8 unusual ways to make money

Today I have a guest post featuring unusual ways to make money. It has been written by Francesca who blogs at From Pennies to Pounds. Francesca writes her blog as a guide for improving your finance and your life through saving money and making more money – something I love. You can find her on Twitter @FromPenniesTo. Over to Francesca…

Lately, it seems that people are much more open and willing to seek out various ways of bringing in extra cash. This additional income can be used towards paying the bills, getting rid of debt, holidays or to be put into savings. How you want to spend it is up to you – but there’s no denying that ‘side hustling’ is on the rise.

This blog is a great example of finding different ways of making extra money that you may not have heard of previously. And if you dig a little deeper, you could find some lesser-known ways of raking in more money. Have you heard of the company in America that was featured in the Washington Post? They published an article relating to a company called OpenBiome where you can donate your faecal samples…’poop’ in layman’s terms! For a week of donations you are granted $250. Pretty easy money! Unfortunately I can’t see that we have anything available like this over here in the UK. Nevertheless, there are still some pretty unusual, or lesser-known ways of making money that can be shared with you:

1) Rent a friend

Believe it or not, but you can hire yourself out as a friend to someone. There is a rentafriend website where you can sign up to be paid for being a friend to another person using the site. It’s for people who have maybe moved to a new area and want to be shown around by someone that knows the area, or maybe someone who has a spare ticket to a football match and no-one to go with. It’s a strictly platonic arrangement, and you can negotiate your price to however much you would like. Getting paid to hang out is an easy and unusual way of making some extra money. There is a guy in America who is getting paid decent money to go for walks with others because he is a great listener, and they love to have another person to talk to.

2) Life modelling

You don’t have to be a gorgeous ten foot tall Adonis to do life modelling – you are simply there to be drawn for practising artists in a class, or for a fun activity for a hen party (I’ve done this activity at my friends hen do, it was brilliant!). The fee can be pretty good, if you don’t mind taking off your clothes and posing for a while.

3) Alcohol mystery shopping

Between the ages of 18 and 19 years old? You can become a mystery shopper for booze with ServeLegal. The company was set up by 2 alcohol retailers who ended up losing a licence because they found shops were serving under age drinkers, and needed a way to test that the shop keepers were following the correct procedure in the future. You get to keep the alcohol after too!

4) Professional Cuddler

Yes you read that correctly – you can be paid for cuddling. The website Cuddle Professionals says that you can enrol on their certified Cuddle Professionals International Diploma course – they take all people and that you must be aware that this is strictly platonic. Their mission statement says: ‘We promote the benefits of human touch in holistic healing and treatments.’

5) Sell clothes via selfies

On the Stylinity website, you can download an app, upload photos of yourself and tag the clothes that you’re wearing. If users like what they see and click through to buy the clothes, you get a commission of up to 20% in the form of points that you can redeem for cash and various other products.

6) Meal Sharing

This is a new concept that sounds like it could be a lot of fun – kind of like running a small restaurant in your own home. If you wish to be a host, then you can upload a menu plan with a time and date for the meal onto the meal sharing website, and then people can sign up to join you for dinner! Likewise, if you wish to dine at someone else’s house, then you can book through the website if you find a menu that you find appealing in your local town. This is an ideal service for people who are travelling, or new to the area because it is great for getting out and meeting new people.

7) Hangover Food Delivery Service

There is definitely a big gap in the market for this. Did you hear about the student at Plymouth University who launched a hangover food delivery service? For a small fee, he would fetch fellow students meals from fast food restaurants who don’t run their own delivery service, such as McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Burger King. How many times have your friends moaned about wanting a McDonalds after a heavy night out? This could definitely be a lucrative venture!

8) Selling your smelly shoes on eBay

This idea definitely had to be mentioned – as Emma has published articles about this before, and they always pique a lot of interest. If you haven’t seen the posts yet – Emma has sold her old smelly shoes in eBay in the past, to people who like that kind of thing. There’s a plethora of unusual items that are purchased through eBay – but old shoes are something that most of us have in the back of the cupboard which we could sell and make some decent extra cash on. Make sure you read Emma’s article because eBay have some strict guidelines that you must adhere to if you are selling worn shoes on there.

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I hope that these eight unusual ways to make money give you some inspiration!

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