How can my kid earn some money? Is this even possible in 2019?

July 25, 2019 7:07 PM

My tech-savvy 11-year-old wants to buy a fancy computer and is willing to work for it, but what can he do to earn money from people outside of our family?

We already pay him for mowing the lawn and are willing to pay him for some other occasional chores beyond what he already does, but after doing the math on how long it would take to buy the computer with lawn mowing and extra chore money, he wants to find some ways of earning money outside of our family. We have a couple near-ish neighbors, but do not live in a neighborhood or walking/biking distance to anything commercial. In case it helps, here is a bit more about my kid. He has home-schooled for the past year. During that time he has taught himself python and some HTML. He has used python to make little programs to help him do his math homework amongst other things. He has also started designing web sites using Repl.it and he apparently knows how to use stack-overflow to find code that he wants. He also likes to tinker with micro controllers (Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi) and electronics and is pretty good at soldering. He also likes music and composing/transcribing music into Muse Score. He is good with animals and already does a little cat-sitting for one neighbor. Before home-schooling he went to a Chinese immersion school from K-4th grade so he also speaks basic Mandarin and can read/write a bit. I did see this question: and plan to steal the idea of having him interview friends/neighbors for ideas but also looking for additional ideas, no matter how zany. Thanks!

posted by ElizaMain to Work & Money (21 answers total)

How is he with younger kids? Granted, this was a while back, but eleven is about the age at which I started being hired by neighbors to walk their kids home from the bus stop, and to babysit two separate categories of child. The first was children small enough to consider me an authority (two to six) who would, and this is key, come to our house where my parents were home. Then I would do ninety percent of the work, with my parents there for emergencies and stuff I didn't know how to handle. The second was kids about a year to two years younger than I was, with whom I would not ordinarily hang out, but where having them come to my house could be considered a hang-out session by the kid, and I would charge less than ordinary babysitters.

Note that with both of these the sitting took place in my house with my parents home. But my parents really did make me do the actual work involved. You would need to be willing to put in the work of being on call but not too present.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 7:30 PM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

A kid I know bought her way to Germany with babysitting money this summer. Some other kids I know have a pet sitting business that requires their parents to drive them places but they otherwise manage themselves. My partner used to pay a neighborhood kid to mow his lawn for a package rate of $300/summer for every other week mowing. That kid made bank! If he likes pets, dog walking might also pay a reasonable amount.
posted by spindrifter at 7:32 PM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Probably all this is illegal by this time, but at that age I earned money by:

1) collecting golf balls from rough and water traps of nearby golf courses, cleaning em up and selling them to golfers. ($1.00 for a golden bear!)

2) Dog walking

3) clearing snake nests out of neighbors yards

4) helping neighbors with gardening

5) collecting bait in the creeks for local fishermen

6) picking pretty glass jars out of an old glass dump I found and selling them to a guy who ran a flea market stall.

As you can guess, I was pretty rural. But maybe something here is useful.
posted by frumiousb at 7:42 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

He can automate office tasks for money for various businesses! Python is a super great skill and learning to monetize that would be awesome. He would need your introduction for this and maybe do work as a 1099, so you'd be on the hook for figuring out the tax stuff. Or he could automate the tax stuff.

He could also assess websites for accessibility, and suggest fixes based on what he finds on the resources available to him. If he has any friends who have visual or motor impairments they could go into business together, because his friend might run into issues with a site that your son might not consider.

I do not recommend he make youtube videos to monetize his progress. First, the internet is forever and his videos might make teenage him cringe. More concerning, youtube comments are a cesspit.
posted by bilabial at 7:50 PM on July 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

So this seems to be a lot about teaching how to earn his own goods, and that’s great. It seems like you have a lack of close neighbors? Maybe think about how a bike or electric bike could extend his range. Gotta spend money to make money!
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:53 PM on July 25, 2019

Things I know people hire neighborhood kids for:

Lawn and garden care: weeding, watering, harvesting. Leaf raking, compost turning, etc. Also hole digging and ditch digging, pruning, hedge trimming... all a good match for rural neighborhoods.

Household maintenance: shed painting, fence painting, gutter cleaning. Rug beating and attic cleaning. Generally getting into small spaces that most 40 yr olds don’t want to.

Childcare: 11 may be a bit young for a 3 yr old but 12 is fine for ~6, for many folks.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:03 PM on July 25, 2019

I was amazed at the zero responses I got when I advertised for kids to do yard work for me. And I was paying well. If others are getting the same lack of response, that might be a welcome offer from him.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 8:21 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Are you near any research universities? My 10 year old has participated in some studies as a control subject. He got paid $175 for playing video games and watching movies in an MRI.
posted by xo at 8:25 PM on July 25, 2019 [9 favorites]

Zany? Leverage the tech-savvy youth angle and language skill.

