The Money Hoarder

Here at Life Explained, we do our very best to try and...well...explain life. One of the greatest mysteries many of us are faced with is how to accumulate wealth. Everywhere you look, people are trying to "teach" you how to get rich just like they did. 99.9% of those people got rich by selling you some e-book or seminar about how to sell the same crap to others and get rich yourself. 

I have been seeing links for The Penny Hoarder show up more and more frequently lately and I have to admit - they have a few good ideas. Many of them are simple things that you may just not have thought of by yourself. There are limitations to their concept though as many of their ideas require a bit of actual work on your part and I have yet to see one that offers any benefits other than a few dollars here and there. 

My point in writing this today is to give you a few ways that you can make some serious cash with minimal effort on your part. There are a few points to consider before attempting this get rich quick process, but I will be sure to point them out for you along the way. So buckle up - this could be a bouncy (and lengthy) ride.

There's more than one way to sell your body. Many of you know that depending on your blood type, you can make some cash donating blood or plasma. If you have more hair than me, you can even make money selling your hair. Guys and gals, if you're willing to part with your sperm and eggs, you can even make some decent money do that as well. Most of these examples require certain qualities from you though. 

For us average Joe's. the real money comes in when you're willing to part with something of more value like one of your kidneys. Google tells me the average seller makes about $5000 and the buyers pay upwards of $100,000. Why the big difference you ask? Well, most organ sales are illegal and needs to be done on the black market. Apparently the seedy characters that facilitate the sale make the far larger margin on the sale. Besides being illegal, you have a limited supply of organs and that limits your total potential wealth.

Maybe international intrigue on the black market isn't your cup of tea. Perhaps you want to get to work in your neighborhood. Burglaries and muggings are a possibility in your local neighborhood. They both have their own drawbacks though. The average mugging results in maybe a couple hundred dollars so the reward isn't that great. Then again, most of what you get is already in cash form so you're done. 

A home burglary takes a little more skill, but generally results in you having to fence what you steal. So I guess if the black market wasn't your thing, this probably isn't for you either. The bigger problem would be the risk of getting caught inside the house. Here in America at least, there's a very good chance you'll find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun. 

The movies always make bank robberies look appealing. You get to wear a mask, scare a bunch of people and walk away with loads of money. OK, well maybe not. Apparently the average haul on a bank robbery is only around $4500. I don't know about you, but that just doesn't seem worth it to me. With the wide range of security and surveillance equipment and modern investigative tools, there's a really good chance you're going to get caught. 

So let's pretend you're not put off by the illegality of these ideas so far and are willing to take it a step further. Murder for hire may be right up your alley. Once again though, the movies will have lead you astray. Unless you're going after an extremely high profile target, the chances are you're not going to make as much money as you thought. This is assuming you get an actual murder contract too and not a meeting with an undercover law enforcement officer conducting a sting. 

I did find it interesting in my online research that you can make upwards of $25,000 for killing someone's wife, but only $600 for killing their girlfriend. Ladies, I'm not sure if that's good or bad for you. I guess it depends on your marital status. Apparently men are less willing to get rid of their girlfriends. If you're a wife though...? 

So maybe getting your hands dirty with robbery and murder is a bit too much and you decide to look at a less violent form of income. Con artists, pyramid schemes and embezzlement may do the trick for you. The first two usually require a bit of upfront capital though. I'm not really interested in helping people who already have money make more money - so I'll just leave it as a suggestion. 

Embezzlement on the other hand requires no out of pocket expense on your part. It's merely a matter of being in the right place at the right time and knowing how to funnel other peoples' money to yourself. The downside here of course is that most people are fairly diligent about their own money. Because of this, it takes quite a bit of skill (and controlled greed) to siphon money out of someone else's coffers without them noticing. 

I must admit at this point that I was planning on saying that the true benefit of all of these ideas is that  even if you did get caught your punishment, assuming you weren't killed, would be a benefit in itself. The idea being that a prison sentence would provide free housing, free food, free medical care and next to no responsibilities, but....

as I learned today, that's not always the case anymore. Due to the rising costs of incarceration, it's becoming more and more common to get charged for your prison stay. A common number I saw was roughly $50 per day. You can do the math on your own, but I think you'll find that once you multiply $50 per day times the number of years you'll serve for the crime, it's not really worth what you might have made in a quick score. 

I suppose I should put a little disclaimer in here before I sign off: For the record, Life Explained does not condone criminal activities as a means to make a few quick bucks. Unless you are a politician or something, chances are you're going to end up in jail rather than getting let off the hook. Let us know if you think of any other ways to make some easy money. We gotta figure out some way to pay off the loans we took out for the election campaign. Until next time....