Planning on getting ahold of a Pixel 6a for Graphene, but am not old enough to work a real job, and can't afford to pay it off all at once. How should I go about financing it? Should I hold off and wait so I can buy it outright?

Only carriers in my area are T-Mobile, ATT, and US Cellular, so there's no way I can buy it with an unlockable bootloader from a carrier, right?

    Save up and then buy. Maybe look at something a little older and less expensive like a Pixel 5?

    The last thing you need as a young person is to get in the habit of financing things with debt. There are very few things that justify debt financing, which boils down to things that can be classified as GENUINE investments. A lot of people who don't understand the term think that its a sophisticated way to say "purchases", but an investment is something you go into with the objective of earning a return, i.e., making money.

    A phone can be an investment, if it is used for commercial purposes like business calls and emails, or if it is specifically used for something like testing commercial software. Realistically though, only the cheapest phone that will do the required job is an investment, going with something substantially better than that is just because you like it and really doesn't qualify.

    Buying a home can be debt financed because that is an investment -- your monthly payments would be less than renting an equivalent residence, and every payment adds to your equity, plus you expect to one day sell it for more than you paid, therefore this is an investment because it results in you having MORE money.

    So my advice is definitely to save up. Learn to do this.

    And one more thing; Always save more than you intend to spend, this will result in your savings growing over time, which is the beginning of wealth.

    I do remember hearing that the Google Store does 0% financing for Pixels... maybe that's an option for you?

    In general, I highly recommend against buying a Pixel from your carrier, as the likelihood of it being locked and you not being able to unlock it to install GrapheneOS will be high.

    In my opinion only essential things you really rely on should be financed, like a fridge, a washing machine or maybe a car if you live far away from the next supermarket/doctor/workplace.

    Anything else you should save money for or look for other, cheaper opportunities.

    If you decide to finance something, at least take an offer with 0% interest rates. As you have no money anything with interest rates will probably make you bankrupt, because in most cases you will not be able to pay more than the minimum rate, and that means your credit never gets smaller.

    And before you buy or finance something, take your time to think about it. If you still think about buying it every day for a week or two, you might really need it. But in most cases, after a few days the impulse to buy something has faded and you only see that you do not really need it.

    sataa In the US all the carrier Pixels have locked bootloaders, you are right about that. Have you looked at Swappa? I have bought a couple of devices through them and was satisfied with the result. Take a look.
    https://swappa.com/buy/unlocked/google

      Maybe look at something a little older and less expensive like a Pixel 5?

      I was thinking about it, but for how much it still costs, it doesn't have enough support time left for me to feel comfortable paying that much for something that's landfill in about a year anyway.