"Money makes the world go round," as the saying goes. People have always thought outside the box to find ways to make money and pay the bills, especially when in a difficult situation; however, more bizarre schemes always seem to come to light in tough economic times. With the rise of technology and the ease of finding customers via the Internet, more platforms have opened for smart people to supplement their income when needed. Whether it is selling their skills, selling themselves, or doing things for people, people have found some bizarre ways to make money. Through capitalizing on a larger customer base through the Internet, many of these individuals have been able to take a small idea and make it larger, and even create successful large-scale businesses out of the idea.
Although not all crazy schemes have worked well from a legal standpoint, there is a high success rate of making money through these bizarre and crazy ideas. Listed below are the top 15 craziest successful money making schemes. Some of them only brought in small amounts of funds, helpful in a pinch with the possibility of adding up to some more. Others have successfully brought in millions of dollars. Regardless of how much money they were able to amass, they have all been successful in helping innovative people in a strapped economy make some extra money when traditional sources of income have failed them.
15) Egg and Sperm Donation
Who would have thought that selling your gametes could actually help you pay the bills? In the modern world, having children has become a more and more complex procedure, especially for couples or individuals who for whatever reason cannot have children of their own. Couples can use surrogate mothers, donated sperm and donated eggs in order to bring a new life into the world. With more and more couples choosing this path for children, it opens up a lucrative opportunity for making money, especially if you are fit, have great genes, and are well educated.
Egg Retrieval Procedure Before In Vitro Fertilization
For men, sperm donation is a simple procedure, so it is easy to donate many times over months and years, whenever you are in a financial pinch. Your height, health, education, fitness and sperm motility enhances the price of your donation, which can be anywhere between $1 to $200 per donation. Although this is not much money for one donation, it can always accrue if you make multiple donations. For women, egg donation is a much more lucrative option and it is also a more invasive procedure. It requires an actual surgical procedure that removes the eggs from the ovaries, along with some hormone therapy. However, egg donation can pay thousands of dollars, even up to $10,000 or more depending on your health, your education, your genes and your fitness.
14) Secret Shoppers
If you love to shop and are looking for a way to make money doing it, then becoming a mystery shopper may just be the career for you. Market research companies, watchdog organizations, and other companies hire people to shop at various stores and provide feedback from their experience. As a mystery shopper, you measure the quality of the service from the employees and ensure that they are in compliance with all regulations. You might even be gathering information about the products and services offered at the store.
As a mystery shopper, you do more than just shop at your leisure. You will be asked to perform particular actions like buy a product, ask specific questions or types of questions, complain about something, or act in a particular way, especially a bothersome or troublesome manner. All of these actions will help you evaluate the store and its employees. Once you have finished your shopping trip, you report back to the company that hired you. Depending on for whom you are working, what you do at the store may differ. If the actual company owning the store hires you, they may have more specific actions they want you to do to test the integrity and skills of their employees. Alternatively, a watchdog organization will focus on the governmental regulations. A market research company will focus on the products and services and how they may work in the larger market.
13) Mystery Diners
Similar to secret shoppers, you can become a mystery diner. This is a particularly lucrative option for foodies who love to eat at restaurants, but do not want to fork out the dough. You will be asked to go to a particular restaurant and eat there, without the restaurant knowing why you are there. You will go to the restaurant as though you are a regular guest. Depending on who hires you, you may be asked to order a particular meal or act in a particular manner. Once you are finished with your meal, you will report back to the company your findings.
By Posing as a Couple Out To Eat, Mystery Diners Evaluations for Restaurants
Mystery diners can be used to evaluate the restaurant for many reasons, like looking at its service or the quality of its food. A watchdog organization may want you to help ensure that the restaurant follows all health codes and regulations. Although you may not make a ton of money as a mystery diner, you can at least get lots of tasty food for free. You may even get to eat at very exclusive, expensive restaurants without having to worry about paying a dime.
12) Selling Used Women's Underwear
Sex sells, and the fetishism industry is a hot commodity. One off-beat money making scheme that has made some people rich is selling women's used underwear online. There are people in the world who have a fetish for used women's underwear, and will pay richly for it. Therefore, some women have decided to exploit the fetishism in order to make some quick and easy money.
Craigslist and eBay are common resources for female individuals who are desperate for cash, and do not mind selling their old underwear. Some companies have jumped on board as well, creating websites were fetishists can come and get their fix for women's undies -- at a price. The men do not care who owned the underwear, any woman of any background and situation can make money from their used underwear. It can be lucrative, as well. You can make around $800 in just half a day from selling a few pairs of your undergarments online.
