Others people responses seem way better then mine. I used to burn pirated cds and dvds back in middle and high school. I also used to sell answers to a couple seniors during algebra 2 when they were desperate to graduate. But as an adult other then selling drugs i also sucked a dick for 600 dollars. I also helped a gf sell photos before onlyfans. So none of that seems very unusual now adays.
When I was still in school, I was the computer nerd. A doctor in town, who’s son was in my class, asked me to fix an annoyance he had with a software he used. He offered a generous compensation. It took me less than an hour to analyze and patch the program on the binary level. On a per hour base, I earned more money than he normally did…
I was commuting back to home from the city where I was doing apprenticeship.
I sat next to an elderly lady who initiated a talk with me and soon has asked what i believed her subjects were she used to teach at school. I believe i got it wrong the first time but right on my second try and explained why i thought so.
After we noticed that we both lived/exited in the same village she offered me a price money and asked for my address so she could send it to me.
I know this sounds super suspicious and writing it makes me wonder why i have given her my address, but i was young and there are probably a lot of details i’m missing which would make it totally reasonable. Some days later i got an letter with 5 € attached :)
Had the only printer in my dorm room of about 70 rooms and charged just slightly less than the university did per page so naturally people printed with my printer. Made some scripts that hooked into google cloud print to log users and had spreadsheet to track funds for users and send emails about what was printed and how much funds they had left. I made mony only because people forgot they had extra funds when they moved out and never asked to get it back. Its not a lot but stil strange to me why I put so much effort into a very low profit business.
In university I was into visual art, mostly drawing and photography. So I went to drawing class. At the end of semester the teacher proposed to us to be models for next semester and I took it. It was funny, just sitting or standing still for 2 hours 😁 Easy money.
Little less fun was when they was drawing nude body, so I was standing there in only my underwear 😅
And when they was drawing a caricature I asked them to draw me as a werewolf. One guy did and later donated his drawing to me. I still have it after all those years 😊
I created an open source image gallery (floating image) in my spare time. Some company (Archos) wanted to embed it into their products, but wanted me to add support for 3rd party hosts (I had Flickr, they wanted Google, photo bucket and others). I earned about €3000 on the work and my project got better for it. Not completely unheard of, but probably the most unusual way I have made extra money.
I designed a board game as a personal challenge and posted my notes online along the way. As the game got close to being finished a publisher messaged wanting to help finish and sell the game. Royalties were enough for a couple small family vacations. That experience really helped cement board gaming (and designing) as one of my core hobbies.
I can fit quarters and €2 coins in my nostrils. I used to have a drunkenness level that would prompt me to assert this at parties or bars, and then I’d obviously show people.
Nobody wants their coins back after that, but it’s not very lucrative and I shudder to think now about the diseases I tempted.
Likely got some beta-hemolytic staphylococcus aureus all up in there. It’s a community derived strain of a common microorganism of the skins biome that can kill blood cells. Do you get sore-throats often, itchy nostrils?
It’s been a decade or more since I did it, but I wasn’t very frequently sick at the time, nor am I now. I do get more severely sick than my husband now, but he’s an overweight omnivore and I’m an underweight vegan, so I assume it’s more related to that. Itchy nostrils sound awful, but I’ve never had them.
When I was 15 or so I was hired from an ad on Craigslist for photo editing - just basic touching up, but like a thousand or so photos. The caveat was - softcore porn. I didn’t mind, money is money. My very Christian family who found out however - they did mind. My sister ended up finishing the editing for me.
Nice try, IRS.
Back in my early college years I worked with a buddy doing other people’s online math homework. I’d generally get a few hundred bucks per each person’s semester. It wasn’t a ton of money but it was good to have for buying textbooks or weed.
Because you have specifically mentioned buying textbooks, I assume you studied in USA. As an European I am still horrified by the textbook prices in USA. In my country I have even participated working group with government representative about how to make our textbook available under free, public license, like CC BY-SA. I wish you best 🤗
They were somewhat subsidized thanks to a special STEM program that gave a small stipend for textbooks so it helped a lot. Still, I wish everyone who wants a proper education shouldn’t have to worry about the cost of their books or tuition. Life is bleak enough here in the US without needing to finance our future with ever lowering odds of success.
if you did english essay writing you couldve charged more.
It wasn’t much, but back in high school I basically worked as sort of a personal savings account for a couple weeks.
There was one dude I wasn’t exactly friends with but we were friendly, never hung out or really talked outside of school, but otherwise were on pretty good terms. We often sat at the same lunch tables, had some mutual friends and such, talked and joked around between classes, etc.
He was also kind of an irresponsible druggie. Nice guy, wasn’t out committing crimes or anything besides drug possession, just made a lot of dumb choices, came to school drunk, high or tripping balls a lot.
I kind of looked the part of a stoner back in high school- long hair, sort of a grungy style, listened to a lot of classic rock and metal, etc. so I was in a lot of the same circles as him, but I didn’t drink or do drugs and it was also pretty well known that I was a reasonably smart, responsible, and honest dude.
So a few weeks out from senior prom, he realizes that he’s going to need some money for whatever his post-prom plans were (I didn’t ask, I figured it was probably better that I didn’t know.) He also knew that he couldn’t be trusted with his own money, he’d blow it on drugs or something else stupid.
So he asks if he can just give me money to hold onto, and I agreed. He’d hand me a few bucks here or there over the next couple weeks, whatever he didn’t use from his lunch money or allowance or whatever, and I just held onto it.
But at the end of it, it added up to a pretty decent bit of money (by “high school kids 20 years ago” standards anyway, it was maybe around $100)
And the day before prom I gave it back to him and he let me keep I think $10 or $20 for my troubles.
Good on you. I know a lot of people that would’ve “lost” it.
That’s an interesting situation to be in and to get paid for your troubles. Do you know if he was able to get sober from this or even after high school?
He did eventually sober up, I think he did a little bit of time in jail or prison along the way. As far as I know he is generally doing pretty well now, is married, has a kid.
But he’s still an idiot. I remember seeing I’m parroting some bullshit about Trump being better for the middle class maybe about a year ago.
He did message me a bit after the election saying something about how he felt bad, but I was still pissed off myself and in no mood to hear him out and blocked him. I was within days of deleting my Facebook anyway so I was about to lose contact with him anyway since I’ve never had his phone number.
Sorting trash and recycling.
Was working with IATSE setting up a stage for some band. The road crew forgot about us and we missed all our breaks over about three hours (starting almost immediately with our lunch break). There were four union workers just standing there having there contracts broken with ineptitude. We were all payed ~$900 each for watching other people work for three hours. Like, by the end of the third our I think we were getting quadruple time or something.
Unions are fucking awesome. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a de facto supporter of slavery, with extra steps.
going to aldi with a pack of plastic cart buckles and stealing peoples quarters
Like when they were shopping and not looking?
Probably knocked them out first, to be polite.
It’s basic chivalry
