Five More Unusual Ways To Make Money

There are a lot of ways to make money if you have money. You don't have to turn to complicated businesses or ordinary ways like bank C.D.'s. And you don't even have to use your money. If you have credit cards, for example, you can get cash advances, and make money with the cash. These are ways that aren't quite a business because you can do them once or only when you feel like it.

Invest In Other's Expertise

My friend John had to show me several car magazines before I understood why an old fiberglass car was a good deal at $2,300, because I know nothing about cars. When he eventually convinced me to put up the money, it needed a new transmission for $900. Fortunately, he sold the corvette for $4,300, netting us about $1,000. I took half the profit ($500) for putting up the money for the two weeks.

I used to do this quite a bit years ago, and only once lost $50 or so on a car. I knew nothing about cars, so I did it with friends that know cars but don't have cash. By the way, if I had paid 18% interest and a $50 cash advance fee to raise the money with a credit card, my profit would still have been over $400, and John did all the work. I love playing with money. Do you have any friends who know everything about boats?

Buy And Sell Mobile Homes

Pay cash and you get better prices on almost anything, including mobile homes. Sell with easy terms, and you get the highest price, because you are making it possible for someone to buy a home. More than one investor out there is buying and selling mobile homes.

I read one investors story about a recent deal he did. He bought a mobile for $4,000. The seller was asking $6,500, but was tired of waiting and paying the lot rent. The investor cleaned it up and sold it for $10,000, with $1000 down, payments of $250, and 10% interest on the balance. Did the buyer overpay? Hard to say, since his alternative may have been renting and having nothing to show for it in a few years, instead of having a home with some residual value.

Be A Loan Shark

People occasionally need money for a short while. A friend of mine for example, got a good paying construction job because I loaned him $300 to get drywall stilts. I used to do this often many years ago, and I never charged less than a $5/week as a loan fee (don't call it interest). I made one or two thousand dollars extra some years doing this. If you have any qualms about it, check the laws in your area and put it all in writing. Also, if you want total security, take collateral.

Buy And Sell Estates

We recently met a couple who buy out estates, sell some of the things at flea markets, then run the rest through auctions. They've made a living doing this for years. They load up a trailer after negotiating to buy a whole house full of stuff. Then, if they don't want to do the flea market thing, they just auction everything on Sunday afternoon for a nice profit.
If you are a good judge of value and have a regular auction nearby, you could do the same with rummage sales. Just offer $100 for everything and then auction it off piece-by-piece. The auction near us lets anyone sell their stuff, with no fee to enter. They just take a 25% commission.

Playing With The Casino's Money

I worked at a casino for years and I saw a lot of people foolishly writing down the numbers that came up on the roulette wheel. Foolishly, I say, because their their theories were nonsense. Casinos will always welcome these players and even hand them the pen and paper.

One player, however, was actually scientific about it. By finding a bias in the wheel, after "charting" it for 5,000 spins, he made thousands betting on just one or two numbers. When a number comes up, it pays 35 to 1, but one of the numbers, because of manufacturing imperfections or whatever reason, was coming up 1 in 27 spins, instead of the average 1 in 38 spins.

So all he had to do was bet $10 a spin, and he profited $80 for every 27 spins of the wheel in the long run. That's about $100 per hour. The ups and downs are dramatic though, so this is not for the faint-hearted. In this case, I saw him lose as much as $700 in a night. Also, not all wheels have biases (they eventually replaced that wheel). So have you ever tried "card counting" in blackjack...? There are endless ways to make money.