Not sure if this a weird side hustle, but I figured I’d share it anyway. I started getting paid to pick up leftover pizza and give it to homeless people in my area.

I live a few blocks from Roosevelt Row in Phoenix, and there’s a little pizza place I pass all the time. I started noticing how much pizza they threw out after closing, so I started checking the dumpster and taking whatever was still wrapped or looked untouched. I’d put it in a clean box and take it around to the homeless people I usually saw in the area. I kept doing it because I hated seeing good food go to waste.

The owner noticed what I was doing and asked me about it. I told him I was taking the pizza to people who needed food. He liked that I was finding a use for the leftovers, so he asked for my number and offered to give me $25 to keep doing it. After that, his employees started setting the leftover pizza aside for me instead of throwing it away, so I didn’t have to get it from the dumpster anymore. They’d text me when they had some ready, and I’d stop by after closing, pick it up, and take it around to the same people. I was doing it for free before, and now I make around $300 a month from it plus it can cover my bills.

Florists donate their used candles to me that are going into the trash. I melt it down, double filter it, and make it into slabs of wax that I sell to candle makers. It’s a mess but good for the planet and doesn’t take too much time.

In my country elementary school teachers go up and beyond in decorating their classroom even including the outside of their classrooms— like the front yard. And this was some really physical stuff, since it involves a lot of gardening as well. This usually happens before the school year starts, so I also didn't have school att.

Me being a good son, volunteered to help with my mother decorate her classroom and her front yard. Since this is a government job, they usually get support financially or like tools and paints. This time however, they had this RRR thing going on so we were given a bunch of plastic bottles and broken tires. It was kind of B.S. for me, but my mom still worked regardless.

Anyways I was at the garden and got tired of lifting rocks and plucking weeds, so I asked my mom if I could do some decorating instead. She pointed at the wheels and said to think of something I could do with them. And then I had this idea to stack them, paint them like pineapples, and put a plant after the paint dries. But, the pineapple had this line pattern that bothers the hell out of me because I can't paint a straight diagonal line for the heck of it. So, I improvised✨

It was Covid at this time, and there was this meme where Moms would send minion memes. I thought it was really funny so instead of pineapples I drew all of them as minions interacting with each other and the plant I planned to put at the top. And, after the day I was pretty happy with the minion inspired garden hehe.

But the rest of the teachers liked it so much too that they started asking who did it, and my Mother told them it was me and started suggesting that I'd also do their Gardens for work... Anyways this then started my journey of painting minions on used truck wheels for the whole summer B))

I made like 5K in PHP which was like a lot for a kid at that time. After that I was also called to paint murals on back of classrooms for like 300-500 PHP.

TLDR: Painted the Minions on used trucks wheels as a decorative pots/tables/seats for my the frontyard of my Mom's classroom. Looked so good, my Mom's co-workers paid me to do the same for their classrooms' front yard.

Picture isn't my work, but a recent one found in the facebook. I guess it wasn't that original lmao.

I'm in grad school, but seeing as I've spent all my SU (economical support for students in Denmark), I need to make money to pay the bills. Amongst other things, I cook food over fire, mainly at bachelorparties, birthdays, festivals and friday bars at Uni. It mostly just started out as my personal instagram (insta for the curious, although its all in danish) to show off food for my friends and family and quickly people began asking if I would come cook for them, which I obviously said yes to and now it has taken on a life of its own, which I'm very grateful for and happy with.

Mods, PLEAAASEE delete this if it isn’t allowed!! (I won’t be offended lol, it’s a VERY weird side hustle)

For the last two years, I’ve been designing dildos in Blender and selling the files to indie adult toy companies! It’s pretty great side money, although finding someone to buy each design you produce is often very challenging. I’ve had so much fun creating these weird lil projects and wanted to find a place to share it!!

This all happened years ago, but seeing all these stories from r/WeirdSideHustles pop up on Reddit has jogged my memory.

When I was in my twenties, I agreed to be an "accountability coach" for someone online that I had met through an advice forum.

He paid me weekly for daily check-ins and sessions where I would ask him if he was staying on task with his goals. If he wasn't, I would assign consequences. As an older sister and a virgo, this was easy money.

All of our conversations were sfw and, at the time, I was under the impression that this was just someone who was so lonely and unmotivated that they were willing to pay for my attention. I was broke and trying to save money to go back to college and finish my degree, so I agreed to it even though it did seem a little weird.

It was only in hindsight that I realized that this was most likely not entirely a sfw experience for him, and that he may have been a little bit more interested in me bossing him around and punishing him than I had realized.

I think it was a win/win situation though. I'm a bossy person anyway so I was basically getting paid to do what I love. I hope he enjoyed the experience too! I can't actually remember how our arrangement ended. I think I just got too busy when I got into a new relationship.

Somehow I became the person everyone dumps their cancellation calls on (gym, cable, subscriptions with the aggressive retention scripts). I’ll sit on hold, push back politely, and make sure they get a confirmation number.

I only do it with them on the call / there for verification stuff, so it’s not sketchy—just me handling the annoying part. Anybody else accidentally fall into a weird little side hustle like this?

