Easiest Money Made Ever

[livius drusus]

For me it was probably teaching CPR at a sea-side resort on the Adriatic. I was 17 and assisting my mother who split her fee with me. I ended up making $300 for 20 hours' work over 5 days. In other words, they paid me to beachbum. That was a damn good time, I'll tell you wut.

What was the easiestmoneyyou ever made?

[D. Scarlatti]

Too many to count. Most recently, last Thursday I picked up two bills for 90 minutes tickling the ivories at some posh event in an old lakeside mansion. Plus a couple glasses of decent red wine.

Less recently, this gigantic Italian wedding gig. We were supposed to play from 9 'til 1, as usual. But the wedding was so ginormous the eating and speechifying went on until about 10:30. Then some paisan was visiting from the old country so they wanted to know if he could sing a few songs. He went on for about 45 minutes. I think we ended up playing for about half-an-hour but still collected our 1700 bucks or whatever it was.

Come to think of it that was the same night our guitar player spilled an entire rye and ginger ale onto the mixing board. That's what happens when you let musicians stand around with nothing to do.

[RandomThoughts]

For me it was probably teaching CPR at a sea-side resort on the Adriatic. I was 17 and assisting my mother who split her fee with me. I ended up making $300 for 20 hours' work over 5 days. In other words, they paid me to beachbum. That was a damn good time, I'll tell you wut.

What was the easiestmoneyyou ever made?

When I was about 10 years old I discovered that one particular pay phone would give you twice the amount back after you hung up, other people must not have noticed it because it was that way for a long time. I use to stop by there on the way to the movies for extra money for the Karmal corn store for every dime I put in and hung up the receiver I would get two dimes, lol that had loads of penny candy. I never told my friends because I didn't want them to discover my "cash cow" for our outings to the movies. That was easy money.:yup:

[godfry n. glad]

Too many to count. Most recently, last Thursday I picked up two bills for 90 minutes tickling the ivories at some posh event in an old lakeside mansion. Plus a couple glasses of decent red wine.

Less recently, this gigantic Italian wedding gig. We were supposed to play from 9 'til 1, as usual. But the wedding was so ginormous the eating and speechifying went on until about 10:30. Then some paisan was visiting from the old country so they wanted to know if he could sing a few songs. He went on for about 45 minutes. I think we ended up playing for about half-an-hour but still collected our 1700 bucks or whatever it was.

Come to think of it that was the same night our guitar player spilled an entire rye and ginger ale onto the mixing board. That's what happens when you let musicians stand around with nothing to do.

Nuthin' to do? C'mon...Any musician worth their salt would be hitting on all the bridesmaids (or, groom's men, depending). I thought they put that in every contract.

[Pendaric]

I own 6 rental properties that were all bought about 7 years ago. They've been fully tenanted since then, with the rents paying the various mortgages and a bit besides, and they've gone up in value by about £400,000 all told.

Some work required in collecting rents and bits and bats, but in terms of amount paid per hour that's got to be the easiest. I might have a day a month in seeing to them.

[D. Scarlatti]

C'mon...Any musician worth their salt would be hitting on all the bridesmaids.

Not a good idea at a mob wedding, unless you're Sonny Corleone.

eta: I think baldbantam just won the thread.

[livius drusus]

Damn. The way people warn you off owning rental property you'd think it was rowing in the galleys.

[Pendaric]

I've never found it to be so. I bought in to them as a pension fund essentially, on the basis it was something that could be done with minimum time investment. You have a bit of work in when people move out and you have to get new tenants, but it's minimal.

Having said that, I'm at the better end of the market. None of my tenants are on social security (welfare). That's where the hassle is.

One of them is the house I used to live in. When I moved to a bigger house the one I was living in was valued at £42k, and I owned it outright. Instead of selling it towards the new house I kept it and rented it out. I got an extra 42k on my mortgage, which cost me an extra £300 a month. I rented it out 7 years ago for £320 a month, and that has gone up in increments to where it is now at £430 a month. There are some expenses - you have to insure it, have the gas appliances checked every year, and miscellaeneous items, but there hasn't been anything too severe. It's now worth about £95k, which is a £53k profit, and I won't have had above a months work in it over the course of the last 7 years.

I'm not saying it to show off, because you don't have to be clever to do this. Loads of people have done the same. I was slightly fortunate with the timing because the UK has had a massive property boom over the past 7 years, but in the long term property always increases in value.

[Dingfod]

I've never had any luck making money on real estate. "Buy high, sell low", must be my motto. I suppose that's what I get for moving from oil boom to oil boom. Even when I had a rental property, it was a pain in the buttocks getting the rent money. I finally sold the place for a $5000 loss after it sat vacant for several months.

Easiest money I ever made? A week in Vegas on the company expense account attending turbine engine class about six hours a day on average. I not only got paid 40 hours for the week, but I got 20 hours overtime for the road trip to and from Salt Lake City.

