Ages 13–15

Your first real income

Getting paid by a parent is practice. Getting paid by a stranger is the real thing, and it changes how you see every price.

About 20 minutes Read it themselves Earns The First Customer Badge

The Quest

For the kid

Allowance is how you practise. The first time a neighbour hands you twenty dollars because you did a job properly, you learn something allowance cannot teach: somebody valued your time enough to pay for it.

After that, every price converts. That hoodie is two lawns.

Price one thing you can actually do

Not a business plan. One service, one price, one customer. Things people genuinely pay 13-to-15s for:

Outdoors	Indoors	Skills
Shovelling a driveway	Tidying a garage	Setting up a phone or printer
Mowing, weeding	Washing cars	Tutoring a younger kid
Walking a dog	Babysitting, once trained	Yard-sale or online listing help

Pricing is where almost everyone goes wrong, always in the same direction. Work it out:

How long does it take? Time yourself doing it once.
What is your hour worth? A number you would be pleased with and not embarrassed to say.
What does it cost you? Bin bags, bus fare, dog treats. That comes off the top.
Say one number for the whole job. "Twenty-five dollars for the whole driveway" is easy to say yes to. "Um, maybe like eight an hour?" is not.

Your mission

Find one customer who is not in your house. Do the job well. Get paid.

Then write down two numbers: what you charged, and how long it actually took. That is your real hourly rate, and it is usually lower than you thought.

The Parent Playbook

For you — read before you start

One decision before any of this starts, made deliberately, prevents most of the arguments that follow.

Family payroll, or outside work?

You can run all three, as long as everyone is clear which is which.

Kind	Examples	What it teaches
Unpaid family jobs	Dishes, their room, the bin	Living with other people has a cost
Paid extra jobs, from you	Clearing the garage, painting a fence	Agreed price, agreed standard
Outside work	The real thing	You do introductions and safety, not management

Paying for the first row teaches that contributing to a family is optional and billable. On the second row, agree the price and the standard out loud before they start, and hold the standard.

What to say

When they name a price that is far too low — and they will:

"That is too cheap, and here is why it matters. If you charge ten dollars for three hours, the next person expects the same. What is your hour worth? Start there."

When they want to quit halfway through a job they took on:

"You can decide not to do this kind of work again. You can't decide not to finish this one, because you said you would."

Mistake to avoid

Do not become the customer for everything. You cannot fire them, you will not complain about a mediocre result, and they learn that work happens inside a relationship where they are loved regardless. One unrelated paying customer teaches more than twenty paid chores.

Do not manage the job. The neighbour's slightly streaky car teaches more than your corrections.

Do It Together

The 20-minute activity

Set the rate 20 minutes · paper, a phone, and one real prospect in mind

Pick one service. A list of five is a way of avoiding starting.
Time it. Do the job once at home, honestly. This number kills more bad pricing than any advice.
Do the arithmetic on paper. Time, hourly rate, costs, whole-job price. Let them hold the pen.
Write the exact sentence they will say, and have them say it twice: "Hi, I'm doing driveways this winter. Twenty-five dollars a clear, and I can do yours whenever it snows."
Make one approach today, while the arithmetic is fresh. A neighbour, a family friend, the community group chat.
After the job, write down the two numbers — charged, and actual time. Keep the sheet for Level 4.

Done? Tick the level. Next: a budget built to survive an actual teenager.

Done with level 01?

Fills in one leaf on the Growers map and earns The First Customer Badge. Kept in this browser only — nothing about your child is sent anywhere.

Financial education, not advice. It describes how Canadian accounts and programs work and recommends no product, provider or investment. Dollar figures are statutory.