This generation of young people is lucky enough to have various ways to make money as a teen. What’s even good about it is the fact that most of some if not most these job opportunities are accessible online, which means, they can work right within the comforts of home.
Let’s admit it, as moms, as much as we could, we want to spare our kids from working at such a young age. Needless to say, as much as possible we always want them within our sight and spare them from danger.
However, times have changed. Today, kids are more independent and liberated. They want to learn things their way – even if it means working as young as a teen.
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In fact, in a study conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), they have found that “64% of students (which are primarily composed of teenagers) across OECD countries and economies participating in the study earn money from some formal or informal activity, such as working outside school hours or doing occasional informal jobs”.
As parents in this generation, all we got to do is learn to accept this reality, and also, make sure to guide our children in making choices particularly on the kind of work they’re getting into.
Let’s face it, in reality, there really is no specific age to make money or learn how to earn money. Anyone of any gender or age can make extra bucks of money!
While the idea of letting our teenagers work may be scary, think about it this way — this one’s a good opportunity to teach your kid about making and handling money, hard work, and professionalism.
Take this as a great opportunity to teach them life lessons that they will carry with them all throughout their lives. It’s going to be fun and exciting.
So, without further ado, let’s get on our list on how to make money as a teenager.
BEST WAYS TO MAKE MONEY AS A TEENAGER
Before anything else, we just want to say that there are limitless options to ways to make money as a teen depending on what you are interested in or what your expertise is. We are going to share just a few clever ways on how you can earn a few bucks as a teenager.
Whether it is an online job or an offline stint, one thing is sure, you will earn and learn something out of what you do.
Now, before we move on to our list of ways to make money as a teen, you may be interested to check this video created by Nate O’Brien, a YouTuber who particularly tackles topics on personal finance, investing, as well as entrepreneurship. He shares his list of ten legit ways of making money as a teenager.
With that said, here are some of the cleverest ways to make money as a teen:
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Earn from selling old and unwanted stuff.
For sure, when you look around your room or the house even, you will find a lot of use and unwanted stuff. So, instead of letting all those take-up storage space at your home, why not turn those stuff into cash?
Invite the whole family for a decluttering weekend, and ask your family if you can sell their used and unwanted stuff. For sure, they will love the idea. Well, who doesn’t want to make money, anyway, right?
Once you are done decluttering your home, sort out the items. Put on one side the items that you will be donating, another side for items that need to go on the trash, and the items that you can sell.
Once done, you can either hold a garage sale or you can sell them online via websites like Decluttr, eBay, Etsy or even Amazon. You can also use your social media accounts to sell those items.
We highly suggest doing both though. Schedule one weekend to sell those stuff through a garage sale, and whatever is left, you can start uploading photos of those online. We tell you this, there are a lot of people out there who are looking for vintage or used items. You will surely find buyers for your stuff. Just be patient.
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Earn from downloading an app.
This one’s another one of the cleverest ways to make money as a teen. There are several companies that create apps that pay people by playing games on their phones, downloading apps, watching videos, as well as taking surveys.
One of the most popular apps that you can download and earn money from is InboxDollars. Apart from the money you get from the different activities that the app offers, InboxDollars also give a $5 sign up bonus.
See, who would have thought that you can make money from downloading an app and using your smartphone, right?
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Earn a decent amount of money from babysitting.
If you have a teenager who loves playing or spending time with kids, babysitting is the perfect job for your teen. But of course, take into consideration that your child must be someone who is responsible, and mature.
He or she can offer to babysit kids or young children to family members, family friends or neighbors who will be away for a couple of hours to do groceries or other stuff. We are sure they are going to appreciate it.
Encourage your kid to do babysitting during weekends or whenever he or she is free from school. As a teen babysitter, your kid can make $10 or more per hour. That’s a very decent amount of money he or she can make.
