How to save money as a teenager without a job is important to learn. The best way is to learn the virtue of saving as early and quickly as possible. As soon as teenagers learn how to keep the money they have, they are on their way to having great savings without working.
When I was a teenager, my mom instilled great personal finance habits onto me. She would oftentimes say the words, “do you even know how much money that is?” to me. It would be something like $50. That’s when I learned that $50 is a lot of money.
Therefore, I saved every money that I possibly could. I kept an envelope that I kept in my desk drawers that no one could touch. I never touched that money. It had something like $250 in it and it meant the world to me. I protected it with my life.
I didn’t realize it at the time but that would fuel the personal finance motivation in me that I never ever let go of, to this day. That’s when I learned how to save money as a teenager without a job because it’s more than possible to do so.
Wealth is built through savings. There’s not a single rich person in the world who doesn’t have savings to boot. They practiced frugality and did it better than many others who had the same advantages as they did, but failed to implement the right behavioral personal finance characteristics to get there.
The right foundation starts off young, when we are teenagers.
How to Save Money as a Teenager Without a Job
Below are the concrete ways on how to save money as a teenager without a job. It’s more than possible.
1) Have a Piggy Bank
I used to have a golden colored piggy bank to store all of my coins in. It was golden colored as a symbol of good luck and I adored that piggy bank with my life. Whenever I came home from school, I stared at it and it gave me a sense of pride on how much money was building in there.
How to save money as a teenager is easier when you actually have a place to store all of that money. As an adult, we store it in our bank accounts. As a teenager, it’s much better if we physically see where all that money is stored. It’s better for teenagers in psychological terms.
There’s a reason companies sell softwares written on a CD inside of a big large box. A software in intangible. However, when we actually see a product, it’s more enticing. When we store our money in the bank account, it’s not that exciting.
Having a piggy bank is one way to psychologically encourage saving money. Saving money and knowing that you’re getting wealthier just feels very good.
2) Start Side Hustles
This is NOT a traditional job. This is not paid employment. Side hustle is something that teenagers can do for fun that happens to make money. This is no different than when someone goes into “early retirement” that happens to work on projects that make money.
How to save money as a teenager without a job means starting side hustles. There’s tons of potential to make money these days, with the invention of the internet. There’s always something around the house you can sell on eBay or some service that someone needs.
Side hustles as a teenager are great because no one really says no to a teenager when they’re selling something. We trust the naive and the young ones because they’re not really smart enough about the world to know how to take advantage of someone else.
That’s the biggest differentiator as a teenager entrepreneur who wants to make money to save. It’s much easier to get a yes.
3) Save Every Birthday Money
We all love it when grandma gives us that extra $10. Or when your uncle gives that rare $50 gift once in a blue moon for when they come to visit. It’s very common in the Korean culture to give money to the young ones when the adults come to visit.
Let’s not even forget Christmas gifts where money is a common gift to give to a child or even toys. Birthday moneys are a great way to save money. As teenagers, you don’t really have expenses. Your expenses are mostly covered by your parents anyway.
How to save money as a teenager without a job involves saving every other money that you get from time to time. Over a given year, there’s actually a quite a lot of money that you can save up. By the end of my high school years, I saved close to $5,000 without having a job.
The money really does add up over the years.
4) How to Save Money as a Teenager Without a Job? Eat at Home
There are many teenagers who think that if they have money, they should spend it all. That’s the classic American consumerist culture. Once you have money, you feel a sense of *power*. Like you actually have some independence to play around with.
That’s not the case. You shouldn’t be eating out if your mom’s cooking is superior, anyway. How to save money as a teenager involves taking full advantage of shelter provided by mom and dad. Including room and board. Once you go out in the real world, you realize just how expensive all of that is.
I never ate out and if I did eat out, it was because my parents were treating me to it. Otherwise, I was completely happy eating the delicious home cooked meals that my mom prepared. It was one of the healthiest eating I’ve ever done.
There’s no need to be a “rebel” and eat out at restaurants. They have a huge markup they charge to customers.
5) Negotiate an Allowance
This is something I regret not doing as a teenager. I NEVER negotiated an allowance because I never figured out how to ask for something that I want. It was one of my biggest regrets because many of my friends were getting allowances left and right.
I was always jealous when they got their GameBoy Advance they could play Pokemon on. The latest Pokemon game I ever played was Emerald. It’s still one of my fondest memories, to this day. How to save money as a teenager involves using your negotiation skills.
Even if you get a no, you get a chance to see what it takes to negotiate to get what you want. No one in the world will ever just give you what you want. They have to eat too. You’ll have to fight and ask for it and convince them to do so. We live in a “what have you done for me lately” world.
