SHARE ON

How Can a Teenager Make a Few Hundred Bucks Quickly?

by Jerry JuaMaking Money

Oct 24, 2020

SHARE ON

How Can a Teenager Make a Few Hundred Bucks Quickly?

When I was a teenager and younger, I used to make money doing lots of different things.

But, it would take me a few weeks to make a few hundred bucks, at least.

Now that I’m a bit older and smarter, I thought about some new ways to make a few hundred bucks quickly and put together this helpful article to explain it step by step.

So, how can a teenager make a few hundred bucks quickly? The easiest way is to sell some items you don’t need anymore. You can sell these pretty quickly on the different online marketplaces online such as Amazon, Ebay, Sheepbuy, and Craigslist. You can also do a job or a few jobs for other people and make a few hundred bucks quickly that way.

On top of that, you can buy some cheap items from a thrift store. Which you can often sell for double what you bought them for. So, read on where I will outline the steps you need to make a few hundred bucks quickly today.

Step by step guide to making a few hundred bucks quickly as a teenager

METHOD 1: Selling items online

You probably have some stuff around your home that you don’t mind selling. For example, I sold my guitar a few years back when I stopped playing it as much and focused more on another hobby.

In that case, I made $150 almost instantly when I took it down to the local pawn shop. Therefore, to make a few hundred bucks quickly, you want to:

a) Look at anything around your home that you don’t use much.

It could be a few things that are all unrelated. Yet, you could sell them all individually. But, before you sell them, you will want to read my full article on how to price the items so you get the most you can, so you and the customer are happy.

The article covers these topics in great detail. To do that, click on the below links to go to some great articles that explain these topics.

Where Can I Buy Cheap Stuff to Resell?

What Household Items Are Worth Money?

How to Price Used Items?

Whenever I’ve tried to sell a used item, I didn’t want online; it sold very fast. The key thing I did was to list it at just below what most people are charging. For example, if everyone is selling a second-hand iPhone 5s for $150, then list it for $120.

The discount makes it sell way quicker. So, in addition to the steps provided in the articles above, you want to see what others are selling theirs for and price yours a bit below.

That way, you won’t have to wait a few weeks to a month. The reason is that your online store won’t have as many reviews as the other stores, and most people go with the one with the most reviews.

Buying items to resell

Buying items to resell is a good method for making a few hundred bucks quickly. But, it takes more time than finding items around your house.

Because you have to go to the thrift store or other stores to find some inventory, you can resell for a good profit. This adds an extra step rather than sell items that are around your home.

And sometimes it can take a lot of leg work. Which you don’t have to do when you are selling products you no longer use.

However, once you’ve found them, it’s easy to sell them from the comfort of your home.

How to list your products for sale

Once you’ve found some products, you would like to sell. You want to list them online. It is the most efficient way to get the word out. Because online marketplaces already have a lot of users and visitors that go to their website. You can piggyback on them.

If you’re going the traditional route, then it means you have to do a lot more work. Like, putting up flyers and going to a local flea market.

All of the traditional methods take a lot more time and are very labor-intensive. That’s why I recommend listing them in an online marketplace. That way, you can sit at home and wait for customers to make inquiries online.

The best idea is to list your products on a few online marketplaces. There are lots of different ones, and some are better than others.

Here’s a list of the top online marketplaces in the:

USA

Canada

UK

It depends on the items you’re selling. For example, if what you’re selling needs to be inspected by the customer, then you should list it on a marketplace that is more local to your area.

At the risk of making this article 10,000 words long, I will leave it up to you to do a Google search for online marketplaces unique to your city.

Some websites make it really easy to register an account and begin selling. Others are very difficult.

The website you are on now is an online marketplace, where they offer a free account that gives you up to 3 listings on our website. The best part is when your items sell; there are no selling commissions or any hidden fees. All transactions are between buyers and sellers via Paypal. If you are interested in listing your items, click here, to the create account page. It’s very easy to set up.

You want to make your ads very attractive and write a description that will make the person want to buy it. This is a skill known as copywriting.

The best guide I have found for writing product descriptions is provided by SmartInsights.com.

It’s a simple way of formatting the information, and the way you describe that makes it much more appealing to your customers. And that will make your products sell faster.

If you’re going the service route such as cleaning, babysitting, or similar then you want to ask your friends and family if they know anyone who needs your services. You can also offer to do an hour for free, and see if they like your work.

Method 2: Selling a service, doing one-off jobs

Everyone can follow basic instructions and have some skills they picked up by doing chores while working for their parents at home or helping out family and friends.

Now that you’re a teenager and you’ve got some experience, you can charge people for your services.

