Once upon a time, when kids wanted to make some cash, they either begged for an allowance, broke out the lawnmower and cut lawns or performed some sort of odd job or collected bottles. In this modern world we live in now, all you need to make some extra money is a computer and a good connection. Which is pretty cool. Technology has made it possible that making money can be as easy as point, click, and occasionally type.

For those young people who would like to start earning money independently or parents of young people, who would like to see your child start making money independently, but are either on the fence about sending them out to other places outside of the nest, or they are too young to work outside the home, fear no more I have some answers for you.

Although there are many online opportunities for kids and teens there are four in particular that we know and have personally used and believe to be simple and easy. Easy enough for a kid to successfully operate. These sites/opportunities are KidzEyes, TeensEyes, Squidoo, and Zazzle. Each of these are great places to get your kid/teen started.

KidzEyes and it’s sister site TeensEyes , are particularly good sites because they are designed just for kids under 13 (KidzEyes) and teens 13 and up (TeensEyes). These two sites allow your child the chance to earn points for sharing their opinion on new products, films books and movies. These points can then be exchanged for prizes or money. (We always take the money.) It’s fairly easy to do and sometimes they even send surveys to mom and dad allowing your kid to make some extra points which equals extra money. An added bonus is the fact that they sometimes send you things in the mail to test and try out. We have received all kinds of fun stuff, new food items, sneak previews of new movies and cartoons…it’s the easiest work ever. Sometimes we tease our dad because when you do the math, on some of our projects our hourly wage was higher than his. It’s a pretty awesome job and it is really cool when we finally see some of those products make it to the shelves at the store. All of this is done without ever leaving the safety and comfort of home.

pictured is a lens we created on KidzEyes

Squidoo is a really good place for teens to earn some extra cash. The concept and Squidoo’s motto is simple, “Everybody is an expert on something!” Participants can create pages (called a lens) about all the things they like. Have a favorite movie…book…hobby? Create a lens about it. Know a cause worth telling everyone about? Create a lens about it. These lenses are fairly easy to create and as traffic to these lenses increase the lens creator has the opportunity to make money. The creator has a wide choice of modules that they can add to the lens to increase interactivity and even modules that offer commission for any sales generated from it (I.e Amazon Books, and more) It’s a perfect way to express yourself creatively and make money on the things they enjoy the most, and you can even have a percentage of whatever you make donated to good causes, you don’t even have to change out of your pj’s.

A Zazzle Gallery I set up in 5 minutes

The last site, Zazzle, is the perfect site for your child to use their creativity to make all sorts of items including t-shirts, posters, stickers, buttons, cards, and they just recently added shoes. Now your little darlings can add fashion designer to their resume, and they can see their own unique ideas and creations come to life. Setting up a Zazzle gallery is free and is painless. An added bonus of Zazzle is a feature that allows the customer to add their own touches to your products. Zazzle even has a social network feel to it, as the customers or visitors to your gallery can leave you comments or make special request of you. Again more fun that you never have to leave the house to participate in.

The best thing about all these sites is , that they are all free and pretty easy to join and although these sites (excluding KidzEyes, and TeensEyes, ) are for adults and kids alike they are really good places for your kid/teen to get started on the path of making and managing money.

I might add that in addition to making money, these sites also encourage other positive behavior, organization, time management and planning to name a few. It’s a win win situation. Initially when our parents got us started doing this we thought it was going to be work, however once those checks started showing up and we opened our own bank accounts we changed our opinion. Now we just have fun making money.

*note*

You can Check out Some of the lenses we have created by clicking the links below:

http://www.squidoo.com/kidzeyes

http://www.squidoo.com/familymomentbookstore

http://www.squidoo.com/marvel_vs_dc

http://www.squidoo.com/iamironman

 Just when you think you have it all figured out…something or someone comes along to remind you that you dont! 

We have been crusing along pretty smoothly on our entrepreneurial journey, and just when we were about to put everything on cruise control, we discovered that there is a lot more that we still needed to learn.

So we have been back in training in a new internship this summer, hence the reason for our delay in posting here.  We are learning a lot of good stuff (all of which we will be sharing with you of course) 

For those of you who have subscribed by email…Thanks and or those of you who have been visiting our Squiddoo Lenses and Our Galleries, we greatly appreciate it.  We should be updating those real soon and we have a bunch of new products and items to add to our galleries.

