Wealth Creation: How Your Kids Can Earn Money
Here are some clever ideas showing how your kids can earn money. They can do most or all of the work themselves, but sometimes they may need a little help. In addition to earning extra money, these ideas can help your children learn responsibility and a work ethic.
Types of work for teenagers. — Some of the following items are typical teen jobs you can get for yourself. You can advertise your services in the local newspaper or on the craigslist website. Other items are jobs you can do for commercial employers.
1. Applying Decorations to Clothes: Stay on top of the latest teen fashions, then apply the appropriate decorations to other people’s clothes for a fee.
2. Babysitting: This is a popular job for teenagers, especially girls.
3. Packing groceries – Go to local grocery stores to get this type of work.
4. House Cleaning: Advertise this service to get a job. The elderly and the reclusive could be a good source of employment.
5. Redeemable Bottle Collection: Some states charge a deposit on beverage containers. You can pick them up and drop them off for a deposit refund.
6. Gardening – Many people enjoy having a garden, but may not be willing or able to do the work required.
7. Delivering newspapers: This is a popular job for teenagers, especially boys.
8. Party entertainment: If you have a talent for entertaining people, you could advertise your services. Maybe you want to be a clown or an elf.
9. Grooming the elderly and reclusive: Everyone likes to look their best, but they may not be able to take care of themselves.
10. Growing vegetables: You can grow vegetables and sell them at local supermarkets or fruit stalls.
11. Mending Clothes: Active kids often rip their clothes or lose buttons. You can advertise this service and make good money.
12. Mowing the lawn: This is a popular job for teenagers, especially boys. You can earn more money if you have your own lawn mower. Just walk around the neighborhood looking for work during grass growing season.
13. Fruit picking: This is a seasonal job done by orchard owners. The faster you can pick fruit (carefully), the more money you can earn.
14. Provide a babysitter referral service: You can ask for qualified babysitters and store their contact information on your home computer. Charge the babysitter a fee when you refer her to people who need her services.
15. Provide a typing service – If you have a home computer with a laser printer and word processing software, you can provide a typing service for students and small businesses. (Be sure to run the spell checker and grammar checker before printing your work.)
16. Provide an online research service: If you like doing research online, you can sell your services to authors, small businesses, students, and websites.
17. Pull the weeds: This can be a good way to earn some money, but make sure you wear work gloves.
18. Raking Leaves — When the leaves start to fall, someone has to rake them into piles and/or place them in leaf bags.
19. Furniture Refinishing and/or Repair: You can advertise to remove old furniture at no cost. After you repair and restore the furniture, sell it at a flea market or your own lawn sale.
20. Run Errands for the Elderly and Homebound: When people are homebound, you might get paid to run their errands.
21. Shovel the snow: After the snow stops, break out your snow shovel. Ask your neighbors if they will pay you to shovel snow from their sidewalks and driveways.
22. Teach people to use computers — Most young people know how to use computers. They can teach their skills to seniors for a fee.
23. Student Tutoring – If you are very good at certain subjects and can tutor other students, you can earn money as a tutor.
24. Dog Walking: If you live in a big city, there are probably a lot of people who pay you to walk their dog. The more dogs you can handle at once, the more money you can earn.
25. Work as a retail store clerk: Go to the retail stores in your city and leave your contact information. Visit stores every two weeks or so.
26. Work as a shipping department clerk: Go to places that have a shipping department and leave your contact information. Visit them every two weeks or so.
27. Work at a fast food restaurant – Go to fast food restaurants every two weeks or so. You will probably be hired eventually.
28. Wrap Christmas Gifts: Many department stores offer a gift-wrapping service. If you have the required skills, you can get a seasonal job.
Rules about jobs for teenagers.
The US has federal and state rules that govern teen workers. For most types of work, you must be at least 14 years old; but working hours and conditions may be restricted if you are under 16 years of age. Also, you may need to obtain a work permit. There are separate rules that cover farm work.
These age restrictions generally do not apply to traditional youth employment, such as child care and newspaper delivery.
Ways to look for work from employers
There are several ways to search for jobs available. You can search places where employers post their vacancies. Some examples would be the “help wanted” section of newspaper classifieds and the “jobs” section of Craigslist.org for the desired city.
You can visit trading companies in your local area to see if they have job openings. You may want to leave your name, age, address, and phone number if the business looks appealing.
You can ask your family and friends if they know of any potential job openings that might be right for you.
Job search websites
These job search websites are an easy way to do your job search. When a website has a search box that allows keywords, you can usually enter “teenager” as a keyword. This allows you to search for teen jobs instead of adult jobs.
http://JobSearch.About.com Ways for teens to find jobs.
http://www.Teens4Hire.org They claim to be “The #1 Career and Recruitment Website for American Teens.” You must register on the site before getting information about available jobs.