A Few Creative Ways To Make Money

We were always looking for creative ways to make money when we were children. My brother collected golf balls from the bottom of a pond at the edge of a golf course, and sold them. I sold candy from a hollow book to classmates, and ran casino and carnival-style games for my brothers and friends. We collected driftwood, sea shells and other natural items, gluing them together to make artistic items that we sold for a few dollars.

But what creative ways to make money can we use as adults, to generate more than a few dollars? The following are some ideas that I have found in my research and from my own experience.

Carving Walking Sticks

This is one I have tried. Using trees cut near where I lived I made hundreds of walking sticks, some with gems inset on top, others with designs wood-burned into them. Most had handgrips made from strips of leather cut from used leather jackets I bought for a few dollars each. I spent a summer selling a couple hundred of these for prices ranging from four (wholesale) to twenty dollars.

Some artisans target the high-end of this market, with walking sticks that start at $40 or more. Those ones typically have more detailed carvings, and they sell best at art and craft shows (we sold mine mostly at flea markets - not the best place).

Selling The Moon

One company sells plots of land on the moon, and they get about $29 for a small lot, or more for larger parcels. Will the titles hold up legally in the future? Who knows, but customers get a deed they can display on their wall, and a map showing the precise location of their lunar property. This company has reportedly sold millions of dollars worth of these lots. Now that's a creative way to make money.

Old Clothes Made New

A few entrepreneurs out there are making old clothes into new ones. How? Start with used shirts and pants that are in good condition, then add ribbons, beads and other decorations to make them into something new. Dye them or splatter them with bleach to create patterns as well. The resulting artistic creations are sold at craft shows and online.

More Creative Ways To Make Money

( A few quick ideas)

- Have "foreclosure tours" for real estate investors, taking them on a tour of the latest foreclosed homes in town. (Since first writing this in 2007 I have seen this concept used in California.)

- Create a mobile recording studio in a van or panel truck. Take it from town to town and charge people to produce a CD of their singing, which they can buy for a novelty or to send out to agents and record labels.

- Make a mobile "pet photo" business that you run from the back of a van and charge people for photos of their pets taken in their home or yard - or against the backdrops in your mobile studio.

- Sell outdoor enclosures for indoor cats (we built our own 8-by-8-by-8 foot one for $110 in materials). These are sometimes called catteries or catiaries, and allow cats access through a cat door from inside.

- Create an article on creative ways to make money, then use it to promote a website where you make money off the advertising, as I first did with this article.

- Re-use the article as a page to generate more traffic (and revenue) for the site.