9 Best Side Hustles For Teens

It’s finally time to look at the best side hustles for teens

Your life may have started quite hectic at the time of your teenagerhood. Between school and family obligations, activities and extra-curricular, hanging out on the couch with friends, and having an adequate amount of sleep, the day seems to be over. 

Young adults today are busy and many are happy to earn some extra money. Summer jobs are an incredibly popular teenager career and often last just a few days or months a year or two. But every teenager wants good and consistent money, and that’s where side hustles for teens come into the picture.

1.0 What Is a Side Hustle

A Side Hustle has become a famous term used by many, but what is it exactly? It’s a way of making money outside of your daily 9 to 5 job or beside your part-time job (if you are a teenager). Said in another way, a side hustle is making money from somewhere else than your regular income source.

2.0 Is It Worth Having A Side Hustle as a teenager?

It depends. If you already have a job with a sky-high salary (I mean extremely high), then a side hustle might not be worth the hassle. But that’s rarely the case, often you are dependent on your low-paying job. And especially as a teenager, the salary is nothing to celebrate.

I would say if one lives at his/her parent’s house, I would 100% go for a side hustle. If someone had just told me how much time I had at my disposal when I was a teen, I would change everything.

Not only can a side hustle be a foundation that can help you earn money if you lose your job, but it can also be turned into a full-time business.

3.0 Best Side Hustles For Teens in 2022

Before starting your side hustle, tell your parents about it, since they may have to be the ones receiving the payments. For instance, you cannot accept money from external providers through PayPal if you are under 18. But without further ado, let’s jump into the 9 best side hustles for teens.

3.1 Selling Patterns Online

Teenagers are often characterized as lazy, and if you are one of those, then here’s a side hustle idea for you. All it requires is a computer and some imagination.

Go to design software like Canva and make creative patterns, and then download them as PNG files.

The PNG files should then be uploaded to an online marketplace like Etsy, where you can sell them for anywhere between $3 to $10. Make sure to make a package of different patterns, since they sell better.

As you can see some of these patterns have been sold above 7,000 times. And if you are really lazy, and don’t want to create the patterns yourself, then I’ve made a whole article covering how you can make 100s of patterns a day with almost no effort.

3.2 Sell digital products

Another side hustle for teens is selling digital products. This one might take a longer time to get going, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

3.2.1 So what’s a digital product?

Digital products are many things, but they all have in common that they can be shared online. They can be electronic goods, media, or other kinds of content that can be shared through a file online. You may have stumbled into digital products without even knowing. It can be ebooks, videos, PNGs, PDFs, audio, images, templates, etc.

Benefits of digital products

• High-profit margins — It costs next to nothing if even anything to sell more copies of your digital product
• No inventory — You don’t need an inventory for storing your products
• Limitless — You are not restricted to 24 hours a day. By selling digital products you are working, while sleeping.

Here are some examples of digital products to consider:

Templates and tools

If you are great at structuring and designing things, then this one could be ideal for you; Excel templates. It might sound boring, but many people will pay for valuation models, automated budgets, calendars, dashboards, portfolios, etc. These can all be made in excel.

Or maybe you feel more creative, then selling PowerPoint or Canva templates might fit you better. Figure out where your creative competencies are located, and then pick the templates you want to create.

Educational files

Educational files can be documents or videos where the customer can acquire knowledge within a specific field. Think about any topic that you know a lot about, it can be investing, kids, tech, strategy, health, art, music, psychology, cars, cooking, etc. As long as you feel you can provide your audience with some knowledge they need to come from a to b, then go for it.

I love educational files and have been selling many of them, for instance, my eBook below.

Entertainment

You might think of YouTube instantly when reading entertainment, and I get you. This is a go-to because it is easy to create and it is free. However it can be difficult to get monetized on the platform, but that is another story. If you succeed on the platform this is a great “digital product” to pursue.

If you like editing and recording videos, you could sell trailers or intro videos that people could download. Or videos where customers can apply the text to them in order to give them a personal touch. Entertainment is not only videos, it can be almost anything — the possibilities are endless.

3.3 Monetization

Maybe you are gifted with parents who’ve bought you a lot of cool stuff, or maybe you worked your butt off to buy yourself the newest PlayStation, and that makes room for the third side hustle.

Before entering this one, be sure your parents are alright with it, especially if they are the ones who provided you with things you are going to monetize.

Yup, you should try renting out games, computers, PlayStation, clothing, watches, etc. to people you trust. I bet you have some stuff you don’t use that often, but who knows, maybe only a few blocks down a little boy would like to invite his mates over for a FIFA night – but he sadly has no PlayStation. You could rent your PlayStation to this boy for $30 a night or even more.