Getting that persuasion skills up will do more in the later years than any technical knowledge you can learn.
6) Sell Things Around the House
Your parents have lots of things sitting around that you can sell. Things that they were going to throw away otherwise. Clothes, old electronics, and the like. It’s surprising what kinds of things that people will pay money for. The first item that eBay ever sold was a broken laser.
eBay even reached out to the buyer so they know that it was a broken laser and the buyer said he didn’t mind. He was a collector. There’s many things around the house that you can sell. How to save money as a teenager without a job requires creativity to get there.
Sales is the most important skill that someone can learn in this world. If you can sell, you will never be without a job. Businesses and people will always want and need good people who can sell things and make a profit. Money is what makes a company great, after all.
Selling skills are valuable and especially more so when you learn it early.
7) Open a Savings Account
Many of my teenager friends back then did not own a bank account. I was one of the only ones, getting a head start on my personal finance journey. A savings account really makes a difference in your savings psyche. Sure, it’s better to save money as a teenager with a physical piggy bank.
However, once the numbers get bigger and bigger, it’s better to hold that money in a savings account where it’s FDIC insured. It’s much safer and actually, banking is one of the reasons why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
How to save money as a teenager is much easier once you actually scale your money to higher heights. There are teenagers making boatloads of money without having a job these days. Teenagers have the time to think of ideas to make money on and execute on that plan.
Once that revenue number goes up, then it’s time to store that money in a traditional savings account.
8) Avoid Impulse Purchases
Companies are PHENOMENAL at knowing what makes teenagers tick. One of my biggest addictions as a teenager was Yu-Gi-Oh cards. When I was at Wal-Mart with my Mom, I couldn’t help but ask her to buy me Yu-Gi-Oh cards. The shiny upfront cards in neat packaging was enticing, to say the least.
I bugged my mom to spend hundreds of dollars in Yu-Gi-Oh cards that I don’t even use today. How to save money as a teenager requires you to avoid impulse purchases at the store. Companies know what makes teenagers tick. Shiny new objects combined with “cool” looking graphics.
When you’re a teenager, that’s what you care about. You just care about what you gain, which is that shiny new toy, instead of caring about what you give up, which are hard earned dollars. It really makes a difference when you actually understand what goes on in the world.
It’s quite evil what companies do to target children so they can sell more products to them at the expense of mom and dad. Quite cruel.
9) How to Save Money as a Teenager Without a Job? Take Up Side Gigs
This isn’t a formal W-2 employment. Side gigs are anything besides a traditional job that forces you to be there at a certain time. Side gigs are on the rage these days for even adults. There’s nothing wrong with taking side gigs as a teenager, as well.
There’s one teenager who went on Shark Tank as a teenager Lacrosse player, Rachel Zietz, who brought in six figures worth of revenue. That’s unheard of for an adult, and even more unheard of for a teenager. Side gigs are available everywhere and especially for teenagers.
Your age has nothing to do with business. All you have to do is figure out how to add value to someone else and sell that value to them. More people will be willing to pay for your services than you think. How to save money as a teenager means figuring out creative ways to earn money.
There’s more ways to earn money than through a traditional job.
How to Save Money as a Teenager Without a Job
How to save money as a teenager without a job has nine possibilities to take advantage of. Teenagers actually have the best and greatest potential to make and save wild money because they have so much time on their hands. Once they get into college and get a job, it’s much harder.
Side hustle ideas just come easier to teenagers than for adults. When you start exhibiting good personal finance habits early in life is when you position yourself up for success. When you are in college, you won’t have time to think about side ways to earn money.
You will ask questions like is finance a good major to major in? Therefore, there’s nothing wrong with taking advantages when you actually have the advantages yourself. The opportunities and potential are limited. There is an endless supply of teenagers who squander their potential and talent.
You shouldn’t be one of them. There’s no need to spend every birthday money that you have on toys that’s only going to give you value for a single year or worse, just a month. You want to make something of your life. You don’t want to be just another cog in the machine.
Saving money is the cornerstone of every wealthy person. When you learn how to save money as a teenager without a job and actually implement what you learned, then you are on the way to greatness. It’s possible to be in the top 1% of your age group.
In fact, it’s not even hard to be up there.
How to Save Money as a Teenager Without a Job 9 Shortlist
- Have a piggy bank
- Start side hustles
- Save every birthday money
- How to save money as a teenager without a job? Eat at home
- Negotiate an allowance
- Sell things around the house
- Open a savings account
- Avoid impulse purchases
- How to save money as a teenager without a job? Take up side gigs