Before we go we also want to say Welcome to all our new affiliates who signed up recently, make sure you keep us updated on your first month in business, we loved to know what kinds of things you have learned and what the experience has been like for you so far.

Okay that’s it for now…

The Teenpreneurs Crew 

Many parents fail to teach their children about money, mostly because their parents didn’t teach them anything about money. So it is not surprising that most kids get the concept that you need money to buy things, but they don’t understand the concept of having more money coming in than going out, or the basics of having and maintaining a budget. (Continue reading the rest at our lens on Squidoo)

Be sure to Check out these other interesting Lenses that deal with Kids and Money:

Kids & Money: Teaching Wealth Habits to Your Kids

Parents’ Top Kids and Allowance Questions

A Lemonade Stand that is…

Okay…I know that our tag line says more than Lemonade Stands and Newspaper Routes, it’s true that our entrepreneurial pursuits are a bit more aggressive than that; however we can’t discount them as a valuable means of kids and teens to develop their business skills and from what we hear some people actually make decent money from these things. Speaking of Lemonade Stands…

Sunkist Announces their 5th Annual “Take A Stand!”

This year Sunkist is teaming up with proud supporters Rubbermaid® and Domino®/C&H® Sugar, and they are inviting kids 7 to 12 years old across America to Take a Stand® for their favorite charity. It’s a rewarding way to squeeze some fun into summer and give back to the community. (get the complete details here)

This year marks their 5th annual hosting of this event. Reportedly more than 15,000 kids from across America and Canada signed up to participate in the even last year. In addition to the children’s participation, some officials got involved as well, leading to Mayoral proclamations being made in major cities such as, Buffalo, Dallas, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

Because of the overwhelming support that Sunkist has received in response to this event, they are planning to not only provide 20,000 free lemonade stands to kids who are looking to make a difference; but the first 500 kids will also receive a Sunkist Summer Fun Lemonade Kit which includes a hand juicer, peeler, a ‘how to’ brochure and a recipe booklet.

So Moms and Dad’s, Teachers and Community Workers, be sure to sign your kids up this year, let them “Take A Stand.” This is a great way to have fun, learn responsibility and have a positive impact on the community.

You Can sign up for the program here Take a Stand!

What exactly is a Squidoo?

And why would anyone admit to doing such a thing? Squidoo is not only a fun way to share the things you find interesting or like, but it is also a good way to generate some online income.

So What is Squidoo? Squidoo, is a collection of web pages (called lenses) built by regular people (not just webmasters) These lenses are as creative and unique as the people who make them. Squidoo’s premise is that everyone is an expert on something, and it provides the platform for everyone to share their knowledge and their passion with the world.

Squidoo generates revenue through ads and affiliate links. They give 5% of what they earn, right off the top, to charity. They use 45% to cover their overhead, and the remaining 50%, well that goes to charity or to the people who build the pages. They leave that decision to the lens builders, they can either donate all, a part of or none of their share to charity. (we donate part of our earnings to charity, you can never be hurt by giving)
Signing up for Squidoo is FREE! Once signed up you can start creating lenses right away. We must offer you a word of caution, it is addictive, once you get started with it, you might not want to stop.

We have managed to generate a meager income from Squidoo so far, but we have only been tinkering with it. We have decided to be a bit more aggressive and start producing more lenses. We also decided to take advantage of Squidoo to begin promoting our other business ventures. Over the course of the next 30 days we are going to monitor our results and share them with you. We have already started following some of the Squidoo Master’s on Twitter, let’s see if any of their “genius” rubs off on us

While we are working on our lenses here are a few links to get you started in the World of Squidoo:

Squidoo is the world’s most popular site for building free, single pages about your passions. Highlight books, blogs, vids, online shops, or just spread the word about stuff you love. Bonus: you raise money (for you or charity) at the same time. It’s fast, free, and supereasy.

Step by Step Guide To Lensmaking

Make Money Online with the Monetizer

9 Free Things to do to Build Traffic for your Lens (Or Website)

Be sure to check out our lenses as well via the links in the right sidebar.

