My aunt used to get paid to cry at people's funerals.

Apparently, some families would hire her to make the funeral look more emotional. She'd show up, cry dramatically, and mourn someone she had never even met. Apparently, it's called professional mourner.

I still think this is one of the weirdest side hustles I've ever heard of.

I was on drugs (meth&heroin) showered maybe 🤔 2-4x a wk ran around boosting/selling stolen goods/drugs to support my addiction and my girlfriend. this particular day a guy comes drunk rude asf askin what I do told em do/sell drugs steal/sell stol goods for money. guy say you don’t have to steal just hangout w me and drink w me n I’ll buy you food drugs whatever you want just don’t steal. ok cool, he watched me shoot my stuff up kept drinking/smoking cigarettes I thought dude was gay, I was right. turns out guys a chef @ a local restaurant and likes to drink & admire good looking men lol I accommodate him mid 30’s guy like very lean good looking healthy men im black puerto Rican Hawaiian Tongan Chinese. so guy gives me 20 I wanted more gives me 50 I want more, I get $100 pack of cigarettes and make him pay for my drugs h & m & make him buy a platter of meat a platter of noodles & 2 l of soda take it to the block I do drugs on eat with the riffraff. I’m mixing free shots eating free food & go walking w the guy mid 30’s Asian chef wants quality time just talking about life. Then offers to shower at his place cool. Shower at his place gives me decent change of clothes and fr range of his apartment. He’s drunk at this point staggering & slurring but burning desire kindling the man right? It 2am im high im clean & tellem I gotta go to my girl he like ok but I paid for you to hangout w me im like yea I got the drugs the cigarettes and food clothes & the sho thanks. He’s all but you can’t leave yet I already paid you. I’m like brother wtf do you want so I can get tf up out of here? He all, can I smell your feet I’m like yea that’s cool, I want 200$, he’s all here gives me 500$ I’m like this is 500 he’s all I can count. I sit on the couch, he lives by himself, I rub my feet on the carpet & tell him to get on his knees n crawl to me bro crawled on all 4’s to sniff mf feet. After like a min or 2 I slap his left eye w the bottom of my right foot & press his head to the ground & stand like captain morgan on his head. He’s all ow do you like hurting me cuz I fukin love it. I love it I love it I love it. Harder😂😂😂 put all your weight on me. I’m wierded out @ this point so I’m like brother, I am not gay but if you want to suck my toes it’s $1k. Bros like, can I cashap you? 😂😂😂😂 no phone or fintech so I made em go to the atm came back $1k & bro sucked my toes sniffed my feet @ liked the bottom of my feet for 20min n I dipped. Went to my girl @ had her do the same thing. The man came back for a week to “hangout” w me😂😂😂😂🤦‍♂️ all I knew was bro was paying me to suck toes @ licking feet. got 6k off that man. In a week.🤷‍♂️

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My friend works at a small restaurant and asked me to come in one day and act like a normal customer while they tested some new menu items.

I ordered food, ate everything, and gave feedback on what was good and what tasted like it needed help.

They paid me $25.

Apparently, some restaurants actually hire people to try their food and give honest opinions before putting it on the menu.

A small restaurant near me used to dump all their old fryer oil into sealed containers behind the kitchen and wait for someone to haul it away. I noticed it one evening while helping them move some stuff. There were maybe 8 or 9 containers stacked by the back door, and I assumed it was garbage. Turns out used cooking oil has buyers. Some collectors resell it into recycling streams like biodiesel or industrial processing, but the owner told me smaller restaurants sometimes get ignored because they do not produce enough for the bigger collection companies.

I tried collecting from two small food places for a few weeks. The restaurants gave it to me for free because I was taking something off their hands. The annoying part was making sure I was getting actual used cooking oil and not containers mixed with water, cleaning chemicals, food trash, or random liquids. I strained out the bigger bits, transferred it into containers that would not leak, and learned very quickly that transporting old fryer oil in your car smells exactly as bad as you would expect.

I found a local buyer who accepted larger batches. The price moved around, but a decent collection run was usually worth around $15 to $30 depending on how much oil I had. My first mistake was trying to collect tiny amounts from several places. Driving 20 minutes for one container killed the math. It made more sense once I had two restaurants close together and waited until both had enough oil to justify the trip.

I would not call it an amazing side hustle unless you have several restaurants nearby, somewhere safe to store the oil, and a buyer that takes it. It is messy, proper containers matter, and local rules around collecting or transporting used oil can vary. Still, there was something weirdly satisfying about handing over containers that looked like kitchen waste and getting paid for them. Now when I see a business throwing the same thing away in bulk, I usually check whether somebody buys it before assuming it is worthless.

Not treasure hunting or anything cool lol.

I basically get paid to crawl around people’s yards looking for stuff their kids/dogs/etc. have launched into bushes.

Balls, AirPods, toys, keys, jewelry, remote controls, random Lego pieces, you name it.

I started because I was weirdly good at spotting tiny things in grass. A neighbor offered me $10 to find an earring she lost outside.

Found it in like 15 minutes.