11) Selling Sex via Craigslist
Another shady moneymaking scheme involves selling sex on Craigslist. There have been many instances of people resorting to the world's oldest profession to help pay the bills. You no longer have to go to the street corner or visit a brothel. Instead, you can just look on eBay or Craigslist to get your (most likely illegal) thrills. A couple in New York was arrested for offering sexual services on Craigslist. The husband offered a night of fun with his wife at a hotel on Craigslist for a fee to help pay the couple's bills after he lost his job. Although they were caught before anything could occur, it shows how desperate people sometimes turn to desperate actions to make money. This couple is not the only one resorting to using the Internet to make money through sex.
There has been a trend lately of young women offering their virginity on Craigslist and auction sites like eBay. One Brazilian student offered her virginity on eBay and got an amazing $780,000. One San Diego resident attempted to do likewise, but eBay suspended the auction before it finished. Undeterred, she went to a legal brothel in Nevada and found a way to put the auction back on. She claims to have been offered more than $3.7 million, although it is unsure if anything has even actually happened. There are other stories of other women similarly auctioning off their maidenhood to the highest bidder.
10) Selling Wishbones
Wishbones are a time-honored tradition at Thanksgiving, Christmas and any other meals with turkey at the center. As your family sits around digesting the turkey, dressing and all the trimmings, two fortunate members get a chance to make a wish as they break the wishbone. The lucky one with the larger part is successful in getting their wish granted. One company decided that the joy of the wishbone should be available at anytime. They started to create fake wishbones, called LuckyWishbone, and sell them. They reportedly produce more than 30,000 a month and have made over $1 million.
These wishbones are made out of plastic. Whether the wish will be granted the same as with a traditional wishbone is unknown. However, with these new plastic wishbones you do not have to eat turkey in order to enjoy the tradition of making a wish on the wishbone. Even if Tofurkey is your Thanksgiving main dish of choice, you do not have to give up your opportunity to have a special wish. If your family always fights over who gets to make the wish, everyone can now have a turn.
9) Organizing Other People
Some people have a knack for organizing, while others cannot seem to organize their homes to save their life. If you are a top-notch organizer and love to label, then you can offer your services to make money. You can make $30 to $50 an hour or more, depending on where you live, your reputation, and your clientele. There are several successful companies that go into people's homes and organize their house, although most professional organizers work for themselves. This has become such a successful money making opportunity that people are selling books and classes to teach others how to become a professional organizer. The TV shows "Hoarders" and "Mission: Organization" have brought this career into the limelight, expanding the profession from 834 members of the National Association of Professional Organizers in 1995 to more than 4,000 today.
The clients may be hoarders or just slobs, but you will be expected to get their house into shape. Typically, a professional organizer will work alongside the client to help sort through the junk in the home and get it all organized. You are not there to clean their house, just to organize all their belongings and junk. There may be some light cleaning, but for the most part you are there to just put the household in order. You might get rid of some of your client's belongings, but mostly you focus on finding a better way to store and allow access all of the client's belongings. You may even help to organize their office and files.
8) Making Money from Divorce
Divorce has become so commonplace in today's society, that many people have found ways to make money from it. There are divorce parties, divorce cakes, and more. One smart man, Joshua Opperman, started I Do, Now I Don't, a marketplace for buying and selling diamond jewelry and other luxury items. When his fiancйe returned her engagement ring to him and he was unable to get his money back, he got resourceful. The success of his business, and other similar ones, demonstrates just how big the divorce market is today.
Jewelry is not the only part of divorce ripe for making money. Some smart entrepreneurs have decided that a wedding is not the only part of a relationship that deserves a big party. They have started to make money off of divorce parties as well. Some very skilled cake decorators have created very amusing cakes that fit the theme of divorce perfectly. Event planners create parties for every occasion, so it is no surprise that you can now pay for your very own divorce party planner to make sure that your divorce party will be even bigger and better than your wedding. You do not even have to worry about the cost, just add it to the alimony you are owed during the divorce proceedings.
7) Letters from Santa
All children love writing letters to Santa at the North Pole during Christmas. It is a time honored Christmas tradition for kids to inform Santa in writing what they want for Christmas, and parents tell them if they are good, Santa will provide. Like anything, especially dealing with the commercialized holiday of Christmas, people have found ways to make money off of the tradition. A smart individual found a way to make money off of letters to Santa through offering replies to the children, for a fee. Now other companies have joined in, making it easy at Christmastime for parents to get a letter from Santa sent to their children. There are websites that offer these services digitally, so that your child can email Santa and get the response back.
