In this day and age, it seems like everyone is getting a side hustle. Making ends meet gets harder every year and a lot of us are looking for part time jobs and gigs that can provide some quick money without a lot of time and effort. They may not be careers, but they can supplement your income and maybe get you closer to a dream vacation, or at least a nice dinner. And if you don’t want to do things like drive an Uber or sell your blood, there are some other unusual ways to make some cash you may want to look into.
10. Penguin Counter
Not everyone is aware that there is a small population of people in the Antarctic all the time. These people are located at various research stations, monitoring things like the weather, the ice shelf, and penguins. There is one post office on the entire continent because even those people like to order stuff from Amazon now and then,
The post office is run by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and in April, 2022, they were in the market for a new employee. But the job included more than just sorting mail for the 1,000 to 4,000 residents. Caring for historical artifacts is also part of the job description, as is what may be the greatest responsibility of any job on the continent – counting penguins.
If you think the penguin counting job will be easy, it’s worth noting that there are around 20 million birds there, so you’re probably going to not get them all or, at the very least, count one or two of them twice. You don’t need to count every penguin, of course, just the local Gentoo colony. Part of the job also includes cleaning up after penguins, and they’re not known for their hygiene. There is also no running water on site because, of course, there isn’t. Still, it’s a chance for a heck of a story, if nothing else.
9. Poop Donor
Have you ever heard of someone who is an amazing salesperson described as being able to sell ice to the Inuit? It takes someone with incredible skills of persuasion to sell an essentially useless thing to someone who already has an abundance of it. But there are biotech companies out there right now handing that opportunity to almost all of us on a silver platter. They’re willing to buy your poop from you on a regular basis.
Seres Therapeutics was paying between $25 and $75, up to $1,200 a month for poop donations. Donors need to be healthy,a non-smoker and non-drinker, have no GI issues and be between 18 and 50.
Why does anyone want to pay for poop? It’s actually for a much better cause than it seems at first. The healthy samples are needed for fecal microbiota transplantation. The procedure involves transplanting decal matter from a healthy donor to someone with an unhealthy gut in the hopes that the good bacteria can help combat any number of problems. For some people, this can be a life-changing procedure. .
8. Memesmith
For several years now, memes have been the lifeblood of the internet. In the mid 2010s, a number of companies began focusing heavily on producing memes in the hopes of making their content go viral. This gave rise to an actual meme industry which pivoted from people just making these funny images and jokes for the fun of it to people doing it to make a living. And some people make a good living making memes.
Companies like Gitcoin combined social media expert with meme-producer in a job that paid over $100,000 a year. Bud Light Seltzer was offering up $5000 a month for meme producers. They may not be pearls of wisdom, but if they’re shareable enough, they could keep your rent paid.
7. Moving to a New City
Moving is a big decision for most people, and it’s arguably the biggest upheaval you can experience in your personal life. You have to take everything you own, including yourself, and just go somewhere else. Whether that be down the street or to a whole new city can make it more or less complicated and troublesome. But to take some of the sting out of it, there are a number of cities across America that will actually pay you to move there.
Tulsa Remote was putting up $10,000 for those willing to move to Tulsa back in 2020. The major qualification was that applicants had to be employed remotely somewhere else. Free workspaces and deals on housing were also included. You need to live in Tulsa for at least a year to get the money which is dispersed over the course of the year.
The state of Vermont was also on board with paying people $10,000. The state of Arkansas will offer you $10,000 in cash or crypto, plus a new mountain bike. Topeka, Kansas, can supply you with up to $15,000, depending on certain qualifications met.
It’s not just the USA, either. Calabria, Italy, has even more money to offer those willing to move to the area for up to three years. You can get about $30,000 to do so.
6. Netflix Watcher
Netflix has 222 million subscribers around the world. The company made over $7 billion per quarter in 2021. It’s safe to say it’s the biggest streaming service out there and, by the numbers, they’re doing alright. So why shouldn’t the rest of us have a little piece of the pie?
Fortunately, this is an option if you’re committed to watching a lot of TV and movies. More than one place will pay you to do so, as well. First and foremost, Netflix itself has paid people to tag content for years. You need to be able to consume a lot of content and also come up with the baffling tags the company uses to describe that content, which includes things like “True Bromance” and “Wine and Beverage Appreciation.”
