How to Make Money as a 13 Year Old in 2023 (15 Ways)

When you’re thirteen years old, you have the energy and enthusiasm to start making your way in the world, but it can be frustrating how limited your opportunities might be.

After all, most companies like grocery stores and fast food restaurants have lower age limits on who they will hire.

Even if you are mature, hard working, and conscientious, hiring managers won’t take you seriously until you are a bit older.

What Should You Know About Working as a 13 Year Old?

One huge thing to remember when you’re looking for work is to be very professional. Some people will be tempted not to take you seriously, so you need to behave professionally.

Have your prices thought out, and you may even want to print up business cards. Ask you parents or guardians for assistance with this.

Always do an excellent job, be polite, and communicate well. If you do these things, people will be lining up to hire you to work for them.

As you plan your pricing strategy, ask for help in calculating your expenses so that you get a fair wage for your work.

Just because you’re 13 doesn’t mean that you should get stiffed in payment. You may also want to set up a Venmo and Paypal account so that people can easily pay you.

Consider whether you should ask for a deposit before you start the work so that you do not get taken advantage of.

How to Find Jobs for a 13 Year Old

It can be challenging to find work as a 13 year old, but there are plenty of opportunities if you’re willing. You will have to put yourself out there though, letting your neighbors, friends, and relatives know you’re looking for work.

You can also use social media to advertise your services.

Ask your parents to network with their friends to get the word out that you’re looking for work.

For an enterprising, creative, and energetic teen, there are still plenty of opportunities to work even when you are thirteen. Here is our list of 15 jobs for 13 year olds.

1. Babysitting

Babysitting is actually a great gig if you like little kids. Because so many families have two working parents these days, many families need good child care options.

Even if you don’t like babies and toddlers, you may be able to score consistent work during the after-school hours.

You could meet the young kids at the bus stop and hang out with them until mom or dad arrive home closer to dinner time.

Parents love this arrangement because they don’t have to make an extra stop on the way home to pick up their kids from aftercare.

You’ll get bonus points if you can help the kids with their homework, start dinner, and do other small tasks to make the parents’ lives easier in the evening.

2. Mowing Lawns

Cutting grass is another great option for teens to make money in the summer. The start-up costs are low, and if you do a good job you may be able to create a consistent client list who call you back year after year.

When you plan to mow lawns for money, be sure you calculate your expenses before you price a yard. You will need to pay for gasoline for the mower and save some money for maintenance of your equipment.

Pay attention to how quickly you can cut your family’s grass to help you estimate the time it will take to mow your client’s yards.

Remember that yards with lots of trees, shrubs, and landscaping features will take more time to mow than one without those things.

3. Detailing Cars

Do you like cleaning things? If so, you may want to start offering your service detailing cars. This is a task that you can do at home in your own driveway, or you can offer to do it for your neighbors in their driveway.

You will only need a high-powered vacuum cleaner, cleaning rags and solutions, and equipment for washing the outside of the car.

This job for a 13 year old requires a sharp eye for detail, since you want every speck of dirt out of the car. If you’ve never detailed a car before, there are many videos online that can help you learn how to do it right.

If the drivers in your neighborhood are picky about how their cars look, this might be the perfect job for you.

4. Arts and Crafts

Are you artistic and love to make cool and fun things with your skills? Sites like Etsy.com and eBay.com can help you market your arts and crafts to those who like them.

Whether you are into jewelry making, calligraphy, or painting, you may find a great market for your artwork online.

This job for a 13-year-old will take a bit of marketing savvy. You will want to establish Facebook and Instagram accounts so that you can market your creativity. Also, you’ll need to take good pictures of your items so that people know exactly what they are getting.

Be sure that you calculate materials and postage expenses as you price your items.

5. Baking

Do you love whipping up a sweet treat in the kitchen? If so, you might want to consider marketing some of your tasty treats to friends, relatives, and neighbors. The first thing to consider when you’re baking is to make the treats as delicious as possible.

It’s easy to find pretty treats at the grocery store bakery, but magic happens when you can make them both beautiful and delicious.

This job for a 13 year old will require some math as you price your creations. You will need to calculate exactly how much each cup of flour, sugar, or butter costs so that you know to the penny how much money you had to spend on ingredients.

Then, add in extra money for your time in the kitchen as well as extras like cupcake wrappers or packaging. If this endeavor turns into a full-fledged business, you’ll want to work out an arrangement with your parents to reimburse them for the electricity used for the oven and such.

This is another business that will require online marketing, like Facebook and Instagram. Be sure to learn to take great pics of your baked goods so that they look delicious and tempt people to buy.