You might feel a bit funny about doing it yet, everybody is completely comfortable helping out. The good news is there are also tonnes of jobs that people need help with for a good hourly rate online. You need to apply for enough of them until you get one.

You can find more than enough of these jobs on websites like Indeed.com. The best way to change the setting on there, so it only shows jobs that are ‘temporary’. I’ve included a screenshot below:

There will be some jobs that you don’t have the skills to do, so you might want to narrow down your search to a specific service, like house cleaning, car grooming, or garden maintenance.

Once, you search around on that website for half an hour or an hour you will get a good feel for what jobs are available. Then just apply once you’ve decided which ones to go for that suit you.

For example, you might not mind doing some general cleaning. An entry-level cleaner can make $20 an hour with no prior experience. So, you could work one of two days and make a few hundred bucks just like that.

How to sell a service

This is the other side of the same coin to bidding for gigs on websites like Indeed.com. Instead of you applying to jobs people post, you are enquiring as to whether people need your services.

When you do this, you have more control over what you are doing. This means that you don’t have to be at the whim of a boss. This is a more enjoyable way to make money because you can decide when and how you will work, rather than having to do what you are told. It’s also an important life skill that you can use for the rest of your life.

You first need to decide what you are going to offer. Some easy and good ones are:

Yard work (mowing lawns, adding compost)

For this, the person you are doing it for will usually provide all of the tools you will need. You just need to bring gloves. It’s nice because you work outside, in nature, which is very invigorating.

Car grooming – You can easily learn how to do an excellent job cleaning people’s cars, and you likely have all the items you need around your house. Since I used to do this myself and really enjoyed it, I’ll include some extra tips about how it works and what you can earn.

This will give you a real-life example of how offering your service would look and how you can use this or another service to make a few hundred bucks quickly:

You can get a bottle of professional cleaner for around $10, and the clothes you will need for $10.

Then you just need a vacuum, and you’re all set. From there, you can offer it as a service to your neighbors and friends. You can charge $50:

A full vacuum – 10 minutes.
Washing the exterior – you can take it to a carwash place – 15 minutes to drive there, 30 minutes to spray it wet, use the soap to soap down, and water blast the soap off.
Cleaning the windows inside and out – 10 minutes.
And cleaning all of the interior surfaces – 10 minutes.
Various cleaning of parts you missed and double-checking – 15 minutes.

All of that would take 2 hours or so since you’d be inexperienced. But, once you do a few, you’ll get good at it.

So, if you do four cars, you could easily make $200 very quickly. You could do all of the physical cleanings in one day or two days at the most. Then it will take a few days to get the word out and get some people that want you to clean their car for them.

I know myself because I used to be a car groomer. It’s a bit physically demanding but is very satisfying and straightforward.

You could ride your bike to their place and fill up a whole weekend day with work. Then after 8 to 10 hours, you would have $200.

For example, you could offer to clean your neighbor’s, friends, and family house. You can ask them what they need cleaned.

You also look around at the different car grooming companies and ask to work a day for them for free.

And then they would take you on at a solid hourly rate, about $15 an hour. So, the total time you spend it would take you maybe 4 to 5 days, to find the companies, give them a call, and then get taken on as a full-time employee.

Other jobs that I’ve done myself or heard good things about where you can make a few hundred bucks quick:

House cleaning.
Walking dogs.
Uber eats driving. In some states, you won’t be able to, but others, you can when you’re 16.

How to get your first small jobs for the service you are offering

This is a very easy way to get your foot in the door and get your first satisfied customer, which is the hardest part. If you’re unable to find anyone by asking friends and family, then begin looking on local job websites and Facebook groups.

Most communities have a few websites for your local area. These will be close to where you live. So, if you go on them, you can list your services. Examples of these can be found by doing a Google search for your suburb and service.

You can also put up local flyers for your services by making a simple document in Google Sheets. And then printing them off and putting them up around your area: on lamp posts, and in supermarkets.

This will be a bit harder if you live in a rural area because of how long it will take you to travel. I would suggest offering your services to local farmers or organic growers. They would love a young teenager to help them out around the place.

Final notes and helpful tips for making a few hundred bucks quickly

Generally, you want to help out with a big project that is already ongoing, such as a large catering event or a festival. If you ask around your friends, older brothers, sisters, and parents, you will easily be able to spend a few days on a job and make a few hundred bucks quickly.

For example, in a large catering event, you could help out by following instructions to prepare the food and carry it to the event. Another may be one of your dad’s friends might be a landscaper, and you could help him out doing a bit of digging and planting new plants.