By the way, if your child wants to babysit outside your family and friends’ circle, you may check out Care.com. There your kid can sign up as a babysitter. What we like about this website is that it conducts the verification of both parties to ensure that the babysitter and the client are legit.
Just a reminder though, Care.com requires a parent or guardian’s permission for babysitters who are below 18 years old.
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Earn from looking after or walking pets.
If your kids are not fond of kids but love pets, well, pet sitting is a perfect way to make money for them.
You know, there are some people who need other people’s help to take care of their pets especially during circumstances that they need to be away from home and nobody’s going to be there to feed, walk, and even bathe their pets.
How long you can pet sit depends on the need of the pet and of course, depending on the pet owner’s preference. Some of the most common pets that need to be taken cared of are dogs, cats, fish, etc.
Your teenager can offer his or her pet sitting services over family and friends or the neighborhood or he/she can also sign up through Care.com if your kid wants a wider and better chance at landing a pet sitting stint.
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Earn money from searching the web.
Does your teenager loves searching or browsing the internet or websites? Well, guess what? Make money from doing such a thing is possible, too! We tell you, technology has made almost everything – even the simplest of things – profitable.
Websites like Swagbucks pay people for browsing the internet and many others. Apart from that, they also pay you by means of a point system by completing surveys, watching videos, playing online games, as well as shopping online.
How much your kid makes really depends, but just so you know, they do give a sign-up bonus amounting to $10.
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Earn a few bucks from washing cars.
You know, your kid can bank on people’s busy schedules to make extra cash. There are a lot of people out there – like in the neighborhood or even at your own homes – who do not have the time to wash their cars. So, to make their life easier – and for your child to be able to make money – he or she can offer help by washing their cars in exchange for being paid for your services. We bet you will not encounter a no for an answer.
How much your child makes for cleaning or washing other people’s cars really depends, but $5 to %10 would be ideal. For this kind of job, all your kid needs is a bucket, soap, and rags to wash, as well as towels to help dry the car out.
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Earn extra money from organizing other people’s homes or garages.
Your kid can channel her inner Mari Kondo by offering to declutter and organizing services. We bet you, there are people out there who need help.
We highly recommend this kind of stint to teens who are a neat freak. It’s actually one of the most fun ways to make money as a teen if you love making houses clean or if you find your teen to love organizing things at home.
She can start offering your services at your very own home, then to relatives and family friends, as well as the neighborhood.
If your kid does well in organizing and cleaning stuff, she will surely earn a decent amount of money.
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Earn an extra amount of money from selling lemonade and baked goodies.
Who doesn’t like lemonade and bake goodies? Bet, we all love the idea of having a lemonade stand at the neighborhood and bakes goodies like cupcakes and cookies too! We love the idea of not having to drive all the way to the nearest resto or grocery to buy something to fill our hungry stomach, right?
So, if your teenager has baking skills, and you love the idea of doing business, setting up a lemonade stand with baked goodies on the side is probably one of the perfect ways to make money as a teen.
For us, moms, this one’s the best way to teach our kids how to put up and run a business – we can teach them about how to properly price their products, how to produce them, how to handle money, etc. Too many valuable life lessons we can teach by doing this kind of business.
How much your kid will make from mounting a lemonade stand and selling baked goodies will all depend on how many you have produced, and of course if how many are sold.
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Earn from looking after your neighbor’s house.
If there is babysitting, pet sitting, well, guess what? There is also such a thing as house sitting. Yes! You can make money from looking after someone else’s house while they are away for a vacation or a family holiday!
Sounds very clever, right? But yes, it does exist!
Your kid does not necessarily have to be at your neighbor’s house all day (unless of course, that is what they require). Most of the time, homeowners will ask an hour or two in a day for your kid to check their house out. But as we said, in some cases, homeowners may require an overnight stay – however, it does not work that way for minors.
How much your kid makes depends on how much you charge on your clients. It really depends on you. But ideally, $5 to $10 per hour is good.
