How To Motivate Teenage Students

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College Kids and Teenagers are hard to buy gifts for. They never give you much of an indication of what they want, and now that they have their own jobs and not many bills or obligations, they usually just go out and buy what they want throughout the year. Instead, buy them what they NEED for the holidays. They'll appreciate it much more than another turtleneck sweater or DVD. Here are some great gift cards to buy them:

Health Care Gift Card. Go to High Mark to buy health care for a college kid that doesn't have health insurance anymore, because they are no longer covered on your policy as a dependent.
Gas Card. Gas is $3.00 a gallon. Need I say more?
Grocery Card. I know Publix offers them, and I'm sure many other retail grocery stores offer them as well. College kids will probably use all of it on beer, but you can at least pretend that they will buy food with it.
Student ID. Most large universities allow you to load money onto a student's ID card which allows them to buy food on campus and use it for other things like printing and copying.
Visa or Mastercard Gift Card. You can buy these at the Visa or Mastercard website. Basically, it's like giving them cash, but it's better, because they can use it in case of an emergency.
Office Depot Gift Card. At least you know they won't buy beer with this one. Plus, I hated spending money on printer paper and print cartridges when I was in college.
Car Maintenance Gift Card. Jiffy Lube is now offering gift cards for oil changes and any other service they offer. This is another thing that I hated to pay for when I was in high school and college.

The high school and college kids on your list might not jump for joy when they see these gift cards, but I guarantee they will use them. Share any others that you can think of to the rest of us in a comment below.

Erik Folgate

Erik and his wife, Lindzee, live in Orlando, Florida with a baby boy on the way. Erik works as an account manager for a marketing company, and considers counseling friends, family and the readers of Money Crashers his personal ministry to others. Erik became passionate about personal finance and helping others make wise financial decisions after racking up over $20k in credit card and student loan debt within the first two years of college.

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