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How Teens Can Get Their First Job and Start Investing

Help your Children to Land Their First Job and to Start Investing

If you are a regular reader of our blogs then you will know that we regularly cover financial self-help articles. In this article, we are going to focus on how teens can get their first job and start investing early in their life.

We have covered the need for investment quite in-depth in our earlier articles. Just to revise it here, investment is the secret to wealth generation. If you wish to generate wealth in your life and have at least over a million dollars when you retire, then you will simply have to learn the basics of investment.

Personal Financial Management

I have personally seen a lot of people who do not understand the importance of investment till their late 20s, some don’t even get it in their 30s. Of course, there is no age to learn and even if you start learning about investing in your late 30s, you should be encouraged to do so, there should be no shame in it. But the best time to learn it is in your teenagers because in your teens you do not have the pressure or responsibilities to inhibit your growth. At this age, you can take risks that can end up paying off well.

Bootstrapping Through Parents

But you cannot just invest out of thin air. Unless you have parents who are willing to invest their savings, but parents should not be too willing to invest in the ventures that their teenage children come up with. Why? Firstly because parents need to save up for their own retirement and secondly because till teenagers earn their own money, they will not realize the importance of considering risks before investing.

As the old saying goes, you can only truly care for the water you drink when you have to carry it for miles from the river. The same goes for money. If the teenagers know that they have got an unlimited supply of funds from their parents, they will become reckless in their investments and are not likely to learn from their mistakes.

A wise parent, however, would encourage his/her children to save their own money before they get to college or after they finish college, whichever they choose.

For an idealistic teenager to start investing, the parent must do some preparatory work before they start investing. That includes making sure that the teenager is in a place of having money to invest. To be honest with you, if you are earning a monthly income and if you wish to get more, the best time to start investing is when you are employed and have some discretionary income.

Setting Up a Source of Income

So before you can invest, you need to have a job. Fortunately, we are living in a world that is undergoing transformation and earning income is becoming easier, as long as you have some sort of skill or talent. There are many ways in which teenagers can start earning their income.

We have discussed some of these methods in earlier articles. We`ll repeat those ways here for the sake of completeness.

  • Look for summer internships. Internships are some of the easiest ways to get a job. They may not pay much but when you are a teenager, you have the luxury of saving everything you earn.
  • Look for summer jobs at restaurants, libraries and other establishments. If you really want to earn some money then you can find plenty of temporary jobs. Throw your ego out of the park, there are many billionaires who started out by flipping burgers. There is no shame in earning money, as long as you are doing it honestly.

The thing is that when you are a teenager, you are not likely going to have specialised skills. So you will have to start with low paying jobs. There is however another way for teenagers who have special skills. In fact, these days most teenagers have got digital skills that can be used to earn way more money than they can think of.

Easy Ways to Start Earning For Teenagers

As we said earlier, the world is undergoing transformation. Teenagers these days are tech savvy and have skills that can be used to freelance and earn a lot of money.

  • If you have got web development skills, you can easily freelance on online platforms and earn money by designing and redesigning websites. As you work your skills will simply get better and you will be able to charge a higher rate.
  • If you are into graphic editing and designing, you can create 3D art and provide logo making and picture editing services.
  • Like to stream? You can now play and earn. If you have got the talent then you can set up your streaming channel and earn through it while playing games. It seriously cannot get better than this. There is no limit to what you can do to earn, there are niches and sub niches that you can look into. Like to play chess? There is a whole niche of chess players earning thousands of dollars by playing chess online.
  • Feeling a bit overwhelmed, feel like you don’t have any talent? Well till you get your confidence up, you can earn money by taking surveys online on sites like Survey Monkey.
  • You can set up your own blog and promote products through affiliate marketing.
  • If you have got a good number of followers on social media, you can monetize this following by becoming an influencer. It is a risky road to tread though, many young influencers end up getting “high on fame”. The key is to use your social media following for productive uses.

This list can go on and on. The point is to nudge you in the right direction. There are many ways to start earning your income. Look for what suits you and do not be hasty. As long as you work hard with honesty, money will come.

Once money starts rolling in, you will then need to think about saving and investing it. For the sake of this article, we are going to skip over the budgeting and saving part and talk directly about the investment options. To read more about budgeting and saving, please check some of our earlier articles in this category.

Earn, Save and Invest!

So just like there are plenty of ways to earn, there are plenty of ways to invest. You can invest in both traditional and the more unorthodox ways of investment.

  • If you are under 18, you can ask any of your elders to open a trustee account with any stock broker, on your behalf so that you can invest your earnings into stocks. Stock investment requires years of learning and experience, so the earlier you start the better it will be for you.
  • If you do not want to take risks with your money, then you can invest into gold and other precious metals. You may need considerable amount of savings though. The current price for 10g gold is around 580 USD.
  • You can also use a trustee account, if you are under 18 to invest into ETFs and mutual funds.
  • You can invest into cryptocurrency if you can somehow get access to a crypto wallet.
  • Alternatively you can take the entrepreneurial route and save up your income to invest in a business of your own. With a few hundred dollars you can set up your own site, get an app and experience how it feels to run a startup. Remember, the younger you are, the more risk you can take.

So don`t waste your teenagers, plan ahead for your future, get in the habit of working hard but yes don`t forget to have fun either.

Australia Unwrapped provides only general and not personalized financial advice and in no way has taken your circumstances into account. Investments go up and down; any questions, talk to a financial advisor. This blog is opinion only, and in no way should investment decisions be based on this information.

Australia Unwrapped does not endorse or vouch for the accuracy or authenticity of postings, comments or the article.

Main Image Source: Pixabay

Also See: How to Teach Kids About the Power of Investment

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