What interesting things have you done to earn money?

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Stridone

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So it's time for me to get a job besides my studying, but the options for an 18-year old student with almost no work experience aren't that interesting... It mostly comes down to retail jobs. I was thinking about some other interesting ways to make money. With some creativity and intelligence, surely there must be ways to make decent money doing something interesting. So what have you done, GAF?

Personally, I played online poker for a while and made pretty good cash, but it became mind-numbingly boring after a playing on 9 tables while on autopilot.
 
Creating virtual products (clothing and furniture) for the online community IMVU. They still make some extra revenue every month :D
 
When I was 18 I took a temp job to clean construction equipment. I thought no problem, it'll be like washing cars.

It was horrible. The pressure washer was flinging stuff all over the place. It was like I was throwing rocks at myself. When I was done, I was covered in mud and the employees could help but laugh at me. Again, it was horrible.
 
Cleaned floors and bathrooms in low-income government housing for the mentally incapable.

Edit:
It was horrible. The pressure washer was flinging stuff all over the place. It was like I was throwing rocks at myself. When I was done, I was covered in mud and the employees could help but laugh at me. Again, it was horrible.
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You come off as someone.... who has not done a lot of menial/manual labor. :lol
 
Helped produce pornorgraphy.

I wasn't involved with making or filming, but the backoffice stuff. Making sure they were over 18, looking at applications. No, not like those porn audition porns.
 
Nicest way to earn a bit of money is Market Research, specifically sample tasting.

I went to a nice two hour fruit cider tasting survey thing. Was very good - got paid £60 GBP to try, and give my opinions, on fruit cider. Got nicely tipsy.:D

Been to a couple of things like this. You go and try something for a big food/drink manufacturer, they pay you for a couple of hours "work".
 
I'm knitting scarves this winter for friends and family. $60 a pop and I can finish one in a few hours. It's a nice little boon as I go through school.
 
ChiTownBuffalo said:
Helped produce pornorgraphy.

I wasn't involved with making or filming, but the backoffice stuff. Making sure they were over 18, looking at applications. No, not like those porn audition porns.
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Ninja Dom said:
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Its not that awesome.

We had to use Craigslist to solicit talent.

Pimps would submit their busted ass girls and constantly harass us why we wouldn't hire them. One of the guy was a complete ass, he would talk shit about the girls and stuff. We had to axe him just prior to a scene. Yeah, I got into a fight with a naked dude.

But the it closed up so quickly. Like we lasted 3 months.
 
ChiTownBuffalo said:
Helped produce pornorgraphy.

I wasn't involved with making or filming, but the backoffice stuff. Making sure they were over 18, looking at applications. No, not like those porn audition porns.
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Well you really should have gone the extra mile to vet those applications properly. That's on you.

If you're craft-friendly, you can generally turn a profit on some of that. Depending on skill level though it will likely not be enough to sustain you. If you're just looking for a job that leads nowhere and makes you want to die, call centers are always hiring.
 
Buying cheap games and stratagy guides at retail stores and sell them online, while it sounds dull it can be pretty fun (At least more fun then my normal job), and little is more fufilling the buying the Fallout 3 LE guide at $.01 and selling it for $70.

"Working" for Amazon's Mechanical Turk.
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Is there any way to turn an income that doesn't work out to be less then minumun wage?
 
I used to buy underpriced PS3 and Xbox 360 bundles on ebay and sell all the items separately. I'd look for someone who was selling a PS3 with multiple games and who hadn't posted his listing well and buy the whole thing at a low price. Then I'd sell the system and games in individual auctions. Usually made $100-300 dollars from each one.

I also taught guitar lessons for awhile.
 
Worked in a lobster hatchery taking care of baby lobsters and giving lectures on lobster reproduction and birth.
Worked in a strip club basically doing whatever the hell was needed of me
Worked as a nature guide giving tours
Substitute taught at a high school with a huge drop out rate


All stuff I needed no previous experience for, paid minimum wage or less (at first and minus tips) and were very interesting.


Oh and you could sell weed. Never done it beyond being the middle man in a handful of deals hooking up friends who didn't know each other. However I have a friend who supplies if I ever get so desperate for cash.
 
Medical testing. In one, I took some type of medication that lowered my blood pressure for about three years. They usually paid about $750, but my friends and I once held out for a big one that earned $3000. We gave up weed for about a month beforehand so we could be assured a spot, but we must have really overdone it on the drinking to compensate. I was rejected for some kind of high liver count, but they asked me not to drink for a few days and come back. When they did the test a second time, they asked me if I had chugged a beer right before I took it! :lol That ended my medical testing career.
 
siddx said:
Worked in a lobster hatchery taking care of baby lobsters and giving lectures on lobster reproduction and birth.
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People took tours of lobster hatcheries? Interesting.
 
When I was like, um, 9, I used to sell seashells by the seashore. Seriously. Shells were very hard to find and your best bet was making friends with the local fishermen and get them to give you the shells which get stuck in their nets. And then there was the whole diving for dead sea urchins which look pretty awesome.

