Ask The Tight Fist: Making Money without Working

This Works, But I Think There Are Better Ways

Dear The Tight Fist,

You talk a lot about how to prevent spending money. I was wondering if you have any ideas or tips on ways to make money - or into the process of career planning.

Le Piano Man

Dear Le Piano Man,

Making money? That's pretty easy isn't it?

1. Go to college and join the richest frat that will let you in
2. Get a suit and work for the uncle of one of your stupid 'bros'
3. Get an MBA because you don't know what else to do
4. Find some other crappy job to pay off your useless MBA
5. Mid-life crisis

Easy, right? Oh wait, did you want to both make money AND have your life not suck? Well, you should been more specific. The great thing about being a Tight Fist is that you really don't need much money, so you don't have to suckify your life by becoming a corporate whore. (Unless, you know, you're into that kinda thing.) One thing you could do is get a cool job that you actually like, but plenty people "accomplish" this through pure delusion. ("Dude, Junior Assistant Managers get all the chicks!") Much better would be getting paid to not work at all. It's hard to get paid a lot to do no work, but it's surprisingly easy to get paid a little and that's all a Tight Fist needs. Here are some ideas:

Soy! Soy! Soy!

1. Medical Guinea Pig: All you have to do is pop some pills and you get paid. What a great deal! But you should try to get involved in a late stage clinical trial. Because otherwise you might end up like the Elephant Man
2. Sell bodily fluids: There is great money to be made selling your zygotes. Way easier (and more fun!) for the guys, but more lucrative for the ladies (especially those with high SAT scores). You can also sell plasma and platelets for about $50 buck a pop. This trick is beloved by hobos everywhere.
3. Investing: If you know what you're doing, you can take a little bit of money and turn it into a lot of money through sound investments. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I'm pretty sure you just have to grab a bunch of papers and run around the trading floor yelling "SOY! SOY! SOY!" Or something like that.
4. Get stuff for Free and Sell it: You can find tons of free stuff available for pickup on Craigslist from people who are too lazy to sell it themselves. Get this stuff and sell it on Amazon/Ebay = Easy money.
5. Grad school scholarships: Finally, we get to a subject that The Tight Fist knows perfectly well. I don't understand why people work crappy jobs or, god forbid, pay a ton of money to go to school when there are people out there who will pay you to go to school. If you decide to do a Phd in any moderately useful subject, odds are you can find some source of money to pay your way. And once you've got that, you're taken care of for years! People in the 'real world' always make fun of old PhD students who never graduate, but they don't realize that these guys are living the dream. Take that, working stiffs!

Remember, adhering to the rules of The Tight Fist makes it easy to have plenty of money, since you need so little of it. Man, life is sweet.
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Questions about Frugality? Ask The Tight Fist: thetightfist@googlemail.com