5 Bizarre (And Ridiculously Easy) Ways to Make Money

We recently bought our first house, and let me tell you: the term “house poor” is so damned relatable right now.

Particularly in the current economic climate — what’s up with all this inflation? Throw in an outrageous mortgage, heaps of insurance, and a new furnace, and meeting the needs of our day-to-day living becomes a financial goal all on its own.

Naturally, we started looking at new ways to boost our earnings, and the internet is full of ’em. In the days of online everything, especially after an isolation-heavy pandemic, searching for clever ways to make a buck just makes sense.

Because, as I discovered, you can sell pretty much anything, both online and offline — all you need are the right tools to do so.

#1 — Be a Friend-For-Hire

Are you a good buddy? Can you listen and commiserate with your fellow humans?

RentAFriend wants you.

According to their site, rented buddies go for $10 an hour, although the rate is flexible. A rented friend can offer a number of different things; gigs as a friend might look something like this:

a travelling client looking for a chum to go for drinks with
a platonic date for work events
a gym buddy
a “wingman” or “wingwoman” (let’s go with “wing person”)

Fees and services are all pretty flexible, and if you’re a social person, this is a perfect, albeit weird, way to make a dime.

#2 — Flip Some Books

Book flipping is a thing that I didn’t know existed until recently.

The ultimate buy-and-sell business, book flipping, is the arbitrage of buying a book on one market and reselling it on another for profit. Examples of books to buy and sell in this way are used textbooks, rare books, and first-edition books.

Flipped books are highly sought after, and I can speak from experience — I’ve been searching endlessly for a decent quality Good Housekeeping cookbook from the 40s and 50s, and precious gems like these can often be found in local thrift shops for next to nothing! Then you can resell on places like:

How much cash book flipping can garner depends on you and your hunting skills, but one clever fellah managed to sell $9,000 of used books online in one month, so maybe check out his process!

#3 — Sell Your Hair

I don’t know why, but this one gives me the icks. It’s still a great way to make some money, though, especially if you have healthy, long locks.

During the pandemic, many people skipped out on regular visits to the hair salon, so we have hair to spare. And that’s a great thing because selling hair is a surprisingly lucrative endeavor.

Hair, especially hair that’s never been dyed, is pretty valuable, with some sellers earning up to $1,000 for their unwanted locks. So if you have some gorgeous hair and are looking to follow the latest Haley Bieber trend, then consider selling your hair online through:

Just make sure to keep your hair clean and healthy, and you’ll be able to make a quick buck.

#4 — Wait In Line

Believe it or not, hiring someone to wait in line for you is a thing.

Buyers use this service for any number of things: you can hire someone to wait in line for you to get tickets to an event, to hold a seat at a restaurant, or in line for special sales, such as Black Friday events.

While rates can vary depending on the line and waiting conditions, a fee of around $14 an hour is fairly typical.

You can become a line waiter through any of these:

Just be sure you charge well — waiting in line sucks.

#5 — Rent Out Space

My new house has sooo much storage space. Like, oodles of space.

I have two kids and a husband, however, so we use pretty much every corner of that space. But there are people out there who have plenty of space to spare — closet and storage space that’s just taking up room, not earning its keep.

You can make money off of those empty rooms through services such as StoreAtMyHouse. Self-described as an “Airbnb of self-storage,” the site enables you to set up your space to rent out in much the same way: you list your space, control the pricing and length of the contract, and the StoreAtMyHouse does the rest.

Considering the cost of commercial self-storage these days, this service just makes good sense. Offering your space for rent can garner you over $100 a month on average, depending on the size of the space.

And since your free space would just be, well, taking up space, why not rent it out?

You Can Sell Anything

After researching and writing this article, I’ve reached a pretty solid conclusion — you can sell virtually anything if you have the right tools.

This was just a short list of weird and easy things you can do to make some money, but there were dozens more in my research. From renting out your backyard to selling feet pics to toilet paper hustles, the possibilities are endless, and all you need is a place to sell your stuff, space, or services.

And the internet is full of ’em.

In short, if you can provide a service that people want for a reasonable price, they’ll pony up. Happy money-making!

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This post was previously published on ILLUMINATION.

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