We love our jobs; we care for our students, we're passionate about teaching but is it enough? Financially things feel tougher than ever; many of us are struggling to get to the end of the month, and on top of that, Christmas is coming. Many TEFLers are in trouble. What can we do?

The TEFLer is a fortnightly companion for language teachers, written by Simon Pearlman and brought to you by Active Language Teacher Trainingwww.activelanguage.net

TEFLing is rarely well paid and we accept that. Until recently, most of us have received a living wage, meaning that we can live reasonably well on what we earn but there's never been much wiggle room, very few of us save at all. But now things feel tougher than ever. Why is that? Why do we feel poorer than ever?

Is time flying or is it more trudging along? The end is in sight on this term. Maybe now is a good time to stop and reflect. We might be tempted to reflect on how our school is doing, how our colleagues and our students are doing, and that's all important. But maybe now is a good time to think about ourselves, how are we doing? Like in the safety demos on aeroplanes, put on your oxygen mask before helping other people. If we don't look after ourselves, it's so much more difficult to take care of others.