Throw one of those cool, designed-by-an-actual-kid, homework-helping programs up in the app store. Apply for grants. Contact the fancy-computer company, and make a pitch for a free computer in return for great advertising on your young-engineer blog -- where you detail your coding, website design, music, and translation projects. Lead a tech-based, single-project-focused (a simple Python program, Your First App, etc.) kids' workshop at the library. Or teach basic coding, or introductory conversational Mandarin, to your peers in a limited class series.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:54 PM on July 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

Could you/he find a project/device (Arduino based or simply soldered together device like a headphone amplifier) that would net a profit if sold on Etsy or to local kid/adults? Or something you want from a site like HackADay or from a makerspace if you are lucky enough to have one within striking distance.

The margins to compete commercially might be tight but his time is essentially, if not flying in the face of child labor laws and tax code, free so that should help even if you do have to drive him to the post office to ship.
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:44 AM on July 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

I also made some good money around that age by participating in research studies (mostly software research - there was one company trying to make online math textbooks that paid me $200 a pop, for example.)

Babysitting and pet-sitting are perennial. I wasn't much older than him when I started babysitting (and this was in the 2000s, in a major city - not so culturally dissimilar to now.) I did take babysitting courses at the local hospital (covered things like child development, first aid, how to handle difficult situations) before starting, which helped a lot. Still use those skills today.

Petsitting and plant-sitting are also great if you can find the right "in." I was feeding my neighbor's cat (and watching TV in the house, per her request, to provide the cats some light company) from very young. Posters (and their social media equivalents, like nextdoor, which would be something that should go through you probably) are surprisingly effective ways to find clients.
posted by mosst at 2:18 AM on July 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Repairing cracked screens of smartphones.

Digitize photos, movies, and slides.
posted by at at 4:29 AM on July 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

He could advertise himself as a computer tech, and help people organize their email or pictures or do other kinds of cleanup tasks. Or do virus cleanup. Or install a password manager. Or install Windows updates. Etc., etc.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:23 AM on July 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Do you need him to earn the actual money to afford it? If this is more of an effort to tie labor into results for him: he's old enough to volunteer at the library. His skills would especially be appreciated to help less tech savvy users, but there is always good ol shelving. You could then pay him an agreed hourly rate. It would be steady, safe, and a good contribution to the community.
posted by hapaxes.legomenon at 5:37 AM on July 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

My kid picked up a lot of money walking around offering to shovel after snowstorms, and raking in the fall.

I really like hapaxes.legomenon's idea if it's financially viable for you; paying for community work which you might theoretically want to do but don't have time for. This can include things that don't involve formal organizations or long-term commitments; picking up trash, weed-whacking cemeteries, sorting donations, etc.
posted by metasarah at 6:08 AM on July 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Car washing. My elderly next door neighbour pays my eight year old a few dollars occasionally to do her recycling, water plants and take in her washing.
posted by Jubey at 6:45 AM on July 26, 2019

Not sure your location but my son had good success with an old school lemonade stand over the weekend.

He sat for three hours in the shade with a stack of books and made $60.
posted by Twicketface at 7:20 AM on July 26, 2019

I'll share my kids' secret lemonade stand trick in case you go with Twicketface's suggestion: Signs say "FREE LEMONADE" and you give free lemonade but have a TIP JAR. Some people took for free (great) some people gave her a $1 or even a $5 (also great). She made a boatload of money - way more than if people had to fish around for $.50 per cup.
posted by nkknkk at 8:34 AM on July 26, 2019 [5 favorites]

My 13 year old is a little league umpire and gets paid for every game. Probably can't do it at 11, but maybe in the future.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:27 AM on July 26, 2019

It may not be an option where you are, but most states allow 11-year-olds to deliver the newspaper, even though it's usually too young for a "real" job. Kind of a nostalgia exception to child labor laws, but another traditional means of making some cash.
posted by dellsolace at 1:50 PM on July 26, 2019

Does he do well with dogs? My kids have been doing dog walking for our neighbors, and through word of mouth, other neighbors, for the past three years. My younger son had me go with him when he was 8, but by age 10 I let him do the dog walking by himself. My kids get paid pretty well in our neighborhood, one dog walk (usually half hour) gets them $15. They make a schedule between them, younger son gets the smaller dogs/dogs he knows, older son gets stranger dogs and big dogs.

Plant watering? My kids also water plants for neighbors when they are gone out of town, and usually get paid pretty well for that.

Is your kid crafty or make things? Do you live near any farmer's markets? Usually they will have a kids-centric farmers market, where kids can bring their creations and sell them. My kids set up a booth and sold photography prints and their artwork.

do you live near any farms? At 12 your kid can work on a farm with parent permission.

You said he knows Mandarin, is he well enough to do translating? My kids are bilingual and trilingual. My older son makes money translating documents/emails for older people (I negotiate for him, usually something like $5/documents, for emails he will negotiate for food because he's 14 and a bottomless pit).

At 13, your son can also register to be a referee for local Youth Soccer Games. In my area, you get paid $10-$20 per game.
posted by alathia at 3:33 PM on July 26, 2019