Made enough to buy two ice-creams throughout a whole summer.
 
I beta tested videogames. It was awful and it felt like the gaming section forum had come to life and i was working and interacting with its worst posters on a daily basis.

I lasted a month and a half before deciding I had enough of dealing with shitty working conditions and godawful coworkers like 35 years old WoW addicts who were happy with playing videogames all day for 8$/hour
 
Girlfriend paid me 1,000 dollars to assassinate her parents


i hope you get the joke
 
I worked with a catering service a few times. Transporting stuff, helping set up, washing dishes, and generally doing whatever they needed doing. It was a good job, and I generally got to take a plate of leftovers home.
 
I'm building a videogame price comparison site. Got about 10 retailers now and going to add 3-4 more tomorrow.
 
ChiTownBuffalo said:
People took tours of lobster hatcheries? Interesting.
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You'd be surprised what kind of weird shit tourist in Maine will go do and see. I've heard of out of staters driving hours into the middle of nowhere to see one god damn moose.
 
When I was a kid my sister and I were hired to fold 2000 origami flowers. I can still fold that fucking flower in my sleep.

I used to go and sell my blood plasma. it was pretty decent money.
 
siddx said:
You'd be surprised what kind of weird shit tourist in Maine will go do and see. I've heard of out of staters driving hours into the middle of nowhere to see one god damn moose.
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We have those types of gawkers in Colorado. I remember watching this family parked on the side of the road staring at prairie dogs.

I dunno what the Chicago equivalent is. Watching the Cubs choke?
 
My partner and I stripped on stage one time at an amateur stripping contest in order to make money for rent. Our rent at the time was $250/month (before you ask: apt in small town Mississippi in the 90s), student loan money had been indefinitely delayed, and we were desperate.

My song? "Ya Gotta Lick It."
His song? "Ray of Light."

By audience applause, he took first place, while I took second. We left with about $1500 for six minutes' worth of dancing. I was drunk as hell before I took the stage (it was the only way I could work-up the nerve to do such a thing.. I'm quite an introvert), and men and women were stuffing ones and fives in our g-strings. It's all a blur now.

Once the host announced us as the winners, we jumped off of stage, made a beeline for the DJ booth for our cash, and got the hell outta there. We never returned to that club, but then again, we hardly ever go out to begin with.
 
I modeled nude at my University's art department once. Got $14/hr, 3 hours a day for 4 days. Only shitty part about it, aside from being naked in front of people I'd seen around campus, was they had the air conditioning cranked way up.

I also created 2 "viral" comedy videos for a porn site, back when viral videos weren't a dime a dozen. In one I streaked (in a banana hammock) through a major metropolitan tourist area, and in the other I lit my balls on fire. They paid me $1000 for the first one and $500 for the second.

I was a Wii, XBox360, and PS3 camper at my local Best Buy for a while too. Wal-Mart would sell at midnight so I'd go there first, then as soon as I got the goods there, I'd run over to Best Buy and get a system there too. Then around 9am I'd list them on Craigslist and Ebay and watch the dollars roll in.
 
My second semester of college the campus bookstore had a "book donations" box. People were too short sighted and just tossed out old textbooks there. I asked if I can take books, got permission, and every day after class I would raid the donation box then post the books on half.com. Conveniently my roomate got kicked out of school after 1st semester so that side of the room became my textbook inventory. I made $2000 profit that semester and about $1000 the next. Then the bookstore stopped keeping the donation box in public view.
 
YoungHav said:
My second semester of college the campus bookstore had a "book donations" box. People were too short sighted and just tossed out old textbooks there. I asked if I can take books, got permission, and every day after class I would raid the donation box then post the books on half.com. Conveniently my roomate got kicked out of school after 1st semester so that side of the room became my textbook inventory. I made $2000 profit that semester and about $1000 the next. Then the bookstore stopped keeping the donation box in public view.
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You asked if you can take books? Why would they even tell you that you can take books from the donations bin? does not make sense.
 
There's a research firm in the mall center I work in. It's much like the NPD. I get 4 dollars for 25-40 minutes of tasting food/watching trailers.
 
afternoon delight said:
Cleaned floors and bathrooms in low-income government housing for the mentally incapable.

Edit:


You come off as someone.... who has not done a lot of menial/manual labor. :lol
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Manual labor is how I paid for college! :lol

It's hard to describe the agony that job caused. A lot of jobs cause pain but it was never self inflicted! The pressure washer was like a fire hose so it was able to blast huge rocks out of the treads and against the laws of physics, right into my face. Pus the metal casing on the hose handle cut my hand.

I should have known something was up since they were paying me 15 an hour. Thank god I got that bank teller job! :lol
 
At the moment I fix computers for $20-$25 a pop, and sell software for the same price.

It's a good business at a 2-year college, lots of old people and none of them tech-savvy.
 
I pulled cable on a new construction. Wasn't very good at it.
 
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