Don’t you want to be a Twitter too?

If you have visited any of the existing social networks, or have you done any blog surfing lately, odds are that you have seen the pretty Blue Twitter Logo, or have heard someone referring to their “tweets”

Twitter is the latest craze in social networking and what is referred to as “micro blogging” Micro because post made to Twitter are limited to 140 characters or less. So what’s so cool about that? Well, the bite sized post or “tweets” as they are called allow to share information quickly, but it is also idea for sharing ideas and information that might not be worth committing to an entire blog or email.

Although we had heard of it we just recently decided to try twitter out (you can follow us @teenpreneurs) So far we have been enjoying it. While some might see Twitter as a distraction, when used properly it can help increase page views, help spread awareness of a project or website or help you keep up to date with friends, family or members of your peer group.

During the next 30 days we will be learning all that we can about using Twitter and seeing if it has any direct result in regards to marketing and traffic. So far though we have found some very good information just by browsing through the most recent tweets, for instance we found a very good post by @jenuienjen titled “Twitter for Dummies” it was informative, and easy to understand. We also discovered a couple of other cool apps to use with Twitter.

The Twitter Tweet Trail (say that five times fast) also led us to a post from the blogging wizard Darren Rowse (@problogger) titled “How To Use Twitter – Tips For Bloggers” We highly recommend you check it out you will find a ton of good stuff there.

We will definitely be revisiting Twitter as we learn more about it, in the meantime here’s Twitter In Plain English:

Twitter In Plain English

Multiple Streams of Income…

Ever heard that old saying, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket…well that same logic should apply when it comes to financial matters. The key to avoiding being taken for a ride during the ups and downs of the economy is having more than one stream of income. Even though we are young, we are smart enough to know that.

Over the past few years we have taken that very approach. Rather than limit ourselves to just one thing we have several different areas that when all added together make for a pretty nice flow of income. Stay tuned as we share some of those streams with you.

Wow! It’s been ages since we have posted anything here…*cough, cough* excuse us as we brush off some of the dust.

Although it has been a good minute since we have been posting…we haven’t been being lazy…in fact our lack of posting is due to an increase in our work load. Workin your way to millionaire status is no easy task…but we are gettin closer and closer each day. We will clue you in on all of our adventures as well as share some of the things we learned…so stay tuned!

how soon can you open an IRA account for your kids?

There is a series of funny commercials out using the slogan “Life Comes at you fast!” One of our favorites is one that shows a father pushing his cute little kid on a swing…but when the swing returns it’s a huge overgrown adolescent in the swing that hits the dad and bowls him over. We think it’s hilarious, but life is kind of like that, time goes by really fast. So it shouldn’t be unusual to begin thinking about retirement for your children now, at the beginning of their lives. Believe it or not, when it comes to opening an IRA account there actually isn’t an requirement or limit in regard to age. There are some requirements…but age isn’t one of them. As long as your child is earning an income or working then they are eligible to make contributions into an IRA account.

Three Reasons To Start Preparing your Kids for Retirement

When it comes to saving and preparing for the future, sooner is always better than later. There is an old Proverb that advises us to pay close attention to the ants and how the gather and store up for the future without being told. If only we were that smart huh! Typically most people wait until they are older to even start thinking about retirement, but starting early can have it’s advantages, here’s a few of them:

• Starting young will cause your children to better appreciate planning for tomorrow and it will help them avoid that same trap of waiting till the last minute to plan.
• Starting early gives them plenty of time to learn all of the different options available to them and to learn other ways to help with preparing for their retirement.
• Starting Early also means more money available by the time they retire.

Once you have decided to open an IRA account for your child/children then there is the matter of choosing which one is the best one.

next up…

Three Types of IRA Accounts

Wow!

It has been a really long time since we have posted anything, we sort of took and early vacation.  Fortunately, some of our income streams continue to work even when we don’t. [and that's a good thing ] Hopefully you have managed to get to enjoy some of the nicer summer weather.

Within the next few days we should be back to our regular posting, sharing some good information we have learned as well as shore some of the new and exciting programs that we have been discovering over the past few months.  So in the meantime, grab yourself a nice tall glass of lemonade and put your feet up…it’s summer time Enjoy It!

The TeenPreneurs Crew