10 people share their funniest and most unconventional money-making adventures

Surprising ways to earn money

Money is a precious commodity. While most individuals ideally must not dedicate their lives to accumulating more money, nobody will say no to making a bit of extra money. Whether it is taking up a part-time job or making prudent investments, it always helps to have a bit of extra cash. Especially in today's economy, many people are having basic amenities taken away from them. So, such sources of income have become a necessity for many people. A Reddit user, u/Tier1CSGO, asked the community about the ingenious ways they used to supplement their income. Here are 10 of the funniest answers that people had to share:

1. Becoming a model

I got a job as a 'Fantasy model with long flowing hair' where I modeled for B-grade American fantasy novels. Paid OK-ish, not well. I also signed away my rights like an idiot so occasionally turn up riding a horse or casting a spell. Also once turned up on a book cover with 'a lady' and my GF went, 'Who the f*** is that!' Photoshop my dear. Photoshop. I tried to read one of the books and it started 'He was not traditionally handsome.' Ouch. u/HerrFerret

2. Tutoring a math genius 

Tutoring a kid in math who was far smarter in math than his mother thought. He didn't do the homework because he wanted to play video games. He aced all the tests and quizzes, but homework was 50% of the grade, so he was getting a C in math. Mother basically paid me $20 an hour to make sure he did his homework, which he finished in about 5 min. We then played video games for the next 55 minutes and whenever the mother would check on us, I would say something 'mathematical,' then he would say something 'mathematical' and I would say, 'Exactly, now you've got it.' I felt bad taking the money from the mom, but as a poor college kid, $20 is $20. u/RTAW0lf3

3. Converting currency 

In the 90's, I had some money spare and the British Government was attempting to stop the £ falling below a certain level against the US $. On the radio in the mornings, day after day, serious experts were saying it couldn't hold out against the markets. I converted all my cash into US $. Two weeks later, I converted it all back into £'s and made £10k ($12,526). I literally did nothing except change some currency. To be honest, I wasn't the big winner. George Soros made $1billion! u/the_real_grinningdog

4. Crashed their truck 

I once crashed my truck on the freeway (due to a faulty road, I got a big payout, don't worry guys) and when I was all shaken and like holy crap and pulling over into the grass on the side of the road, I stepped out of the truck on shaky legs, and there was just... a 20 dollar bill. Crisp and new. Just sitting there. I thought I must have imagined it, but I took it as a good sign, and then insurance inexcusably overpaid what my truck was worth and I got a much better truck for free and 20 bucks. u/aaronjer

5. Face painting

When I was in HS, some friends and I did face painting at a mall for little kids on Halloween. Fast forward 10 years, I'm serving in a bar and my boss asked if I could do face painting in the bar on St. Patrick's Day. Why not? I set up in one of the booths and even though there was no charge, the customers were just throwing cash at me. I did St. Patrick from some guy's church handout, a few more customers wanted little leprechaun 'footprints' across their faces. It was a blast. u/Poppycake1903

6. HR mistake

My offer letter was wrong. I asked for a one-time sign-on bonus since I was leaving my match at my previous job. HR agreed, but then, instead of doing it as a bonus, they added it to my salary. I didn't say anything. 2 years later, during an audit, they caught it. The CEO finds out and says, "Well, even with his raise last year he still is worth it." Never had to pay it back since it was an HR screw up and I'm good at my job. u/diatho

7. Shoveling snow in the neighborhood

Shoveling snow. Yeah, I know how it sounds, but I was at my grandma's house and she had this shovel that was curved, so if you held it right, the snow would curl up and move just like a snowplow. I was like 6 or 7 years old. I thought was so cool, so I just went around her block, clearing the sidewalks and having a blast cause it was just like the big snowplows. Before I know it, people are coming out of the houses and giving me money. u/steppedinhairball

8. Palm reading

I used to get paid to read palms at parties. Despite my 'entertainment purposes only' disclaimer, people always took it too seriously. Even when they had seen me doing magic shows. Apparently, watching me do card tricks for an hour wasn't enough to convince people that maybe - just maybe - I wasn't actually a psychic. I started feeling guilty about spreading nonsense, so I had to quit. It was such easy money, too. u/captainmagictrousers

9. Betting with freshers 

When I was at the university, I used to do campus tours and meet and greets for new students (in the UK, this is). The university I went to was in a city called Leicester. In the city center, there was a street called Every Street. At the end, on the corner of that street and another, was a branch of Barclays Bank. So I used to bet all the freshers £20 that there was a Barclays Bank on the corner of every street in Leicester. It was a 15-minute walk from the campus to the bank, and they'd get smug because of all the intersections and street corners we'd pass until we reached the bank and I made them pay up. u/Appropriate-Ad-8523

10. Walmart parking 

When I was an elder teen, I went to the Walmart Supercenter in the middle of the night because we (my boyfriend at the time was with me) were bored and couldn't sleep. When we came out, it was quite windy, the parking lot was pretty empty. I started seeing papers fly by and it was cash, mostly $20 bills. I started running around like a crazy person, trying to find/grab all the bills I could. All in all, I was able to salvage about $700 while the majority blew off into the darkness/neighboring swampy wooded area. We searched around for a human that it could've belonged to, but it was only us. u/Neyabenz