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Earn money from working at a fast-food resto.
Back in the days, teenagers love working at fast-food chains. There is just something fulfilling about working there.
Fortunately, fast-food business is still a thing to this day. Thus, allowing more part-time job opportunities for young people.
We thought working for a fast-food restaurant is a good avenue for young people to learn determination, hard work, professionalism, and value for work. Let’s admit it, you don’t learn these things in school.
Normally, if you work at fast-food restaurants, you work as a waitress or a waiter. By the way, it also hones you as a person because you get to deal with different kinds of people in this kind of job.
Earning potential is pretty decent. So, you do not have to worry about that. If you are working to ensure you have an allowance, you sure will save enough.
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Earn money from your hobbies.
Whether you are good at drawing people, animals, or nature-related stuff, or you are great at writing poems and short stories, you can make money out of your hobbies.
There are people or even companies looking for people like you. So we recommend you make a list of your talents and skills, and then offer what you can do to other people who might be needing them. Posting what you can do or capable of on websites like Fiverr is a pretty good start.
How much you make will depend on how much you want to get paid. But for a beginner, you can charge around $5 to $20 per project or task.
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Earn from blogging.
If you love writing and you do not mind sharing your work to a larger audience, well, then, you better start off your blogging journey today.
Blogging is one of the best ways to make money as a teen (well, in all ages, if we may say). Why? Simply because it does not require you to do physically challenging work. If typing is a physical challenge, then so be it. But yeah, what it requires are your thoughts and good writing skills.
As a teenager, you can blog about your life as a teenager, or you can talk about your favorite books or movies, or you can do fashion blogs, etc. It really depends on your interest and what topic are you good at.
It’s very easy to build a blog, and only requires a very minimal amount, which you can save up from maybe doing a garage sale first. Anyway, what we like about blogging is, it has limitless earning potential. By the way, you earn from ads, sponsored posts and affiliate marketing.
So, if you think you have what it takes, then do yourself a favor by starting your blog now.
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Earn money from selling crafts.
Are you familiar with Etsy? If you do, well, allow us to tell you this – Etsy is the best place to sell your crafts.
Etsy is an online marketplace for unique pieces. Thus, making it a haven for crafty and creative people. By selling your crafts online, you get to have a larger customer base, thus allowing you to earn a bigger amount of money. Just so you know, Etsy has around 39 million customer base from all over the world as of 2018.
What’s even nice about it is, you get to use Etsy for free! Such a good deal, right? For minors though, we suggest letting your mom or dad create a business account for you.
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Earn from working as a referee.
Are you sporty? Well, if you know the rules of the game, you can work as a referee for kids’ sports teams!
There are sports clinic or organizations out there that hires teen referees. You better take advantage of those and make some money from being a referee of your favorite sport.
To give you an idea, your child can make as much as $30 per hour for referee work.
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Earn from building your own YouTube channel.
Do you find your kid to have that interest in making videos? Then, why not encourage him to build his very own YouTube channel? Like blogging, the earning potential from creating YouTube videos is limitless.
With regard to what you have to make, it really depends on your interests and personality. You can make fashion videos, how-to videos, or food review videos. Really, anything and everything.
Your teenager can make money from uploading YouTube videos through ads and affiliate marketing. Of course, for your kid to earn more, he has to work on higher video views and increasing your number of subscribers. But that’s easy as long as he has unique, fun, and interesting video posts.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON WAYS TO MAKE MONEY AS A TEEN
So there you have it! We hope we were able to give you different ideas on how to make money as a teenager. Please know that these are just a few of the many possibilities of earning. We tell you, there are a lot more ways to make money as a teen.
Mommies, remember, it is our responsibility as parents to remind our children that while earning money is fun at such a young age, they should not forget that finishing school must be on top of their priorities.
So, how do you find the idea of your kid working in the first place? We’d love to know your thoughts too!
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