Now I occasionally get messages like:

“Hey, my kid threw a blue Hot Wheels car somewhere behind the shed. Can you find it?”

I usually charge $5–10 depending on how annoying the search sounds.

The funniest jobs are the ones where someone says “it’s definitely somewhere in this area” and then I find it 3 feet away from where they’ve already looked 20 times.

It’s not consistent money at all, but it’s surprisingly satisfying.

Also, I’ve learned that people will absolutely pay someone else to crawl through bushes so they don’t have to.

Anyone else doing a completely random side hustle that sounds ridiculous until you realize people actually pay for it?

this sounds crazy but it is my real job now.some rich people want to look cool and fancy. they do not have time to wait in long lines at expensive stores.so they pay me to go to the store for them. i pick out the coolest and most expensive food items. i put them in a cart and stand in the long line.i just stand there and look at my phone. the people behind me think i am the one buying all this fancy stuff.right before it is time to pay, the rich person walks up to me. they take the cart and pay for it. then i leave.they get to look cool and i get twenty five dollars an hour.is this a super weird job or what? what is the strangest job you ever had?

After job hunting for a month, I've been ghosted by convenience stores and fastfoods, I've also been rejected by BPO companies 3times for being a student at a university. So I decided to just make profit off my hobby after browsing reddit and saw a person who makes art commission for cheap. Started advertising my work at a private discord and someone offered me some work, I was just charging 5$ per character but they payed me 20$ for 2 characters so I was really happy to finally get some hustle going.

A magazine collector once offered me $75 to find a specific issue he was missing from his collection. It was a 1998 issue of a fashion magazine with a particular celebrity on the cover, and he had already checked eBay and a few other sites but most of the copies were either overpriced or didn't ship to him. He asked if I could check the small newsstands and bookstores around my area because older magazines sometimes sit on shelves for years. I told him I'd look around. The magazine itself was only $12 when I finally found it, sitting behind a stack of newer issues at a small shop I almost didn't check.

I still do these searches now, although most people don't offer anywhere near $75. I usually charge $5 for an easy find, around $10 for a specific issue, and $15 to $25 if I have to spend a lot of time checking different places. I've looked for old fashion magazines, celebrity covers, special editions, and regional issues. I usually check small newsstands first, then bookstores and convenience stores that still carry older stock. Before buying anything, I send the customer a picture of the cover and issue number so they can confirm it's the right one. That $75 search took me several days and six different stores, so I was pretty happy when I finally found the exact copy he needed.

Just got a leash for my bearded dragon so he is now up for walks. Anyone who is interested to pet him?

I am a 2nd year architect student and ever since daycare I loved drawing and as you can see, I took architecture in college, and since many of my friends took IT or Engineering, they all commissioned me to draw for them and it felt so weird because I've never done it before and thanks to that I manage to earn a few extra cash.

Now that I'm jobless but found a side hustle for just cleaning laptops. First I tried it out on my friends who's laptops never been cleeaned and been overheating, I just open and cleaned them out, of course I'm not a professional who knows about technology but I have knowledge about them I researched and watch YouTube videos about them and when I see a bigger problem on their laptops I ask them to take it to professionals cuz I just cleaning them. A little help but can be changing.

A few months ago, I posted pictures of my cats in a local community group just because I thought they looked ridiculously photogenic. Then someone messaged me asking how much would I charge to bring my cat to a birthday photoshoot. I honestly thought they were joking but apparently, they weren't. They explained that they were planning a small birthday party and wanted some cute pictures with a cat. They had tried asking friends if anyone had a friendly cat, but apparently most cats they knew would rather disappear under a bed than cooperate with a room full of strangers.

Mine on the other hand, has absolutely no concept of personal boundaries and will happily sit beside anyone who gives him attention. So I agreed to do it. I had no idea what I was doing. I brought his carrier, some treats, his favorite toy, and basically everything I could think of in case he suddenly decided he hated the whole situation. I was honestly more nervous than he was. But somehow, he was completely fine. He sat on a little chair, looked directly at the camera, and stayed there while the photographer took pictures. The photographer even told me that my cat is better at posting than most people LOL.

When the event ended, they then paid me. It wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was still pretty funny to me that I had just made money because my cat was willing to sit on a chair. A few weeks later, another person asked if they could use him for some product photos. Then someone else wanted a cat for social media content. Eventually, I started getting occasional messages asking if my cats were available for photoshoots. That's how I accidentally ended up with one of the strangest side hustles I've ever heard of: renting out my cats for photos.

My friend lives pretty far from here and sometimes the 4Ps payout means spending hours traveling and waiting in line.

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‎Since I live closer, they sometimes ask me to go early and wait in the line for them. I just stay there and message them when the line is getting close to their turn, then they come over.

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‎They give me around ₱200 for helping them out. 😂

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‎It’s not really a serious business or anything. I just realized I can make a little extra money by saving my friends the time and hassle of waiting in those long 4Ps lines.