An easy and profitable side hustle for a teen to start.

3.4 Tech Repair

The demand for iPhone repairs is quite stable and has been for the last 5 years.

Learning how to fix iPhones is a lucrative side hustle for teens. Personally, I handed my own iPhone to a 12-year-old boy and got a perfect working iPhone back later the same day. I paid $100 for his service, and that’s great money for people at his age.

Try watching YouTube videos or find guides on the internet on how to fix different iPhone problems. When you’ve learned the basics and feel confident trying it out on family’s or friends’ phones, then start promoting your services.

You could use Facebook or just put up posters in your local area. If you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors, offer an “if you live within a 5 km. radius, I’ll pick up your phone and deliver it again”. That’s something I would pay for. It’s a perfect side hustle for teens if you ask me.

3.5 Cleaning Cars

Many people love their cars and they want to keep them clean, but often people are too exhausted to clean their cars when they have a day off. That’s your opportunity. Promote yourself in your local neighborhood and knock on people’s doors and explain to them that you’d like to clean their cars for maybe $50.

A great way to bring in consistent money is to offer them a subscription package;

• 2 cleanings a month $95
• 1 cleaning every week + interior vacuuming; $175

Use your imagination to come up with some creative subscription packages. Not only will it bring in consistent money, but also make you differentiate from the competition.

3.6 Shoveling Snow

This is more of a season-based side hustle since it requires snow. But it can quickly turn into a lucrative side hustle. Maybe offer the 10 people on your street to remove snow from their driveway at 5 am in the morning through the winter months.

Charging between $50 to $100 a month would bring in $1,500 to $3,000 in three months if you manage to get in deals with 10 houses. If someone wants you to clear their driveway multiple times a day, then bump up the price.

People don’t want to do it themselves, and getting people to do it is expensive, but since you are a teen, they can pay you only $50 to $100 a month which is pretty cheap.

Experiment with your offers, and make them personalized.

3.7 Help older people with tech

Many elder people don’t know how to use a computer or iPhone properly. Teaching them the basics could earn you some decent money.

Meet up with a customer who needs help and ask what he/she needs help with. If they don’t know, then make sure you’ve prepared a session before arriving. It’s crazy how little the elderly expect before they are almost jumping off their chairs in just pure happiness.

I’ve fixed my grandma’s computer +20 times, and she is equally happy every time. She wants to pay me, but I never let her, since it’s my grandma. But finding people like my grandma could be a lucrative side hustle for teens.

3.8 Write on Medium

This is a side hustle I’ve been having huge success with. I earn between $1,000 to $2,000 every month from it, and it is quite simple, but it takes dedication.

Writing on Medium only requires you to have a computer and a willingness to write and provide value for people. You can write about everything from the history of Mongolia to self-improvement tips.

The only thing that you need to know is you are required to have at least 100 followers before you can apply for the partner program, which you must be a part of before you can earn money.

But don’t let that threshold hold you back, since you can obtain 100 followers in less than a week. I did it in 7 days on my first profile and only 5 days on my second profile.

You are getting paid for the amount of time people are spending on your articles. Not only that, but you can get consistent income from referring members to the site. Currently, I’ve referred above 60 members, which gives me above $130 each month from doing nothing.

If you want the ultimate guide to success on Medium, then read this article.

3.9 Help people sell their stuff

The last side hustle for teens is about helping people sell their stuff. Think about it – a lot of people either don’t know how to sell their stuff online (especially the elderly), and others don’t want to put in the low effort it takes to sell things.

Knocking on doors and offering people the opportunity to hand you the things they don’t use anymore, and then you’ll sell their items for them, is a great side hustle. Afterward, you go back to the people you managed to sell for and hand them 50% of the profit. Out of nowhere you just earned yourself 50% of the profit from only selling free stuff.

Definitely a great side hustle for teens, and one I’ve been trying out myself.

4.0 Should You Pay Taxes From Your Side Hustle

Easy tiger, you don’t need to register for an LLC, but you must still pay taxes from your side hustle.

In relation to taxes, a good practice is to set aside 35% of the profit for taxes. On the other side, it also depends on your country’s tax rules.

• In the United States, the self-employment tax rate is 15.3% The rate consists of two parts: 12.4% for social security and 2.9% for Medicare (hospital insurance).

• Then some states also have a state income tax, and if you live in one of those, that can add an additional 0.33% to 13.3% to your taxes.

All in all, yes you should pay taxes from your side hustle.

5.0 Final Thoughts

Don’t forget that starting early will allow you to build a portfolio of skills that will benefit you long after you turned 20. In addition, if you invest some of the profits from your side hustles you’ll also be much better off than your peers when talking money.