Over time, a little bit of money can be turned into a nice wad of cash. The beauty of being a teen in this day and age is that you have plenty of time to that. The key to getting this money is to make it and save it.

Make money any way you can think of. One easy way is to ask your parents for an allowance. Do chores around the house that your parents are too busy for. Offer to clean the pool, mow the lawn, pull the weeds, go to the grocery store(if you have your license), wash the cars, etc… If you want to make more money, then get an actual job. Look for “now hiring” signs. Work at grocery stores, food places, at your parents work, golf courses, surf shops, the mall, etc.

With the money that you’re making it’s important that you don’t blow it all on clothes, video games, and other “stuff.” Buy things that you need, not stuff that you would be cool to play with for a couple of days. Also, don’t buy the expensive versions of everything. Here is a great saving method: You don’t need to buy the most expensive skater shoe brands for $80. Buy the older on-sale versions that are just as comfortable, work the same, but only cost $40-50. Or you could really save and buy shoes at a sporting goods store, or a regular shoe store and get shoes for $20-30. Think of it this way. Let’s say in a year you buy 4 pairs of shoes. If you buy four $80 shoes, that’s $320 a year. That’s almost $1000 dollars after three years. What’s the point? What if you buy 4 pairs of $40 shoes. That’s $160 a year, and $480 after three years. What if you went all out and bought 4 pairs of $20 shoes. That’s $80 a year (the price of one expensive pair of shoes), and only $240 after 3 years. You save $160 a year if you buy the $40 shoes instead of the $80 shoes. If you really want to save and buy the $20 shoes instead of the $80 shoes, you save $240. Hmmm, which one should I buy? If you don’t think you can do that, then control limit yourself to only one or two pairs of the expensive brand of shoe, and buy the discount price shoes the other times and you’re still saving money.

Now, what I recommend doing is stashing the money you saved each time in a safe place. So if you buy 4 pairs of shoes: $50, $30, $20, $30. That’s a total of $130. If you’d have bought: $80, $70, $70, $80. That’s a total of $300 saved. So when you buy the $50 pair of shoes, you stash the $30 saved. When you buy the $20 pair of shoes, you stash the $60 you saved. Then at the end of the year, you have $300 you would have spent in your pocket.

No one said saving money had to be hard. The shoe example was just to show you one of the ways to save. If you do the same thing with the clothes you buy or the fast food you decided not to get, you’ll end up with a lot of money in your pocket at the end of the year.

Unless you are fortunate enough to live in an area where the weather stays a crisp, cool 70 degrees year round, heating and air are probably two of the most important luxuries in your life. While almost necessary, it can be expensive to run these luxuries every month. That cool air conditioning stops feeling so good when you open the bill and see how much you have to spend. Fret not! There are things you can put into play that will reduce your bills. You can enjoy a well-adjusted climate without going broke. Here’s how.

Programmable Thermostat
One of the easiest ways to overspend on your heating and air is to run the system full blast when you’re away at work. At the same time, simply shutting the system off when you leave isn’t a great idea, either. Your system works far harder to bring your home up or down a degree than it does to simply keep it at a stable temperature. Many people have also found success in setting the temperature a bit higher than they would find comfortable to go to sleep so that it changes when they are already asleep and won’t notice it. This also helps on chilly mornings when you don’t want to get out of bed. Set the heater to come on an hour or so before your alarm goes off.

Get Insulated
If you have no insulation in your attic, it’s one of the best investments you can make. A house without insulation is wasting much of their heating and air, allowing it to simply flow right out the roof. This doesn’t even speak to the additional heat and cold from outside you’re letting in through this significant breach. If you’re the type of person who tends to yell at the kids for leaving the front door open, you’re essentially complaining about rain while swimming in the ocean. Call out an insulation company, have them install it, and you’ll be saving money right away.

Close Off Vents
If you have rooms that no one in your family uses on a frequent basis, you might think about closing off the vents to those rooms. This will redirect more heating and air to the rooms where you do need them and probably let you run the system far less frequently. If you have guests coming over and need to use the room, you can always open them back up.