Having an income stream as a teenager is certainly one of the best financial decisions you can ever make as a young person. As much as your parents cater to your needs, you can be more responsible by making efforts to earn your own money. Fortunately, learning how to make money as a teen keeps getting easier. There are numerous money-making techniques you can employ to make hundreds of dollars every month for yourself.
This post will discuss some of the best-known ways teenagers make money legitimately today. After exploring the options discussed in this post, you should be on your way to earning your first dollar.
What Are The Best Ways To Make Money As A Teenager?
Some of the best ways to start earning money as a teenager include getting a digital skill or starting a side business. A digital skill such as graphic design or SEO writing can earn you a significant amount of money, meanwhile, a side business such as lawn care or blogging is also a great option for making cool dollars.
Benefits Of Making Money As A Teen
There are many things to benefit from making your own money as a teenager. With time, you will learn how to manage money as you prepare to become a full-fledged adult. Notwithstanding, here are some more specific reasons why you should start earning money:
1. Making Money As A Teen Improves Financial Mindset
As soon as you begin to earn your own cash, you will go on to do what everyone else does with money; spend, save, or invest. Doing any of these things gives you a better mindset toward money.
For example, with time, you will realize that indulging in impulse purchases is bad. On the other hand, if you get used to saving money, you will see how that’s a good financial habit. As long as you are self-aware, you can build good financial habits and avoid making money mistakes in the future.
2. Making Money As A Teen Improves Working Experience
Being intentional about learning how to make money as a teen would impel you to get a job. Once you have a job, you will begin to gather some work experience. It’s important to bear in mind that everyone can’t build a business. Some people would have to work under an employer until retirement. If you happen to fall in that category, you need to build your portfolio and get some work experience even as a teenager.
Finding a job that makes you money would certainly help you obtain some work experience. The work experience may not be related to your dream job in the future, but it will teach you what it feels like to be an employee.
3. Making Money As A Teen Builds Confidence
When you work a job you have never done before; you get an opportunity to learn something new and build a skillset. This helps to build confidence in you as a teenager. Knowing that you can now do things you couldn’t do in the past is enough to boost your self-confidence and make you more proud of yourself. When it’s time to apply for a better job in the future, you won’t feel timid or scared to approach your employer.
4. Making Money As A Teen Gives You Liberty To Make Purchases
Making your own money allows you to buy certain things for yourself. You don’t have to always ask your parents for lunch money or extra cash to get a cab. As long as you have a source of income, you can always take care of some personal expenses. There’s no denying that your folks would be very proud to see you make money and pay for your own expenses.
5. Making Money As A Teen Improves Your Saving Habits
Saving money is one of the good financial habits you can build as a teenager when you have a source of income. Having a job or side business that consistently generates money for you gives you the opportunity to save. You can have a separate account where you deposit your savings. But if you aren’t old enough to get a bank account, your parents can be of assistance. They can help you save your money.
Besides, it makes no sense to spend your entire paycheck without saving a few bucks. If you have certain financial goals to achieve, you should be motivated to save a portion of your earnings every month.
25 Ways To Make Money As A Teen
With so many ideas on the internet, building an active or passive income as a teenager is pretty achievable. You only need to find the right job or side business that suits you. By examining these various ways to make money as a teen, you should have a decent money-making idea to get you started:
How To Make Money As A Teenager Online
The online space continues to offer diverse opportunities to make money legitimately whether as a teen or even an adult. Except you are not spending much time on the internet, you shouldn’t be left behind. Here are some legit ways to make money as a teenager online:
1. Online Surveys
Completing online surveys with your smartphone is one of the simplest ways to generate money for yourself as a teen. It requires no experience or a set of tools to get started. All you have to do is accept surveys, complete them as directed, and wait for your earnings.
When you sign up on a credible platform like Survey Junkie, you can have access to multiple open surveys. Each survey would only take between 3 – 15 minutes to complete. This means you have more than enough time to complete as many surveys as possible to increase your earnings. Mind you, signing up on a platform like Survey Junkie is completely free.
2. Referral Programs
Taking advantage of referral programs online is one of the ways you can learn how to make money as a teen. There are many websites and online-based businesses that offer their users/customers the opportunity to refer new members and earn money for each referral.
Online services like Hostinger, Google Workspace, Swagbucks, and Ibotta run referral programs. By referring new users to these services, you can earn a decent amount of money weekly or monthly. Google Workspace, for example, offers between $8 to $23 per referral.
3. Freelance Writing
If you have a flair for writing, it’s high time you start making cool cash with your hobby. Becoming a freelance writer can be a profitable venture. By writing simple how-to articles, essays, and video scripts, you can make hundreds or even thousands of dollars at the end of the month. It’s one of the best-known ways for teens to make money online.
