Being a teenage entrepreneur can be tough. Making $50 per day can be equally tough as a teenager. If you aren’t 18 yet, you can’t make money online through avenues like eBay, Amazon, Shopify, or affiliate advertising. You even need to partner with an adult to monetize a YouTube channel. The good news is that there are still things you can do to make money.
1. Babysitting
Being a babysitter is a classic teenage job. As long as you’re responsible and trustworthy, parents will pay you to watch their kids for them. If you’re new to this side hustle, it helps to start out with people you know. You may even be able to talk your parents into paying you to watch your younger siblings. Once you have some experience watching your own family members, try reaching out to your community and see if there’s anyone you can help.
Word of mouth is the best way to get new clients as a babysitter. Pay can range from $15 to $20 an hour, so you can make an easy $50 as a teenager with this side gig. And if you want to expand your client base, Care.com even has a program for Teen Providers. With this program, teenagers between 13 and 17 years of age can sign up. You’ll need a parent or guardian to sign up with you and that helps keep things safe for everyone.
2. Wash Windows
This teenage side hustle is a little more labor intensive. Let us first mention that we don’t recommend for you to wash windows that are high up. You can find plenty of work to do on single story homes. If most of the homes in your area are more than one story, it’s a good idea to only clean the windows on the first floor.
With that said, washing windows can be a fun and rewarding way to make some extra side income. You can charge by the hour or by the window. If you charge by the window, you’ll make the same amount of money whether you finish the project in one hour or two, which is nice. Professional window cleaners charge between $5 and $10 per window or sliding glass door. At $5 per window, you could charge $50 to clean 10 windows. Professional window cleaners are able to do 10 windows in about an hour and a half. It might take you a little longer in the beginning, but you can certainly work up to that speed.
You need to do three basic things: buy supplies, learn how to clean windows, and get clients. For cleaning windows that are low to the ground, you can get by with a squeegee, extension pole, brush, bucket, cleaning fluids, and gloves. Practice on your own windows to make sure you can deliver a good service to your clients. When you’re ready to get clients, start by going door-to-door passing out flyers. You may be surprised by how many people need a good local window cleaner.
3. Teach Lessons
Are you really good at something? If you are, you can teach that skill to others and make some money while you’re at it. Music lessons and academic tutoring will always be popular. Math tutors can charge between $20 and $60 an hour or even more, and there’s nothing saying you have to be 18 or older to do it. Private music teachers also charge in the same range for their services.
What if you don’t have anything you feel you can teach? If that’s the case, try to pick up some piano or guitar yourself. You can go on YouTube to view free lessons on playing chords and simple songs. If you can just play one easy song, you can teach that to little kids.
Parents of small children often want their kids to take instrument lessons. However, at that age, it’s not about learning songs for performance. It’s just about learning something new. So even if you can’t teach intermediate piano to another teenager, you may be able to teach beginning piano to a six-year-old (some adults would even appreciate this service). You can then market yourself for beginners and not have to worry about mastering the instrument yourself. If done correctly, it’s very likely you’ll pull in at least $50 per day as teenager, especially a well trained and enthusiastic one.
4. School Referee
If you like sports, being a referee may be a rewarding way to earn some extra money. Referee requirements vary based on the league, state, and sport. To start training to be a soccer referee, you need to be at least 12 years old. You start at grade 9 and move through to grade 5 the longer you’re a referee, but grades 6 and 5 are inaccessible to people under age 18. Each grade level requires a class and a certification by your local sports organization.
The better your grade, the higher you get paid for games. Pay can vary widely depending on the district and whether you referee for private or public schools. If you’re a referee at the high school level, you can expect to make about $50 per game. On most days, you’ll only have one game. But sometimes you’ll be able to referee tournaments that give you the potential to make at least $50 per day as a teenager.
8 Legit Ways to Make $50 Per Day as a Teenager: 1 - Babysitting, 2 - Wash Windows, 3 - Teach Lessons, 4 - School Referee, 5 - Neighborhood Lawn Care, 6 - Car Detailing, 7 - Gold Caddy, 8 - Digitize Photo Albumns #SideHustle Click To Tweet5. Neighborhood Lawn Care
One of the worst things about having a lawn is having to mow it. It’s like a beard on the ground. You have to maintain it otherwise things can get out of hand. If you have access to a lawnmower, you can offer to ease this burden for homeowners.
If you really want to go all out, you can invest a little money in a mower of your own, a leaf blower, and a grass edger. That way, you can really make someone’s yard shine. However, as a teenager, you may not have access to the kind of capital to start a large operation. Another option is to see if the people in your neighborhood will let you use their own yard equipment. You can offer to refill the gas in their mower each time you use it as well. Angie’s List says most homeowners pay between $30 to $80 for a lawn service. Keep in mind, this can include edging and weeding. Since you’re just starting out it’s reasonable to charge $15 to $25 per lawn. Once you get your first couple of clients, other people in the neighborhood will see you working and may ask you to work on their yards.
If you’re charging $15 per lawn, it would take 4 lawns to make $60. Considering that the average lawn takes 30 minutes to mow, you could reach this goal in a day if you had enough clients. The great thing about lawns is that they keep growing, so you can expect to return to the same lawns each week during the warm months.
6. Car Detailing
This is another service you can offer as a teenager. Professional car detailing services often include a wash, wax, interior vacuum, interior polish, and tire cleaning. If you offer all those services, you could charge $50 per vehicle and be competitively priced. You could even offer mobile services and travel to your client’s home to wash and clean their car.
If you just wash and vacuum a car, you can still charge $15 to $20 per car and make some decent money. The trick with this side hustle is to schedule your appointments in a row so you make the best use of your time.
7. Golf Caddy
If you like golf, being a caddy is a great way to enjoy the sport and make a good side income. Since being a caddy isn’t very labor intensive, state laws often allow it as one of the earliest jobs you can do. In fact, you can be a caddy in Colorado at 9 years old (but you can’t drive the golf cart).
Caddies typically make between $11 and $15 an hour, but the work schedule is great while you’re in school. You’ll most likely have a four- to six-hour shift at a golf course and will walk away with at least $50 each day, which isn’t too shabby for a teenager, right?. Golf courses are popular on the weekends so that’s when most of your shifts will be. Another perk is the ability to accept tips. Caddies wait on the players’ needs for two hours or more at a time, and players are allowed to tip handsomely.
8. Digitize Photo Albums
Not many people think about this side hustle but it’s completely doable for teenagers. Today, most of our photos are already digital. But what about your parent’s wedding photos? Or old family photos in the attic? Many people have old photos that are only in physical form. If there were to be a house fire or flood, all of those memories would be lost.
That’s where you come in. All you need is a scanner and a computer and you can offer to digitize people’s photo albums for them. Professional digitizing services often charge between 50 and 90 cents per photo scanned. A photo album with 300 photos would cost $150 to digitize at 50 cents a photo. This will easily get you to $50 per day as an eager teenager.
Of course, these services include professional scans at very high resolutions. If you’re working with a regular office scanner, you can still make a good digital image and charge between 30 and 50 cents per photo. Average wedding albums have 60 to 120 photos, while old family albums can have 300 or more. If you charged 30 cents per photo, you could make $90 digitizing an album with 300 photos. Depending on the size of the photo, you could scan a few at a time and increase your efficiency. Once you have the process down, this side hustle is all about getting clients. You can use flyers to get the word out in your community and word of mouth to find more people with old photo albums.
Looking for more side hustle ideas? Be sure to check out our Master List of 92 Side Hustle Ideas to get your hustle juices flowing.