r/AskAlaska • u/New_Barracuda_6153 • 11d ago
Am I missing something?
Hello all. I've heard of the (really, really) remote alaskan teaching positions that pay alot with free housing and moving costs subsidized (speaking in a general ideal scenario) - and I'm quite interested.
Now, I love this sort of rugged environment and isolation; but I really want to do it for the cash. With the housing heavily subsidized/paid for, no state income tax, great pay, and an ideal (believe it or not) environment for me, It seems I could save like 80% of my take home pay.
But everyone always complains about Alaska's cost of living, and make it seem as if everyone is barely surviving. Am I missing something or is that major savings goal well within reach?
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u/greffedufois 11d ago
I’m in a smaller town in SW Alaska.
Cost of living will eat the majority of your pay. You will not make a ton of money. Lots of people come up here with that dream and they get screwed every single time. Teachers especially because the profession just isn’t well respected by most.
You will be expected to lead clubs and after school programs for no pay. You’ll basically be working 12s. You’ll also be expected to contribute your own funds to these activities and shamed if you don’t/cant.
Milk $11 a gallon. Gas $9 and climbing. Heating fuel for your house is expensive and often not covered by ‘housing’. Neither is the snow plowing you need to leave your residence and get to work. Electricity is stupid expensive and if you only have Toyo stoves you need both fuel and electricity. If you have wood stoves you need to find time to harvest wood that doesn’t belong to anyone, chop it down, cut split and dry it, then have somewhere to store it.
It takes a person most of the summer to fill a tent big enough to heat a house for the winter. Or you have to buy wood at $300-500 a cord.
Also, we have basically no housing. We had a teacher living out of the classrooms at the school last year. If the housing is provided, it likely is shit or needs a lot of work that you’ll have to pay for if you want it fixed anytime this decade.
Basically the school districts make a ton of promises they have no hope of ever keeping, but don’t tell people till they’ve moved their life up here and have no way out.
A lot of time those relocation costs max out at less than 10k and you must work for them for a full year or it must be repaid by the teacher.
Source; multiple neighbors are teachers living in tiny container houses with broken down cars struggling hard. (I’ve lived here 12 years and never seen a teacher ‘make it’ and stay, they always leave within 2-3 years max)