If you have a laptop, you can register on freelance platforms such as Fiverr or Upwork where you can offer your writing services to potential clients within and outside the US.
4. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing works just like referral programs. It is one of the best ways to make money as a teen. As an affiliate marketer, your sole responsibility is to refer customers to people’s products and then get paid for every sale you make. You can earn between 20-60% in commission.
For example, if you agree to a 40% commission, it means you will earn $40 for selling a hundred-dollar product. Affiliate is not even a job. It’s a lucrative business model that can make you a ton of money.
5. Website Designing
Designing websites for companies or personal brands can be a great way to make money. People pay as much as $5000 to design a website. Mind you; this depends on the complexity of the site you are building.
In less than 6 months, you can learn how to build a professional website from scratch using programming languages. There are paid and free online courses that you can enroll in to start learning. Once you become a pro, you should build an attractive portfolio and start bidding for jobs.
6. Brand Influencer
Becoming a brand influencer is one of the best ways to make money as a teenager. However, you must know that this would initially require a lot of hard work.
You actually have to build a large following on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Once you have tens of thousands of active followers, brands can start paying you for promotion. That’s how it works. If you like spending a lot of time on social media, you might want to consider doing this.
7. Blogging
Have you ever wondered how much bloggers make every month? You could earn as much as $5000 monthly from both Google Adsense and selling affiliate products. The key is to grow your blog exponentially, attracting thousands of visitors every day.
Getting started as a blogger is quite straightforward. All you have to do is choose a niche you can conveniently write on. Your niche can be almost anything; ranging from agriculture, tech, finance, or business. Notwithstanding, ensure you write on a relevant niche that can attract readers easily. If your niche is pretty interesting, your blog will grow faster and reach monetization requirements within a few months.
8. Virtual Assistant
One of the legit ideas to make money as a teenager online is getting a virtual assistant job. The good thing about this job is that it doesn’t require much work experience. As long as you are conversant with the internet and know how to work with little or no supervision, you can thrive in this role.
As a virtual assistant, you don’t have to leave your home. Using your laptop, you can work directly with your employer online, helping to complete simple tasks on behalf of your boss. Your salary can be reasonable as well. Virtual assistants can earn over a thousand dollars per month. Mind you; it’s usually a part-time job.
9. Sell Things On Etsy
Signing up on Etsy can help you learn how to make money as a teen from home. Etsy is an online marketplace where you can create and list products for prospects to buy.
One fantastic thing about this platform is that you can make money even if you don’t have any products to sell. This is possible due to the print-on-demand option offered by the company. This means you can create simple designs of clothing items and upload them to your online store.
Anyone interested in your design can place an order. Etsy will then go ahead to print and ship the product to the customer on your behalf. Meanwhile, you will get paid once the sale is successful.
How To Make Money As A Teen In Your Neighborhood
You don’t have to travel too far from your home every day to make money as a teen. Here are some helpful ideas to help you make money within your neighborhood:
10. Pet Sitting
If you love keeping pets around, you should consider offering pet-sitting services. It’s one of the ways to make money as a teenager in your neighborhood. You can talk to your neighbors and acquaintances living in your vicinity if they need someone to look after their dogs or cats.
This job pays around $11 per hour, and it’s usually best when you do it on weekends as a part-time job.
11. Lawn Care
If you know how to operate a mowing machine and take care of a lawn, you shouldn’t be worried about how to make money as a teen. There are so many senior citizens looking for someone to trim their gardens and sweep their lawns. Offering this lawn care service within your neighborhood is a great way to start making money legitimately.
This could be an after-school job that puts money in your pocket daily or weekly.
12. Deliver Food With Doordash
Doordash is a popular company that helps restaurants deliver food to customers. You can sign up as a Doordash driver, delivering food within your town.
On average, delivery men working with Doordash earn $15-$25 per hour. Employees are usually paid weekly via a secured direct deposit to their personal checking account. If you find a job opening for this role, you might not want to sleep on it.
13. Lifeguard At Your Local Pool
If there’s a pool in your neighborhood that dozens of people regularly visit to swim, you could apply to work as a lifeguard. Your job would be to oversee a group of swimmers, ensuring no one drowns or does anything inappropriate around the pool area.
It’s important to remember that you may need some swimming experience to be eligible for this job. After all, you can only rescue someone from the pool when you know how to swim as well.
14. Tutor
Being book-smart shouldn’t earn you good grades alone. You should earn some money as well.
You can work part-time as a home tutor for a few elementary school kids. Of course, you can achieve this within your neighborhood. You may have some parents who are willing to spend an extra $10 bucks hiring you to supervise their kids’ assignments and teach them a few things. This is definitely one of the easy ways to make money as a teenager.
