TpT Sellers Challenge: Why do I TpT?

Lots of teachers earn a little extra through selling at Teachers Pay Teachers.  What motivates us? Well, I think we all start in the same place... when I switched majors from Economics (I was going into corporate law.) to Elementary Education, I told my shocked parents, "Yeah. Now I'm going to have to marry well." That didn't work out, either. ;)

We all know that teaching pays peanuts, especially in the South, and especially in North Carolina, which spends a notoriously small amount on education. Not only are we paid poorly compared to our counterparts across America, our budget per pupil for textbooks is $15 per kid. Nope, That's not a typo. I haven't had textbooks of any kind for years. Though we've got an OK bookroom for novels, we buy our own in addition, and either get our work from places like CommonCoreSheets.com or Teachers Pay Teachers or make up our own. Eventually, it made sense to start selling.

Our weekly challenge for the TpT seller's challenge was to blog about what it is we're working toward by selling. Mine's pretty modest. Looks a little like this:

Meet A.J., my own big kid. He's a rising junior this summer, and while he's got a job (works at the movie theater) his expenses are increasing. It's time for him to drive, and Heaven knows college is looming. I want him to be able to do the things the others kids at his school do and I want for him to be able to get his undergrad. without taking on a ton of student debt.

I know it's not as exciting as trips to Disney (Although, skiing at Whistler is totally on my bucket list, but one thing at a time.) or a number of other way cool things, but that's what matters in my world right now. So here's my fancy, official challenge visual:

Happy New Week. Sell on, TpTers!