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Anyone who has spent any time living in New York City knows that making it there demands a significant dose of determination, ingenuity, and perhaps a bit of luck.
This rings true for Ashley Alicea, who grew up in the city until her early teens and returned in 2020.
Since then, Alicea has transformed her financial situation. She went from earning around
Now 33, Alicea is dedicated to paying off the remaining
Furthermore, data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that about 17% of public and private school teachers report having a second job during the school year.
Here’s how Alicea is accelerating her journey to becoming debt-free.
A $40,000 salary boost
Alicea began her teaching career in 2016 when she moved to Shanghai, China, to teach English. Although the pay wasn’t high, she says the low cost of living allowed her to live comfortably in a nice area.
In 2020, Alicea returned to the U.S. and took a job teaching at a preschool in New York City, earning just 53,817 a year.
Alicea found it nearly impossible to afford her own apartment. “It was a harsh reality check coming to New York and realizing I couldn’t survive on a teacher’s salary,” she says.
For the next few years, Alicea struggled to reconcile the importance of her work with the low pay. Despite some states seeing record salary increases, teacher wages have not kept pace with inflation over the past decade, according to a 2025 report from the National Education Association.
While New York City public school teachers generally earn more than the national average—new teachers with bachelor’s degrees earn about $69,000 a year—they also face high living costs.
After working at several schools, Alicea joined Brilla Public Charter Schools in the Bronx in 2024. As a multilingual learner specialist, she works with students from multilingual households and earns approximately $90,000 a year.
“The community is predominantly Hispanic, so it’s a great opportunity for me to support families and work with them in their native language,” says Alicea, who speaks Spanish and has Ecuadorian parents. “I find a lot of purpose in it now, and I feel like I’m making a real difference in these kids’ lives.”
A costly but rewarding side hustle
In 2021, Alicea enrolled in graduate school for mental health counseling, aiming to use the degree to enhance her career and salary prospects. She completed her Master of Science in education and mental health counseling in June 2025.
A few months later, in September, she started working part-time as a therapy associate with the online mental health provider Cerebral, earning $55 per hour.
By working with Cerebral after school hours, Alicea can accumulate the 3,000 clinical hours needed to become a licensed mental health counselor.
Alicea refers to her mental health counseling job as a “side hustle”—albeit a “really expensive” one, considering the debt she incurred to earn the degree.
She sees between six and eight clients a week and works on her side hustle up to eight hours weekly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, typically earning around $1,500 a month from mental health counseling.
Alicea says limiting her side hustle hours is crucial for her happiness, allowing her to maintain a full-time teaching schedule (her school days run from 7:15 a.m. to 3:50 p.m.), cook, exercise, walk her dogs, and take care of her well-being.
A four-year plan for financial freedom
Alicea uses much of her side hustle income to pay down her graduate school student loans. In total, she borrowed about $92,000 to cover tuition and living expenses over four years while working full-time as a teacher.
A few years ago, a difficult breakup motivated Alicea to get serious about her finances. She began reading books, listening to podcasts, and learning about financial literacy. Once her income increased, she managed to save about 5,000. She also ramped up her debt repayments.
As a teacher, Alicea could be eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness after 10 years of public service. However, she prefers not to be “bound to public service” for that duration and wants to “keep my options open for the future.”
“I really just want to get it over with so I can start investing and building my own wealth,” she says. Alicea allocates about
One major factor aiding Alicea’s budget is her low rent. She’s a two-time winner of the NYC housing lottery, a program that assists residents in finding affordable housing.
Alicea diligently checked for new units daily until she was approved for one in 2023 and another in 2025. Her rent is now $1,954 a month.
Alicea encourages everyone she knows to try their luck with the lottery: “It’s worth it to trade up to a stabilized, more affordable apartment, especially for those living with roommates.”