15. Sell Your Stuff At Thrift Stores
If you have thrift shops in your neighborhood, you could make some money selling used items to the owners of these stores. If a home appliance or piece of furniture is no longer needed in your home, you should sell it. Mind you, selling used goods would usually be at a low price. Nevertheless, if the items you are selling are no longer useful, then you have nothing to lose.
16. Work At A Movie Theater
Sometimes, you may be lucky to find a part-time job at a movie theater in your town. This job is usually fun since the environment is always bubbling with interesting faces coming in to see the latest films. Let’s not even talk about the aroma of buttery popcorn that fills the air.
Aside from the fact that this is one of the easy ways to make money as a teen, you can always get discounts when you want to see a movie since you’re an employee.
17. House Cleaning Assistant
There are people who clean houses and offices for a living. If you know anyone who does this in your neighborhood, you can offer to work as an assistant. Using a vacuum cleaner or mopping a tiled floor won’t break your back. In fact, this is something you probably do at your house without getting paid. It wouldn’t hurt to earn a few bucks working as a house cleaning assistant.
How To Make Money As A Teen With A Part-Time Job
While figuring out how to make money as a teen, bear in mind that you don’t have to work long hours. Besides, you could still be in high school, which means you don’t have all the time in the world. Here are some part-time jobs you should consider:
18. Wash Cars
Do you know you can run a small car wash business? You actually don’t need a physical office or a large pavement where you wash cars. You can put up simple posters advertising your car wash services within your neighborhood. Anyone interested in hiring you can have their car washed at their home. It’s just like offering home services. In fact, some clients would even embrace the idea of washing their cars without driving out of their property.
19. Teach A Foreign Language
If you understand a second language, you can create a part-time job for yourself by teaching people online. Even if you don’t know a second language, you can actually teach English to people who aren’t from English-speaking countries.
For example, Chinese and Mexicans hoping to school or do business in the US might want to learn how to speak English. You could earn hundreds of dollars every week teaching these people remotely. It’s one of the virtual jobs you should consider if you want to learn how to make money as a teenager online.
20. Golf Course Maintenance
Sometimes, golf courses have job openings for teenagers who want to help around the course. You could be responsible for shagging balls from the driving range, moving the lawn, or assisting in the pro shop. Depending on your agreement with the employer, this could be a weekend or after-school job. Ensure you agree to terms that favor you.
21. Sell Stock Photos
If you love taking pictures, you have what it takes to make money. Some professional photographers can now sell their high-quality pictures via stock photo sites. This is one of the ways you can learn how to make money as a teen online.
If your photos are good enough, sites like 500px, Shutterstock, and Getty Images are willing to buy the license to your works. This is even much better than a part-time job. It’s just like having a passive income stream. Learn more about selling stock photos here.
22. Offer Swimming Lessons
Do you consider yourself a skilled swimmer? Then you should know how to make money as a teen. Some teenagers like yourself need to learn how to swim safely. By organizing swimming classes for some teens in your class or neighborhood, you can earn some money for yourself.
As time goes on, you should get a license to make your business more legitimate and formal.
23. Vlogging
If you enjoy documenting your hobbies or daily activities on video, then you are a vlogger and it’s something that can be monetized. When you join a streaming service like YouTube, you can make money from your published vlogs. However, monetization on YouTube doesn’t happen instantly. You have to reach certain requirements which include having 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours.
Since vlogging is something you do virtually, it’s one good way to learn how to make money as a teenager from home.
24. Become An Amazon Associate
If you have a good number of followers on social media, then you are on your way to learning how to make money fast as a teen.
You can promote Amazon products on your page with a unique link. You will get paid anytime someone purchases a product using your unique link. This is quite similar to affiliate marketing. You are simply earning commissions on the sales of products you promote as an Amazon Associate.
25. Flip Furniture
Flipping furniture is one of the most profitable ways you can learn how to make money as a teenager. It’s a simple business model that entails refurbishing old pieces of furniture and reselling them at a very good price.
From coffee tables to kitchen cabinets, you can revamp any of these household items to make them more appealing to new prospects. Meanwhile, you can make a ton of money doing this. For example, a piece of furniture worth $35 can be sold for $150 once it is properly refurbished.
Final Thoughts On How To Make Money As A Teen
You don’t have any reason to be a broke teenager, especially since there are so many opportunities for you to start earning money. By learning how to make money as a teen, you can easily stand out from other young folks who aren’t hustling. You can pursue some of your personal financial goals without depending on your parents. But most importantly, hustling for money teaches you how to be responsible for yourself.
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