Sell Your Body to Make Extra Cash
This originally appeared in my book Young, Broke & Beautiful: Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply
No, I didn’t mean prostitute yourself (although more power to you if that’s what you want to do), I meant sell the things your body creates naturally to make some extra loot. Here’s how:
Sell Blood and Plasma: Your blood and plasma is not really worth that much. Bummer huh? You thought you were all special because you’re this sentient being who can walk around all upright and make and break things with your bare hands, didn’t you? You’re like, “Oy mate. Dis ‘ere blood in me body iz worth many a penny idinit?” Yeah, I speak in a cockney accent when discussing bodily fluids too, but the fact remains that around 30 bucks is what a session of selling blood/plasma will get you. I mean, it ain’t too bad considering that they usually give you some cookies and orange juice afterwards, but didn’t anyone tell them that’s a pretty gross food combination?
If selling your fluids sounds up your alley, just look up where your nearest blood bank or plasma center is. And if you’re feeling generous you can always donate your juices for free.
Sell your Sperm: We’re lucky there were no sperm banks in the days of William Shakespeare. Could you imagine what twisted stories that demented bastard would have written? Every other one would’ve ended like, “Upon returning from Ye Old Sperm Bank, Mercutio realized that Rosalyn was his sister (due to his father’s sperm bank donation 20 years prior). He then drowned his son/nephew, beheaded his wife/sister, and hung himself. The End.” Yeah dude'fuuuuucked up.
Thankfully the chances of unknowingly marrying your sister are pretty rare, so don’t let that keep you from donating your little swimmers. The thing that should be holding you back is if you’re: short, fat, ugly, old, bald, dumb or riddled with disease. If you’re any of the above attempting to donate sperm will most likely end in rejection, and being told you have substandard jizz just isn’t something most men want to hear.
Feel like you’ve got some desirable genes? Then ask your doctor to recommend a good sperm bank. It might take a while for the sperm bank to process you, but if you pass their stringent tests, and can cum in a cup a couple times a week for a month or two, you might be able to pull down a few thousand dollars. For me though, it’s kinda an intellectual catch 22; if you’re tall, smart, good looking, and disease free enough to pass their tests, shouldn’t you be able to make money other ways?
Sell Your Eggs: While it’s true that the pay scale for professional men and women is still grossly unequal in the American workforce, all you ladies can at least be proud that you’ve outshone the fellas in one lucrative market: baby-making. Just one of your eggs is worth exponentially more than a cup full of jizz. Egg donors can start off making $7,000 per egg and often times your fee gets upped for every egg you sell. Unfortunately, though it’s not an easy process; you can’t just walk into your gynecologist’s office, hop in the stirrups and say, “Doc, I need to pay off some student loans and I saw this pair of Louboutins that I’m in love with. Think you can pull out a couple of those puppies for me?”. You see love, you yourself are not the egg bank. If you were, there’d be no such things as gold diggers.
Despite being considered a doctor in Azerbaijan (you’d be surprised how cheaply you can buy an MD there) I’m not allowed to give medical advice here in the States. So if you’re serious about selling your eggs, you should talk to your lady parts doctor about it. They can tell you about all the rigorous testing that you’ll have to go through, as well as the hormones you’ll take, and the surgical procedure that happens at the end of it all. If it all sounds good to you, see if they can hook you up with a donor bank or look for an ads on craigslist. Yeah, seriously, you can sell your eggs on craigslist.
Be a Surrogate Mother: I’m gonna tread lightly here because I’ve seen this situation lead to a double murder that somehow involved Ice-T chasing down some mother who decided not to give up the baby at the very last minute. What, you didn’t see that episode of Law & Order: SVU?? That show is the shit!
Anyways, you can make a gang of money being a surrogate mother. Seriously, like up to $40,000. The flip side though is that you have to carry a baby for nine months, pop the sucker out, and then give it away. It’s real easy to catch feelings about this kind of thing so think about it long and hard before you decide to do it. Or not, truthfully I don’t really care. It doesn’t effect my life as long as you keep buying my damn books.
Sell your Hair: I had a friend in college named Tish who had pretty long hair. Then one day she cut most of it off and donated it to Locks of Love, a non-profit that gives wigs to underprivileged kids who lose their hair due to chemo. With the hair that she kept, Tish did all kinds of fun things like using green paint to have a permanently rock solid green mohawk. Yeah, I went to UC Santa Cruz where giving stuff to charity and having green mohawks are both considered very cool things. Not everyone is into altruism though, and if you’re one of those people who’s like, “Fuck the chemo kids, show me the money,” then you can always sell those locks of yours.
To have marketable hair, you’ve got to grow it out, not bleach or dye it, and take care of it; whatever the hell that means. Having long and frumpy hair can be worth it though: you can make some decent cash. At the time I’m writing this, the record amount brought in by someone on TheHairTrader.com is $3600! Which also reminds me that I didn’t tell you about that site yet. If you do wanna grow your mane and sell it, The Hair Trader is the market place where these transactions happen. And yes, it’s just as weird as it sounds.
images from wallet pop, grimm’s, eideard, legal match, all 4 humor, ramelau