What Should I Do With My Money 14 Year Old?

Hi I'm 14 and from England. I have a paper round which pays £23.50 a week and I'm managing to spend it as soon as I get it! I get £5 a week in my bank from my dad and I find it hard not to spend it on stupid stuff on Ebay and Amazon. I also buy clothes on eBay and resell them for a little profit when I can be bothered. My question is what can I do to save it better. Also I was thinking of getting an iphone 2nd hand (bought by me) and an apple watch once I have saved a bit more. Smart or not? Best answer gets points

You do what all 14 year olds do - you spend it

the key thing to start learning is how to manage what you get so that you can afford to buy stuff you really want

you say you find it hard not to spend it on stupid stuff - thats not unusual for a 14 year old (and for a lot of people older than you)
the key thing is - you realise its stupid stuff
It won't be long before you just can't be bothered buying it cos you will say to yourself "what's the point? - its just stupid stuff and I don't need it"
once you stop buying that stuff, so that what you get is more than you spend, then you must automatically be saving
the important thing here is- you aint forcing yourself to save- you are saving cos you aint wasting you money buying stupid stuff
that is- if you have an income and don't spend it then you MUST be saving it - you aint made a decision to save, you are saving cos you aint spending

the second key thing as you grow older is recognising what you Really want, cos when you are young you tend to want everything you aint got

a VERY long time ago (I was about your age) my father told me a good principle to live by

he told me that if I saw something I thought was a bargain, or just what I wanted, to just walk away. Cos if it Really was a bargain, or Really what I wanted, I would go back next day to buy it
It was amazing how many times I didn't go back

The problem today is that credit cards/internet/ebay/amazon just make it damned easy to spend money without giving a second thought to what you are buying, or why you are buying it
Its a case- "Its there, I want it, I'm gonna buy it"

What if you got your bank/dad to get up an autopayment from your account to a savings one? Although the interest isn't much these days, the amount will gradually add up over time to a nice tidy sum. Say you start out with 10 quid - the five that your dad gives you, and five from the paper round - then just let it accumulate. You should still have enough 'silly money' left over to spend weekly, without tapping into the savings part.

For the iphone, maybe see if there's a company online which specialises in refurbished ones? I think Apple has a branch which does that. Not sure, cos I don't have Apple.

23.50 for 50 weeks = 1175 (we will leave 2 weeks for xmas etc ) making the numbers easy also.
13.50 for 50 weeks = 675 (enough for an iPhone all paid)

So put all the money into the bank
and pull £10.00 once from the ATM… And that is the 'cash' you can spend…

That is your budget.

CASH in the hand, is the best and simplest way to control spend.
if it is not in your pocket… You can't spend/have not got it to spend.

Meanwhile, the rest of the money is savings (or a rainy day/emergency fund)

If you can't do it in cash.
open 2 bank accounts - one savings (move £13.50 to it every week/automatically)
and that leaves you the £10.00 balance…

And if you want an iPhone.
cheapest way is often on contract. And that is paid per month for 24 months
So you could pay that out of your 'savings' account…
You should be able to
13.50 x 4 = 54/month more than enough for a good iphone contract on O2 "Refresh" or similar
(O2 do separate payments for phone and SIM, and stop the phone part when the 24 months are paid/don't let it run on as some companies do)