People Break Down The Dumbest Ways They've Ever Made A Buck

Clean Living

"Sold my urine on job site to guys who knew they were going to be tested."

~ blackp3dro

Polly Want a Story?

"Reading books to my neighbour's parrot."

"He was depressed and needed company, apparently."

"I was 10, I enjoyed that work very much."

"I read a lot on my own, but I was terrible at reading out loud, and I had a stutter."

"The parrot was lonely and plucking his feathers and I was told that the only way I could save him was to read to him every day."

"I suspect anything to keep him company would have worked, but I took my reading job very seriously. It helped us both."

~ alentukh

Ten Pence

"Forgot to submit my self-assessment tax return for a year I owed £0 tax."

"Got fined £100."

"Appealed it, was successful, got paid £100.10 back."

~ sammy_zammy

Fantasy Fabio

"I got a job as a 'fantasy model with long flowing hair' where I modelled for covers of B grade American fantasy novels. Paid OKish, not well."

"I also signed away my rights like an idiot so I occasionally turn up riding a horse, or casting a spell. Also once turned up on a book cover with 'a lady' and my girlfriend went 'Who the f'k is that‽‽'."

"Photoshop my dear. Photoshop."

"I tried to read one of the books and it started 'He was not traditionally handsome'. Ouch."

~ HerrFerret

Free Profit

"About 10 years ago I downloaded one of those Clash of Clans style app games. This was before the 'pay to win' model had arisen so I played the game for about a year and was actually pretty good at it and managed to get into one of the top clans."

"After a year or so though the pay to win model began to rear its ugly head and ruin the game. I saw the writing on the wall and decided it was time to hang it up."

"Now I had never spent a dime on this game but I knew that a lot of the big spenders would sell their accounts when they quit in an attempt to recoup some of their losses. I knew my account wasn’t at that level but I figured it was worth a try."

"I figured if I could get even $10 I would be happy. I was in no rush to sell it though so I figured I would start very unrealistically high and then slowly go down on my list price."

"I ended up listing it on a third party site starting at $500. Within 12 hours I had a guy 'counter offer' at $350."

"I was blown away. I wasn’t about to negotiate with that and jumped all over it."

"To this day I still can’t believe that I had fun playing a free game for a year and then sold my account for $350."

~ SCHokie2011

Doesn't Add Up

"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 test 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."

~ RTAW0lf3

Ah, Craigslist...

"Answered an ad on Craigslist. A dude shaved my head, and filmed it. Paid me $600."

~ Shaladox

"Craigslist had some bizarre ads back in the day. I answered an ad to do some weird stuff too."

"A guy wanted me to pee in a diaper and give it to him."

"So we’d meet up. I’d get in his car. Put on a diaper, pee in it, take it off, give it to him, and he’d pay me $100."

~ princesspeepe

Pound for Pound

"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 expert 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 £10,000. I literally did nothing except change some currency."

~ the_real_grinningdog

Miscommunication = $$$

"I was a contractor for a while doing IT. I think I was making around $50k at the time. Hourly pay, but worked out to about $50k annually."

"They wanted to renew my contract and I told my contract company I should get 10 more. I thought I was worth another $10k annually."

"They went and talked to the company and came back and said they got me 9. As in $9 more an hour and if that was OK."

"Yep, that’s about $19k more annually. It was also around Y2K time so overtime was always there too."

~ ShamusNC

Silver Lining

"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."

"Dumb. Effective, but dumb."

~ aaronjer

Whistle While You Work

"I worked at a recording studio and one of the engineers was working on a radio commercial. The spot called for a bit of dialogue between a voiceover talent and a bird whistling."

"The client figured we could just use sfx for the bird responses, but nothing was working. The engineer left the session for a bit to get some air and he told me what was going on."

"Not to brag, but I’m a pretty good whistler. I started mimicking what the bird 'should' sound like, and his eyes went wide. He dragged me into the session to present what I did."

"I ended up being hired on the spot. I whistled for one commercial, which happened to be a union gig. So, I signed a contract that basically let me join for the day."

"I got about 800 bucks for the day, but also received residual checks for a couple more years after that. Whistling earned me about $3k in the end."

~ GtrSolo2TheFace

HR Oops!

"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."

~ diatho

Cleaning Up

"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 having a blast cause it's just like the big snowplows."

"Before I know it, people are coming out of the houses and giving me money."

~ steppedinhairball

Candy!

"Some dude hit my friend with his car while we were crossing the sidewalk in front of a 7-11."

"We were 12ish at the time and my friend wasn't hurt except for a bruise that came later."

"He gave us each $20 to not say anything about it."

"We bought SO much candy."

~ hotaffiliatequeen

The United States is described as being in a gig economy.

People are temps, contractors or subcontractors instead of employees.

Some efforts to make a living wage are better ideas than others.

But "dumb" might be a bit harsh if it pays the bills.

What's the most unusual way you've made money?