<rant>

It sucks being a 13 year old.
And no, going through puberty is fine with me, because all the others haven't even started puberty yet.

I, am talking about money.
The one thing I dont have.
I, right now, am very, very pissed off, because my parents have told me, for the 10th consecutive week, that "they dont have the money."
I already do enough around the house.
I am the sole person responsible for: the laundry, putting clothes away, getting myself to school, shoveling the dog crap in the backyard, and making sure my brother is fine when the 'rents are away.
I think I do enough.
But apparently, these people think that i am "not mature enough"
to handle that amount of money.
I want that money, so that I can buy a cell phone, so that when I am late for someplace, I can call my mom/dad and tell them that I am going to be late.
And it isn't just for that, its for other things.
Right now, my primary mood of transportation (skateboard)
is snapped right in half.

It costs 60 dollars for another good one, that wont break after doing 4 ollies.
They tell me to go work for other people/ mowing lawns.
Well, people today are so uptight about money, that they wont hire a kid to mow their lawn for even a dollar!
I had to go that low!
I want to get a job at like a cafe place, but now, even McDonalds is starting to look like a pretty good place to work.
But I can't work there, because I am too young.
This is screwing me over because i am flat broke.

I dont have the money to buy the things I want, and they
wont buy them for me.
We are financially fine.
What do I do?



I needed to rant so thanks for hearing me out

Mow the neighbors' lawns?

Just because all the other kids are spoiled and have their parents give them money for nothing, doesn't mean your parents have to do it too. Doing laundry and a couple of chores isn't much. I don't see any reason why your parents should buy you everything you want. You're just gonna have to learn to live with what you have, or get a job and work for your own money. Also, I don't see any reason why a 13 year old needs a cellphone. That's just luxury.

i feel ur pain, 14 about to be 15, going through the same thing
i do everything around the house and my bro is 21 and doesnt do crap around here. and i dont get no money at all, i would like to get a cell, but good thing is i am almost 15 soon and i'll be able to get one soon!! so just wait about 2 more years, a lot of us go through it.

So, according to your logic,
If im late to be at home for curfew, and theres no phones nearby, I should always be in trouble right?

Pay phones still exist you know.

*sigh*

I am flat broke.
I have no money, and rid the house of quarters a long time ago.

I'm 17, and let me tell ya, it doesn't stop anytime soon. And I've been working since I was about your age. The best you can do is just get a job and WORK - I wouldn't act so condescending towards a job like McDonald's. You're at the bottom of the totem pole, take what you can. It's going to be extremely difficult to get a decent job until you're ~15. But what do you really need money for? A cellphone? That's got to be a joke man. I didn't buy a cellphone till I was 16, and I could quite easily live sociably without one. A cellphone is really a convenience - it isn't required for safety or a social life.

And where the hell are you staying out late when you're 13 years old?

I feel your pain, good luck establishing a cash flow sometime soon.

Edit: Also, what makes you late all the time? Paying for a cell so you can phone home in the rare situation that you are late is a ridiculous waste of money.

Doing your laundry, cleaning dog **** and looking after your brother are things people do around the house. It's not really above and beyond what you should be doing anyway.

As for getting money, find a job. That's how I get money to pay rent and things like that. Now, I know you're 13 and you can't go get a job at the corner store because you aren't old enough, but there are plenty of opportunities for work for a kid your age if you are proactive and actually got find some work.

I have to say I disagree with the cell phone part. Its very convient to have for telling your parents if you're going to be late, early, need a ride at so-and-so time, etc. My middle school had one pay phone, and we could use it only in emergencys with permission, not that it worked in the first place. This is coming from a guy who has waited 2 hours after basketball practice for his parents to get him because they thought they were supposed to come for me at the wrong time.

Ask your parents for a calling card, then. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper than a cell phone, and a lot more reasonable too.

Teenagers + Cell Phones = going over minutes and a big *** bill that Mom and Dad get stuck with (Since they would have to sign for the kid to even be able to get a phone at all).

I'm going to be blunt and tell you that 13 year olds don't need cell phones, social lives, money, or enter keys.

JediKirby

Uhhhhhh... Yeah. That's the way it worked in my day.

Instead of complaining about how horrible your life is, why not savor it for the moment.

Once you get a job and your own expenses, then you will realize how you wish you could go back to the days when your primary issue was "having fun" and not "trying to make enough money to live"

I know there are perks such as being able to buy what you want, but when I was 13 I still managed to have a hell of a time WITHOUT a cell phone (since no kid had a cell phone when I was 13), WITHOUT a job - kids played outside so much more than they do now (though you do skateboard), and I lived.

You could look into an exciting and rewarding career in grifting.

But how much would it be for one that won't break as long as you don't do ollies and such?

Yeah, the **** that I do is what gets you money. I mow the lawn, trim the bushes, pull the weeds, move the heavy stuff, do all the heavy duty lifting, help my parents work at the houses they're building, etc. And I don't even get that much (though I do get nice stuff every once in a while. See: PSP, 6800GT). Other than that I get about 20-30 bucks a month. They GAVE me a cell phone though, I didn't want it. It's turned out to be quite useful if for nothing else than parental-child communication.