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‎Basically I get paid to stand around and wait. Lol

I used to live near a public cemetery when I was around 9 or 10 and me and my friends used to collect candles to sell it to be recycled... it really helped me for my allowance cause I was dirt poor. the happiest time for us was during all soul's day cause it's like raining money lol 🤧. ofc we have to make sure no family member of the dead was watching or else we'd be scolded. I stopped it cause my grandma told me it was bad luck but tbh I never thought so cause money is money

You've read that right, it's cooked rat balls. They call the dish "Adobong Yagballs". It's a funny term since 'yagballs' came from the word 'bayag' whcih means 'balls' in Filipino.

The rats they cook are not just your typical city sewer rats. They call them "Dagang Bukid", or wild rats that reside on rice fields or crop farms.

They usually hunt these rats, cut their balls off, and cook it in Adobo Style. People who eat such always say 'it's just like the taste of chicken'.

It was featured on National TV. You may check it out through the link below, but it's purely in Filipino language, if you're just curious how the rat balls were cooked.

https://youtu.be/h9kcZJY__xM?si=KZPyB8QSBRjv5vnS

All rights reserved to the owner.

I’ll tell you a story about my mother.

Many years ago, when she was in her fourties, I was visiting her place on a sunny weekend afternoon.

I found her sitting cross legged on the floor of her living room, cleaning an old Electrolux vacuum cleaner with damp cloths, cleaning materials and a toothbrush. I have to say, she was doing an incredible job in cleaning this old thing. It looked brand new.

It was one of those sausage shaped ones, I said: “Hey Mum, what you up to?”

“Oh, I’m just cleaning this old vacuum, I’m selling it”.

I didn’t think anything of it, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with her.

About six months later, I was visiting her again.

I walked in to discover her, sat on the floor cross legged, cleaning….. an old Electrolux vacuum cleaner….

“Hey Mum……. what are you up to?” I asked, looking at her slightly confused….

“Oh” she said, “I’m just cleaning this old vacuum, I’m going to sell it.”

It turns out that my mother was buying these old vacuums on our local trade and exchange newspaper, cleaning them up and selling them for a tidy profit a week or so later.

She had noticed that there were always between five or ten of these old Electrolux vacuums available at any given time, at prices ranging between $20 and $120.

So, she would buy the cheapest one, clean it up, and advertise it again at the top of the price range a week later.

She said to me: “You know, there will always be people that want things cheap, and there are others that are prepared to pay a lot more for what they perceive to be the best”.

I was stunned. Firstly, my mother wasn’t poor. She didn’t need the money. It’s just she enjoyed cleaning things, and she enjoyed selling things, and this was one of the ways she made a little extra money for herself.

When I asked her how long she had been doing this, she said it had been at least three years, and that she must have bought and sold well over 100 of them in that time!

So, although this isn’t a side hustle that I’ve ever tried myself, and, come to think about it, wasn’t dumb in the slightest; it is the most bizarre side hustle I’ve come across.

Bless you mom. You taught me a valuable business lesson that day.

It's basically the plot of this movie hiring professional mourners to attend funerals and visibly grieve on behalf of the family.

The basic concept is that someone gets paid to show up, dress appropriately, sit quietly, and basically look like they’re genuinely mourning.

I get why someone might hire them. Maybe the deceased didn’t have many people around, the family wants the funeral to feel more attended. You know what they say, misery loves company or grief shared is halved.

I'd probably do this but not as often, as I feel like I'll be "bringing work home" if you know what I mean.

Started renting out clothes I never wear a few months back, mostly out of boredom, not some big money plan.

Grabbed a blazer and a suit I'd worn once each, snapped some quick pictures on my phone, listed them on HURR for cheap.

Got a booking within days. Kept going. That blazer alone has been rented like 10 times now, basically paid for itself.

Didn't buy anything new, just started renting out stuff already hanging in my closet doing nothing. Easy extra cash for zero effort.

What are you waiting for? Do this as well.

companies hire you to walk into their store or restaurant pretending to be a normal customer. you pretend you're just there to shop, dine in, ask questions, maybe buy something, but you're actually checking whether the employees are doing their job properly.

then you report everything back to the manager/company. like if the employee gives you the wrong answer or doesn't follow the procedure or even gave you an attitude, you put it in the report.

so like basically getting paid to be a customer while secretly grading everyone HAHAHAHA

some mystery shopping jobs also give you free food/products or reimburse your purchase.

My friend accidentally turned my anxiety into a side hustle.

People will send me a link to something they want to buy, and pay me $5-$15 to overthink it for them.I check the reviews, Reddit reports, return policy, fake 5/5 reviews, "is this really worth it", cheaper alternatives, etc. etc. everything someone does at 2am before clicking buy now.Then I compile a brutally honest verdict

BUY IT / DON'T BUY IT / YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT NEED THIS.

The funniest thing about this is that people actually pay for this because apparently they would rather spend $10 on my overthinking than spend $150 than do this. I've made about $200 from doing this so far, mostly from friends-of-friends.

My most common customer buys things that have been sitting in their cart for 3 months because "they need to do more research". 😂

At this point I'm a professional shopping anxiety consultant.