[curses]

Easiest money I've ever made was when we discovered that my neighbors had a habit of taking spare money out of their pockets before putting their clothing in the wash--and forgetting about it. This had been going on for several decades, apparently. We found dollars dating back from the 60s. I was friends with their son, and we used to scavange around the basement for cash to spend at the local record store.

[Ymir's blood]

I work as an inspector for the highway department. :smugnod:

[LadyShea]

Sitting and talking with the "boss" while his employees got lapdances (he brought them to Vegas for a project wrap party or some shit). He paid me 800 just to keep him company because he wasn't into the party scene.

[Miisa]

The easiest by far was the stock options I got from the company I work for. I sold them a few months later at four times what I had paid for them.

As for real work, perhaps the translation gigs I have done. Not so much because they were easy (had articles on bovine mastitis and legal documents about hatches on cargo ships, amongst other things), but simply because it paid so much compared to the actual work done.

[BDS]

Inheriting doesn't take much effort, I've found.

[pescifish]

Inheriting doesn't take much effort, I've found.Wow, that wasn't the case for me! Being my mother's involved and loving daughter very nearly killed me.

[Leesifer]

The easiest money I ever made was being on call over the Y2K panic! Certain of us from the IT Department had to be available on New Year's Eve, so basically we couldn't go out or anything. I hate going out on New Year's Eve anyway, so that didn't bother me.

We charged £500 per day for 3 days and did we get called at all? No! :spend:

[Smilin]

That was some of the easiest money I've made as well Leesifer.

We need another "engineering crisis" to compare with the money I made that year >=~100K$

[Pendaric]

So then, you IT guys.

Was Y2K a serious threat to us all that was contained by the heroic efforts of you superhuman techies, or was it an overblown non-event so the computer industry could justify exorbitant fees for a few years?

Methinks probably a bit of both.

[Leesifer]

Was Y2K a serious threat to us all that was contained by the heroic efforts of you superhuman techies, or was it an overblown non-event so the computer industry could justify exorbitant fees for a few years?

Yes! :giggle:

We are all sworn to secrecy.

[Legs]

It would probably be the antique Lunarium that I sold on eBay for $11,200.00 USD. That was bought for.. ummmm $700.00ish (Canadian) :laugh:

[Smilin]

So then, you IT guys.

Was Y2K a serious threat to us all that was contained by the heroic efforts of you superhuman techies, or was it an overblown non-event so the computer industry could justify exorbitant fees for a few years?

Methinks probably a bit of both.

It involved more than just the IT guys (computer industry)

I worked for a public utility that year and basically spent the whole year just identifying all processor controlled equipment and evaluating the probability of how the system would be effected. IMO, it was a bit of both. I was both sides you just mentioned.

Sigghhhhh...I miss the days of unlimited overtime, working around the clock on time-and-a-half...

The gravy is gone though! :pancake: pancakes anyone?

[MonCapitan2002]

I've never made easy money. :cry:

[Puck]

Yeah, inheriting was a good chunk for the time involved, but was it worth it? The death of a loved one. The stress of caring for them. Living in a bad horror movie that you can't turn off and take a break from. Ugh. At least since he had to die, there was a good break afterward since the money could support me while I recovered. And I got to recover even if he didn't.

[godfry n. glad]

I've never made easy money. I guess I just don't have it in me.

[pescifish]

For me, it's generally easy in :dollah: :dollah: :dollah: :dollah:
And easy out :spend: :spend: :spend: :spend:

I :blame: it on Feng Shui. About 20 years ago, I read a newsletter from a Tarot card reader who rode in on the craze to become a highly successful Feng Shui consultant in West LA. The only thing I implemented was to put a large mirror on the wall behind my stove. The theoretical benefit is two-fold: first, you want to be open to the people and energy in the rest of the room so that your food is infused with this positive flow. The negative of a stove facing the wall is overcome by the reflection. And second, the burners on the stove are in the shape of coins/money and the mirror reflecting them attracts wealth and riches to the household.

I put the mirror in because I had one handy and it's hella easier to clean than a painted wall behind the messy stove.

But :dollar: :dollar: :dollar: has been flying in ever since!

[Smilin]

Hmmmmm.....maybe that's the problem...
I don't have a mirror over my stove! :giggles:

Honey...I'm home and check out this new mirror I have to go over the stove...

Why you ask?
Simple!
:spend: :greed: :dollgrin:

[Lauri D]

Easiest money would have to be on the sale of my house. Owned it for ten years and it tripled in value during that period. At the end of the 10 years I had almost paid it off (applied all bonuses, windfalls etc. to the principal, made extra payments etc.) so the sale was almost pure profit. And I didn't do shit except live there.

Other than that, this one time about six months ago I wrote a script for an adult film thingie, it took me about fifteen minutes to write. I went to location for the shoot and assisted with direction of photography (it was a really involved and complex plot set-up) and verbal coaching for lines etc. Anyway for my 15 minutes of writing and 6 hours of assisting with direction I was paid $2500 (and a credit as writer/asst. director, under pseudonym). That was pretty freaking easy right there.