In 2021, EduBirdie was paying $1000 for people to watch Netflix and Prime, which involved watching at least three episodes of 10 different shows to see how motivational they were. The site essentially wants you to write essays on the content that maybe they’re going to sell to highschool or college students later, so you need to be okay with facilitating academic cheating, if you’re interested.
5. Play with Puppies
They say there are two kinds of people in the world – cat people and dog people. If you’re a dog person, you can parlay that love of puppies into cash if you know where to look. A website called Yappy was offering up £24,000 a year for someone to be their Chief Puppy Officer. The details of the job are pretty easy to deal with. The office allows employees to bring their dogs to work and the Chief Puppy Officer has to make sure the dogs are kept busy and stay safe from nine to five each day.
Less involved but no less fun was the job offered by Mutts Canine Cantina, a restaurant in Texas that also has a dog park where diners’ pets can hang out during a meal. They were hiring a “puptern” whose job was to just pet the dogs in the dog park for a respectable $100 an hour.
4. Go Vegan
There are a number of arguments a person could make for going vegan. For some people, it’s a health choice and for others it’s an ethical one. Some people just don’t like the taste of meat. Whatever the reason though, the benefits are usually simple and not material. But that’s not always the case because some people are willing to pay you to go vegan.
Pet food company OMNI was offering up a £30,000 salary for just three months if a pet owner was willing to go vegan for the full 90 days alongside their dog. The human and dog partner have to go the whole time eating no animal products while also keeping detailed notes of what they eat, energy levels and overall health.
For non dog owners or those not in it for a three month haul. The website Vegan Liftz was offering $2500 for just 30 days of the vegan lifestyle. Applicants needed to meet certain criteria, including geographic criteria. The site was looking to make converts in states with the greatest number of meat eaters.
Candidates had to be between 18 and 60 and meet specific health requirements before they’d be considered for the job. That was in 2020 and in 2021 they raised the bar and offered $3500 for the vegan experience.
In the UK, VibrantVegan is offering £50,000 for three months as a vegan if you meet their requirements as a hardcore carnivore convert. .
3. Take Naps
Does anything feel better than a nap in the middle of the day? Probably a lot of things, but you can’t deny a nap can be a nice, relaxing experience. And if someone is going to pay you to nap, then that’s even better because it’s literally the easiest job in the world.
A company called eachnight hires nap reviewers who can test at which time a day a nap is more refreshing, how naps affect memory and motivation, and other nap-related questions that we all want to know about. The job lasts 30 days and is worth $1500.
Sleep Junkie is less concerned with naps and more concerned with just getting to sleep. They were looking for insomniacs and those who have issues sleeping to test sleep aids. $250 per test up to $2000 for 8 weeks’ worth of testing.
Back in 2019, NASA was hiring people to stay in bed for two months for $19,000, although there were a number of requirements including being able to speak German and having to do literally everything, including going to the bathroom, while lying down.
2. Taco Consultant
Everybody loves tacos. That may sound like hyperbole, but tacos al pastor were literally voted the best food in the world by a panel of 100 food experts. So if you can get a job eating tacos, you’re probably living the high life. In 2021, McCormick and Company made this a reality with the greatest taco job in history.
Their Director of Taco Relations would get paid $100,000 for just four months of work that was just 20 hours a week. Responsibilities included making taco recipes, eating tacos, and bringing taco lovers together while staying up to date on taco trends.
1. Vacation in Paradise
Over 50% of people would spend a million dollars on something extravagant, like a new car or a vacation. During the covid pandemic, 95% of people surveyed said they would consider traveling internationally once restrictions were lifted. So it’s safe to say that, given the opportunity, a lot of people want to go on vacation. And from that it’s probably safe to extrapolate that a lot of people would be very happy to be paid to vacation.
If that sounds like an ideal job, then you’re in luck. Resorts like Boardwalk Hotel Aruba hire “social media residents” who get to live in the hotel, get a monthly allowance, airfare, a car and all meals just for living in the resort and posting about it on social media. That’s what people do on vacation all the time, anyway.
Vidanta did something similar in 2018 when they hired a brand ambassador to stay at their Mexican resorts and rake in $120,000 at the same time. For a less intense experience, Tielle Love Luxury was paying $1500 a month to sleep in five star hotels and test the beds out.