Although there are companies that offer letter-writing services, some writers have been inspired to strike out on their own and offer Santa letter writing services in their own communities. Instead of parents writing back to their own children, or just telling their children that Santa does not have time to write, they can pay a fee and get a letter delivered for their children. This is just one other easy way to make some extra money during the busy holiday season.
For this money making scheme, all you have to do is just wait in line. A person will pay you, anywhere between $20 and hundreds, depending on how long you have to wait. All you need is patience, something to entertain yourself, and a strong bladder. For example, a college student Amanda Foote stood in line at the New York Apple Store for 41 hours. She sold her spot to someone for $900, which averages to $22 an hour just for standing in line. If you are looking to buy or sell a spot in a lucrative line, then head to Craigslist, as you can probably find an offer.
Chicken pox parties have long been a tradition amongst parents. Chicken pox is a highly contagious disease that once you get it, then you are immune to it for life. Although it is a very mild disease for children, it can be very dangerous and even lethal in adulthood. Therefore, many parents will host a party when one of their children has the chicken pox to help their friends' children also catch the disease. Even though there is now a vaccine for the virus, many parents still prefer having their child catch the disease naturally rather than vaccinating.
Child With Chicken Pox
Some smart thinking parents decided to find ways to make money through creating a business selling chicken pox infected items. They started selling infected clothing, rags, lollipops, and more online, shipping the items out to the various parents. These items do not come cheap; some are reportedly sold for $50 or more. Although these parents have made money, they haven't always made it past the law. Viruses or disease sent by post are illegal, so the parents who mail infected items may just find themselves in trouble with the law. For those looking to buy such items, remember that you do not actually know the origins of any of the items, nor what other diseases may be lurking alongside the chicken pox virus. It is better to get the vaccine, or go to a neighborhood party where you know the families.
3) Playing World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a popular video game that uses Gold as its in game currency. The game itself requires a subscription of $15 a month, but it doesn't cost you anything to get the gold while playing the game, and with it you can enhance your playing experience. Typically you mass your Gold as you go through the game, completing various tasks. With the Gold, you can buy secret weapons to aid you in your quest, dragons that you can actually ride around on in the game, and other exciting additions to the game. As long as you take your time and play the game well, you can typically get enough Gold to have at least some of these experiences. However, some people want to jump the gun and get their Gold quicker and easier.
World of Warcraft is Such a Huge Game That Spin-Offs Like a Card Game Have Developed
By Kuba Bożanowski from Warsaw, Poland (World of Warcraft card gameUploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Therefore, there is a new, albeit not entirely legal, venture happening with World of Warcraft. People are playing the game, amassing gold or even building a character, and then selling it to other people for real money. World of Warcraft enthusiasts who do not have the time, or maybe lack the skill, to get the Gold they want will just pony up some real money to fake it. In fact, there are almost a half a million people in China alone who are making money out of playing World of Warcraft and selling the amassed Gold to other players.
Cool Fact: The site you are on right now (YurTopic), was funded by the World of Warcraft market. The famous WoW speed runner Furious Paul. created this site.
2) Faking Homelessness
There are many homeless people in this country, and around the world, that truly need help. However, there are some individuals who choose to exploit the situation, and people's compassion, and pretend to be homeless to make some money. In Oregon, someone was caught scamming people by pretending to be homeless and reportedly made about $300 per day. That can add up to over $100,000 a year in cash, which also means it is tax-free.
In England, people reportedly make upward to 20,000 pounds a year begging for money when they do not actually need it. Many of the people on the streets are truly in need; unfortunately, there are scammers who make it difficult for people to know whether the destitute person you meet on the street is truly in need, or just conning people.
1) Becoming a Living Billboard
One unique individual really thought outside the box when deciding it was time for some extra money and decided to auction off parts of the body to tattoo for companies who wanted to use him as a living billboard. Famously, an Olympian auctioned off his shoulder in the 2016 Olympic Games to the highest bidder. The casino Golden Palace made headlines when they paid a woman $15,000 for tattooing the website of a casino on her forehead, and they have continued to pay others to do likewise. Now there are lots of people making money by being living and breathing billboards. One New York real estate company has even offered money for employees who will get the company's logo tattooed on their bodies.
Tattooed Logo for Rapid Reality Where Employee Got 15% Payraise