[BDS]

Inheriting doesn't take much effort, I've found.Wow, that wasn't the case for me! Being my mother's involved and loving daughter very nearly killed me.

We all wish we HADN'T inherited (at least I do). However, in my case there was no effort involved. My father (who died 8 months ago) was in perfect health, until he caught ciguatera from eating contaminated fish. He thought (and we thought) he was recovering (I talked to him on the phone two days before he died and he seemed fine). But he died. He was 86, and my brother found him, stone dead, sitting in his favorite chair with a book open in his lap.

I don't know if a "greatest generation" exists. But having my father as a member didn't hurt the WWII lads' claim, that's for sure.

[Sweetie]

I always wanted to get into rental property, I am seriously aiming for that in the future. I know people who make money hand over fist doing that, and others who just make a basic living doing that.

But seriously, my parents turned a ugly old thousand square foot house and doubled it by adding a rather large addition and I helped every step of the way from siding, to roofing, building the awning, to drywalling, painting, leveling grass seed, ripping out the cement basement floor, fencing, building sheds, you name it, I was my father's son. I finally gave up on them like last year when my Mom wanted to outline her flower beds with brick and I wasn't leveling it as perfect as they liked. They spent a couple grand alone just on brick, so you know how big of a job that was, for gawd's sake. I got my own work to do at my own house, but they bought the house for 37 thousand twenty years ago, and could now sell it for gawd knows what, the market has gone up ridiculously where I live. I can gain twenty grand on my house, and this was a starter home for us with only minor improvements and no additions.

My parents have been buying everything they wanted for the last few years, but anyways, so when they die, apparently the house gets divided between three of their six kids, me included, plus because of all the work I put into that house while my siblings were elsewhere, I get my pick of anything of their personal belongings first.

Bah, don't think I'd even want it if my parent's weren't around.

Other than that, easiest money I ever made was marrying into my husband's family and gaining a Grandmother who liked to spoil him, hehe. I cut the grass for her, all her other children and grandchildren are ridiculously lazy. They don't do that stuff, see. :D

[Sweetie]

Oh man, I forgot about the easiest money I could have made.

I bought a life insurance policy back when I was eighteen and when I was twenty-three, the company merged with another, and they gave every policy owner stocks. The problem is, being busy with the kids, I really didn't look into it much and apparently if you didn't say otherwise, they just gave you cash pay-out for the stocks.

So, I receive this check in the mail for eight hundred dollars, which back then, being a young family, we quite frankly, could easily use/spend. Since then however, those stocks I would've had, have increased in value quite a lot, and split twice.

So......I made eight-hundred dollars for just owning a life insurance policy. :doh: :doh: :doh: Coulda made a whole bunch more.

However, my husband's parents bought him a life insurance policy when he was a baby, and it's the type that pays him out, my agent said some of these policies are like gold for some people, especially before him, but they don't do things like that now.

His father paid for the policy, his mother owned the policy even through the divorce, and finally they turned it over to us about a year ago. Turned out his mother has been taking all the pay out money for herself, which is fine, but it's easy money. If she hadn't been taking the money, we also borrowed against it for the house, but if we hadn't done that, the policy would have been paying for itself, so she gipped his dad, she made some easy money on that. It kinda sucks because we have to pay for it when it could have paid for itself, because it was at risk last time we checked, being overextended or something, but we pay it, it should be fine, but whatever. Fifty bucks a month.

My mother missed out on buying stocks in Wal-Mart when they started invading Canada which have split I don't know how many times. I've seen them split twice. They aren't a great investment now, but they were ten years ago when she was looking into it, and of course, moreso how many years before that.

[cappuccino]

The easiest money I've made was the consulting internship I did for 5 months. $25 dollars per hour and the workload was relatively mild. Sometimes I'd sit and do nothing waiting for my supervisor to hand me some workload. Imagine that...I made a good bundle of money by earning $25 per hour for doing nothing. :beaugest: Well I used that free time to do research and reading relating to my professional field at that time but it sure was nice.

[Shake]

Through an apparently now-defunct venture called CyberXpo. They had terminals set up in the malls with free high-speed internet. This girl I worked with in the military got me a job there. All you really had to do was show people how to use the terminals ("No, they're not touch screens!"), trouble-shoot any problems (there was a number to call if it got too difficult), and just make sure no one left any "adult content" up on the screens.

Basically, I got to sit around, surf the web and check out the hot girls shopping in the mall. Later on, they tried to get us to try pushing Earthlink access on customers. We'd get a small fee for everyone who signed up while they were at the station. But I didn't try too hard with that. It was $9/hr to hang out at the mall and surf the web.

One time, some guy left some explicit picture open on the screen, but the dumbass was still logged into his Hotmail account. The picture was an attachment from something he'd been emailed. I deleted all of his mail and then logged him out.

[cappuccino]

Christ, Shake. You deleted all of his mail? That was cold, man!