Making Good Money Hosting Foreign Students

Hosting foreign students is a relatively foolproof way of earning extra cash without too much hassle.

I admit that if you are like me then the thought of having anyone other than family or friends in your house is a frightening one. However, It’s one of the better-paid side-hustles around and all you need is a clean friendly home with at least 1 spare bedroom for the students to stay in.

When you are hosting foreign Students this can usually be either long term or short term depending on your current situation. In nearly every town in the UK, there is a foreign language school, and they are always looking for host families.

I’m sure a fair few of you either know someone that has hosted students and had a bad time or have seen horror stories on forums etc. Please dont believe all you read or hear.

There can be some issues, My sister had a bad experience hosting foreign students with one of them being attacked on a night out. Trust me this is rare and most students nowadays are made to stay in the family home at night.

I am the last person you would expect to be hosting foreign students in my home. However, when my wife and I brought our new house, we always excepted that for the first 3 or 4 years while our mortgage was expensive, we would need to have a guaranteed extra income, and hosting students was the way.

We have 3 bedrooms so the way we did it was to keep one of the bedrooms free and use the smallest room for the students, we then put a bunk bed in so then we were able to host 2 students at a time for more money.

Our Hosting Routine

So let me tell you how my wife and I got on over the 4 years we had hosting foreign students. Firstly we made contact with a student exchange program running near where we live. The lady who ran it popped to our home and talked us through it all. She had a brief look around our house, just checking to make sure it was suitable.

After that, we managed to find bunk beds online for a good price, as hosting with 2 students in 1 room we could earn more money. The money we would be getting was £15 per night per student, or if they required lunches which most did it was £17 per night per student.

We usually picked them up on a Sunday eve around 7 pm and they would leave Thursday or Friday morning. This was ideal for us as we had Friday eve and most of the weekend to ourselves. All we had to do was pick them up from just down the road and drop them off at the same point in the morning.

We supplied them with breakfast, which was just a selection of cereals and toast with different spreads, and a choice of 2 juices. Then gave them a packed lunch we had made the previous eve and dropped them off on the way to work.

In the evening my wife would pick them up on the way home from work. I would then throw something quick in the oven such as pizza and chips. Usually, they would go to their room after and you wouldn’t see them until the morning.

Seasonal

Usually, you won’t be hosting foreign students all year round which is good as it gives you a bit of a break. We hosted them from the middle of March through till July.

We had august off as they didn’t come over then and then we had them September and early October. After all of this, we then had a nice long break from the middle of October through till march again.

Some schools vary and I’m sure if you hosted older students you could do it all year round. Should you choose to of course. It means you can form a bit more of a bond with the students you are hosting but if you get some that are a bit of a pain then having them for a long time can be draining.

Tips & Tricks

So to say hosting foreign students is easy is not strictly true. There are some issues that my wife and I found throughout our time hosting.

However, after 4 years of doing it, I feel we are pretty experienced in all the little tips and tricks. These will help you save time and any problems.

When we first started we were so slow at making packed lunches and also had some trouble communicating with our students. With practice though we soon got better and managed our time more efficiently. Managing your time when hosting foreign students is imperative.

Google Translate

Make sure you have Google Translate installed on your phone. Yes, they are predominantly here to learn English. You should encourage them with that, but sometimes, especially with the younger students, there are some language barriers.

We used to mainly get students between the ages of 12 and 15. The older ones had pretty good English the younger ones could struggle so Google translate was ideal. You will save so much time just translating what you want to say and showing them your phone.

Food Prep

Food prep is crucial to saving you time. In the beginning, we would spend perhaps an hour making sandwiches, etc for their lunches. My best advice would be to get pre-cut food, so pre-cut rolls, pre-cut processed meat such as chicken, ham, etc.

Make their lunches while you have their dinner in the oven the night before then place in the fridge to keep them fresh. We soon with some decent time management got sandwich making down to a fine art and usually had all of this done within 10 minutes or so.

Rules

With any household, there does need to be rules when hosting foreign students for them to abide by. What rules you choose should be up to you, and what you feel comfortable with.

We decided from the off that we would allow them wifi access as it gave us some peace and quiet. Note: only do this if you have unlimited wifi. You dont want any unexpected bills coming along.

We also made sure they had showers in the evening as we didn’t want our bathroom being off-limits in the morning while we were getting ready for work.

Once your rules have been set try using google translate to translate them. This can then be printed off in a host of languages and pin them in their room.

Take Them Out

Now I dont mean spend money taking them out, that would negate the need for this article. What I mean is for some students they won’t be allowed out in the evening. This is a rule that will be decided by their school.

If they are not allowed out on their own then it might be an idea to take them out for a walk around the local area.

We are lucky enough to live by the sea so in the summer months, once they have had dinner, we usually took them for a walk along the seafront which they loved. It’s your choice though.

Room Check

My wife would drive the students to their drop off point every morning. I wouldn’t leave for work until a few minutes later giving me time to check their room before I left.

Trust me when I say this is a good idea as you certainly dont want to leave your house to go to work and find they have left hair straighteners turned on or your windows wide open.

Please check their room before leaving the house. The student company will probably let you know about checking rooms before leaving anyway as accidents can and do happen.

My Thoughts

So is hosting foreign students worth it??. Well, for us there were some annoying times and good ones.

Come to the end of each year you are glad to get your house back to yourselves. However, if you need £100-150 a week extra income for the best part of the year then it is ideal.

Just to note we did have some lovely students who we wouldn’t of minded staying longer. As of the writing of this article, you can earn up to £7500 a year hosting students tax-free. We averaged around £4000 extra per year doing it.

Hosting foreign students is one of the easier side hustles that you can do without putting in too much effort. It does just mean that your house is not your own. But I think the pay negates the slight inconvenience.

Any questions revolving around hosting foreign students then feel free to ask away in the comments section or drop me an email and I would be happy to answer anything. On the whole, we found it quite rewarding and the extra cash certainly helped us with paying towards our mortgage payments.