this week, I mentioned that we said farewell to our two Taiwanese homestay students, and are preparing to welcome two new Korean girls into our home this coming week.

For us, taking short term students like this is an opportunity to make some extra money in a limited amount of time, while allowing me to remain focused on serving the needs of my family and enjoying getting to know students from a different culture. Through taking students, we have been able to do things like put money onto debt (though we are now debt free), buy a new computer, put money towards vacations (my favorite) or new instruments (my husband's favorite), that normally wouldn't be able to take out of our regular budget.

Seeing as I've already written quite a lengthy post on this, I thought I would direct you to that. It was my very first blog post ever (and no, it wasn't because it was the most interesting thing I could think of- but I wanted to link it up to a carnival, as I couldn't bear the thought of no one reading the first thing I put into the blogosphere!).

Making Money Through ESL

Since writing this post, we've taken a few more students and have begun to work with another school. The school we are currently doing homestays with is a private Christian school that brings in short term students for summer classes. The length of homestay ranges between 2-4 weeks, and the pay is $30 per night (from which we take food costs, gas expenses, etc.), and I am responsible for driving them to and from school, providing 3 meals a day (including a bagged lunch), laundry, and just including them in our family activities.

That's my Frugal Friday tip for this week- using this fun and relatively easy to make some extra money!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

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As a book lover, I had already intended to talk about books that I love, am currently reading, and to write book reviews in my blog. As an associate, I can create a product link each time I reference a book in my blog. I also have images of my recommended books in my sidebar, which I will rotate every month or so. If anyone clicks on my book links, they are taken to Amazon, and if they purchase the book, I make a commission. It's not a lot, but it will add up over time.

For those of you with blogs where you are already sharing your favorite books or current reading material, this is a great way to bring in a bit of extra income (click here  for more money making ideas) through just a little bit of extra effort. Visit their site to find out more about the program.

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

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Now, in my experience it's difficult to actually make cash money from mystery shopping. Perhaps in the US there are some companies that pay more money than what is available in Canada. The one that I signed up for did not pay a lot of actual cash (although sometimes the opportunity simply required time and a small cash reward was given, perhaps $10-20).

But usually I was rewarded through free services or items. This isn't quite making money, but if you can get things that your family needs and might have otherwise had to pay for, then it can almost as good.

For instance, through my mystery shopping we got free dinner for date nights, a free oil change, and free professional carpet cleaning in our home! Those are fairly practical things that were really helpful and enjoyable for us!

There are many websites to be found if you google "mystery shopping" or "secret shopping". For anyone in Canada, the one that I used is called Sensus.

Just a short tip this morning, as I'm off to try to grocery shop on a much decreased budget (for the Savvy Spending Challenge). Make sure you check out Making Do Mondays and add your own link!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

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