6. Pet Sitting

If you love animals, pet sitting might be the perfect job for you. Some people work long days and simply want someone to go by once during the day to check on the dogs or cats and play a bit.

Other people might be out of town for a few weeks in the summer. If this is the case, you’ll want to plan to drop by at least twice a day to play with the animals and feed them.

For this job, you’ll need to be familiar with pet care and be comfortable handling litter boxes and dog poop.

This job works best for neighbors who live within walking or biking distance of your home, so that your parents won’t be on the hook for driving you to the house.

7. Poop Removal

People who have dogs and a fenced yard face a rather unpleasant task once or twice a month. These people have to go out and pick up all the dog poop that their dog left behind. Otherwise, the grass will die and the yard will begin to smell.

If you have a strong stomach and don’t mind gross jobs, you could make good money picking up dog poop for your neighbors.

All you will need for this job is a box of rubber gloves, a trowel or shovel, and a lot of plastic bags. And maybe a clothespin for your nose! If you live in a neighborhood with a lot of dogs, you might be able to make quite a bit of money doing this distasteful task for your neighbors.

8. Tutoring

If you have a knack for academics and you like explaining things to others, you may be able to make some money tutoring.

If you enjoy working with younger kids, this might be a great way to make some money.

Parents may like this situation because they will get off the hook for helping with homework, and it’s likely that you are more familiar with modern teaching methods than they are.

9. Start a YouTube Channel

Are you good at knitting, gardening, or a certain video game? You might be able to create a YouTube channel demonstrating your skills. Alternatively, if you are a singer or musician, you can make videos performing.

Or if you’re just a funny person and like making people laugh, there is a huge market for humorous content online.

After you have a following, you might be able to get advertisers to partner with you so you can start monetizing your YouTube channel.

10. Self Publish on Amazon

If you like to write books and stories, you might have some success self publishing on Amazon. Be sure that your writing is interesting and error-free.

You don’t even have to write full-length novels or books. Even short books and poetry collections might sell well.

You can also publish “low-content” books for Kindle. These books include journals, calendars, planners, and log books. They take very little time to create, but can generate an income stream in the long term.

11. Social Media Management

Huge companies have whole teams of social media managers, but small businesses likely don’t have that kind of a budget for advertising. If you are a whiz at social media, you might want to put yourself out there as a social media manager.

When you do this job, you’ll post on the business social media page to boost their business.

You will want to have a great camera to post excellent pictures of the business or be able to source pictures online. You’ll also need to get creative in figuring out ways to post multiple times a week to increase their visibility in the community.

You may also need to be great at making and editing videos that highlight the business.

12. House Sitting

A great way of making money during the holidays and summertime is house-sitting. You can charge money to stop by, get the mail, and water the plants while your neighbors are out of town.

To house-sit as a 13 year old, you have to prove yourself trustworthy, because nobody wants to come home to find out you’ve been tampering with their things.

Good reviews and word of mouth advertising are essential for making a success of this kind of business.

13. Dog Walking

This is another great job for those who love animals. Many people need their dogs walked during the day to keep the energetic pooches from destroying things in the house while everyone is at work.

If you have several neighbors with well behaved dogs, you may be able to walk multiple dogs at one time. However, you should pay close attention to how the dogs interact so that none of them get hurt.

To do this, you will need nothing more than a comfy pair of shoes, plenty of poop removal bags, and a love for dogs.

14. Hanging and Removing Holiday Decorations

Everyone likes their home looking pretty for Christmas, but not everyone wants to deal with the hassle of putting up the decorations and, later on, taking them down.

If you are adventurous and don’t mind climbing up a ladder, you may be able to make money around the holidays by hanging Christmas lights and other decorations on people’s homes.

You will want to research the best kinds of clips for hanging the lights without damaging the house. However, this is a job that typically has very low start-up expenses. Check out similar businesses in your area to give your clients a competitive price.

15. Assisting Neighbors With Household Chores

You might be able to do things like change a light bulb and take out trash cans with very little trouble. But as people get older, these kinds of chores become incredibly difficult, and for some elderly people, dangerous.

If you live in a neighborhood with several elderly people, you might want to go by their houses and mention that you are looking for work doing any kind of household task.

You may end up helping clean an attic or basement. Or you might have to crawl under a kitchen sink to remove a mouse caught in a trap.

Limited mobility means that certain jobs are harder, and many elderly people would love to pay a healthy, hard-working teen to do these tasks around the house.

Don’t get discouraged by the limitations of your age! There is plenty of work available for hard-working and enterprising teens.

Put yourself out there and let people know that you’re available and take advantage of your natural skills and talents. Who knows? You could end up creating a business that lasts for years!