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

Sep 12, 2023

By: Abhiram Sajai

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...

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...

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 ba...

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 mark...

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 w...

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 ...

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 c...

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 ju...

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...

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...

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 seein...