But whatever, wait a couple years, it happens. I'd go as far outside your neighborhood as you can with the mowing lawns bit. Seriously, even one lawn in the neighborhood is better than nothing--it's all $$

oh gees, give the kid a brake

i think a 13 year old can be responsible with a cell phone/ a little bit of money. i rember the times when i was left after school till 5 or later and it sucked, but i couldent do anything about it.

the money thing... eh, that's tough though. mow lawns (hay... go clean out people's pools, that's a pain to do i here), or be frugle with christmas/birthday money, grandmas are sometimes good for that sort of stuff too. just dont waist it on needless/pointless endevers, (except a good movie here or there), and dont get a girlfriend till you have a job unless your really creative.

Bluntly,

You're not even in high school yet.
And it's not like high school is the epitome of responsibility.

I know you feel like you can handle the world right now but you can't. Just deal with it .. you don't even need to worry about paying rent or paying for college on your own.

Hi, my name is Michael, and I am a broke teenager.
>.>, Join the club, its hard as crap to make money till your 15 and can get a job. I just live with it, and scrounge all the money i can get for bus passes so I can be mobile.

Quit complainning when I was your age I had to walk to school naked it 200 feet of snow!

learn how to invest. It's something you could do now (buying stocks at least, I doubt you could get loans or do real estate since few would take you seriously b/c of your age)

if I was you I would invest in some IPO stocks or some mutual funds. Saving money in the bank long term is a waste of time, b/c interest is piss-poor and you can't keep up with inflation.

How's he going to invest with no money?

I don't think a 13-year-old who can't buy a cell phone, can realistically invest.

I bring up my suggestion once again of the calling card.

Pfft, use a prepay card like I do. At most I spend $15 a month, and it rolls over. If I run out of minutes, I buy more. Once you buy the phone, you only need to buy as much as you need, or just enough to keep the thing activated.

You're talking about just a deck, right? If you're not, link me up because that's incredibly cheap for full board!

Job at 15? Hah. I'm 17, pulling in £10 a week from EMA, looking for a job so I can afford car insurance. Completely unexperienced.

I want a verheickel.

At 13 you don't really need much money or a mobile, but keys can be handy, but at 13 if you really want money I would suggest a paper round myself.

Greetings, fellow skater.
You can actually get real cheap World Industries Completes for 50-60$. My board is a Birdhouse Deck/GrindKing Trucks/Birdhouse Wheels Skateboard, I paid for it 160 $, it lasted me 2 years and I'm still using it, but will snap soon because of the BoardSlides and the Kickflips off stairs.

he could do a few menial jobs for people he knows, or he could be creative and look for opportunities. What he must learn is to save some money short term instead of pissing it all away on worthless stuff. (like a cell phone, or skateboard. ) At this point, he has no real expenses, (and doesn't have to worry about tax of any kind other than sales tax) so I would encourage him to save at least half of anything he makes) The money he ends up saving is his seed money for investing.

If he fronts the cash after he gets some together, his parents could probably make the trades for him. If he nvests wisely, he could exponentially increase that little bit of money that he put up.

QFT

- I got around just fine without a cellphone when I was 13. If you're going to be late and absolutely need to inform your parents, call collect. If they don't accept, well...you tried I know I'm not going to give my kids a cell phone until they learn how to drive, that's what my parents and now I took over my own phone bill. Really...it's all part of being a kid.

It can be done, trust me. You won't make millions anytime soon if you start when you are 13, but you should be able to net at least a few hundred $$$ disposable income easily at that age if you know what you are doing. I wish I knew then what I know now, b/c I can look back and in retrospect see opportunities that I completely overlooked at the time.

Yeah, trust a guy who admittedly has never invested in anything, doesn't know what an IRA is, and suggests buying only penny stocks and IPO's, two of the historically worst performers in the market.

You don't even have a grasp of the basic concepts of investing or a realistic understanding of what kind of returns to expect, let alone any real knowledge or experience. Suggesting that a broke thirteen-year-old can generate a few hundred dollars worth of income through high-risk investing is ridiculous.

Talk is cheap, so how about you put your own money at risk before running your mouth and misleading others with your get-rich-quick infomerical bull****?

enjoy it while you can...the second you start getting real money, you'll be in real debt. XD

I know you're trying to help, but come on. The kid is thirteen.

steal the money, i know I would.

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elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
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Just wait til college.

I already have put money into this since then. I'm working on building good banking credit so i can get signature loans (being able to borrow lots of money with only my signature and not any collateral) for my future investments.

i didn't even read any post past your first one. you are 13. get back to work doing your chores and be glad you have a roof over your head and any food on the table. or get a job. and yes you can get a job and do the stuff around the house too.
i got my first job at 12 stocking the fridge at a variety store. and for 6 weeks at a time i had to come home from school, do the dishes and make a real dinner for 4 years (my siblings and i rotated in 6 week shifts). then at 15 i started washing dishes in a restaurant. my parents told me that i could start buying my own clothes with the money i made from that job.

no child deserves money from their parents. even if they do all the work around the house. no child.