I have some clothes and books and just stuff around my house. I’ve been thinking about clearing out and I was wondering where everyone thought about the platform invented I keep hearing ads for it, but I’ve also been pretty used to using eBay or Facebook marketplace. I was just wondering when anybody else would recommend or what their experience was for reselling platforms.

I make small applications that let ppl load in images and convert them to pure line art. Then that file output (svg) can be used in any cricut machine or consumer pen plotter to draw the art.

crazy to me how some students were actually willing to pay BIG money just to have someone else do their assignments 😅

I’m currently working on a magazine dedicated to crazy, weird, obscure, and niche things. It can be pretty much anything - niche hobbies, strange movies, books, foods/meals, internet rabbit holes, unusual collections, subcultures, random obsessions, bizarre traditions, etc.

I’m looking for things that are interesting precisely because they’re not mainstream or something everyone already knows about.

So, Reddit, what are some niche things you think deserve a page in a magazine?

Give me your weirdest, most specific, or most random suggestions - I’m open to anything!

My cousin works in high end real estate out here and hooked me up with his weirdest client about six months ago. Guy was looking to buy a multi million dollar hilltop property in the Hollywood Hills but refused to make an offer until he knew the place was completely safe from stalkers or break ins.

So my cousin calls me up and asks if I can break into the house in the middle of the night and leave subtle proof I was there.

Long story short I started a full time hustle doing security audits disguised as professional home intrusions. Clients pay me up to two grand to sneak into their empty houses or new properties while they are out of town. I pick the locks, leave fake muddy bootprints near the balcony, rearrange some items in the master bedroom just enough to cause panic, and text them a blurry photo from their own hallway at 3 am.

If they find the entry points, the security company failed. If they don't find them and my cousin’s rich clients hire me to test their fortresses, I get paid a fortune. It started as a joke to scare a realtor friend and now I have a waiting list of paranoid tech founders and actors wanting me to burglarize their mansions legally.

so real talk, I sell my browsing data. there's these data marketplaces where you can basically list yourself, install some tracking software that logs everything (searches, sites, apps, how long you're on stuff, what you buy) and then YOU choose to sell chunks of that data to whoever's buying. brands, market research firms, agencies, whoever wants real human behavior instead of guessing from surveys nobody fills out honestly.

I started doing it ages ago kinda as a joke, didn't think much of it. now I've got tracking quietly running 24/7 across my phone and laptop and every month I'm basically cashing out my own internet activity.. my friends r telling me i'm dumb af and I'm selling my privacy.

it's not crazy money, like X euro a month (guess lol) plus bonuses when certain buyers want specific stuff. but it's genuinely wild realizing I've turned into someone who sells his own unhinged internet brain as a product

made peace with the fact that I've personally sold search history to strangers

Trying to think of some extra income, do yall think people would actually buy pinecones? I have super large and small and medium sized ones at my leisure.

​

I was scrolling through unusual jobs online and stumbled upon professional bridesmaids, and I genuinely thought this was a joke at first. 😭

Apparently, people actually get paid to be your bridesmaid, help with wedding planning, attend dress fittings, calm you down when everything goes wrong, and basically be your built-in bestie for the wedding.

Imagine getting paid to hold someone's dress, fix their makeup, manage family drama, and tell them they look beautiful while they're having a full-blown bridal breakdown HAHAHA

But then I thought about it a little more, and honestly, I feel kind of sad for the people who need to hire one. Not everyone has close friends or family they can rely on, and weddings can be pretty lonely without that support.

Still, the idea of having a professional best friend with a contract is sending me 😭

I never thought waiting in line could actually make money. I started offering to stand in long lines for other people while they stayed at home or worked. Most of the jobs were for popular food releases, limited-edition items, and government or event registrations.

It sounds ridiculous, but some people would rather pay someone than spend 2–3 hours waiting. The weirdest part is getting paid just to stand around and watch TikTok while doing it.

Has anyone else tried a side hustle that sounds completely stupid at first but actually works?

I know this sounds fake but I've been doing this for about six months now and it's completely real. I live in a pretty wealthy area and a few months ago I saw a post on a local neighborhood group from this guy who bought some crazy expensive leather boots. He basically didn't want to deal with the blisters or the stiffness of breaking them in himself, so he offered to pay someone with the exact same shoe size to wear them around for two weeks.I happened to be the exact same size, so I messaged him. He dropped off the boots, gave me half the cash up front, and told me to just wear them while doing chores, walking around my place, and going to the grocery store.Since then, word of mouth spread a bit in his friend circle. I currently have two pairs of boots in my living room right now that belong to a guy who works in finance. He bought them for some outdoor trip but doesn't want to get blisters on the trail. I get about $150 to $200 per pair depending on how stiff the leather is. The only rule is I can't wear them outside if it's raining or muddy because they need to look clean, just properly creased and broken in.It's literally the easiest money I've ever made. I just put them on while playing video games or doing dishes.

Something like personalized, unhinged letters or fictional IDs. I could make ridiculous letters from vampires, ghosts, cryptids, demons, fictional characters, etc., or design completely fictional IDs for OCs, D&D characters, aliens, witches, cryptids, and other weird characters. I feel like people would genuinely pay for goofy, personalized digital stuff like this, and I’d love to find more side hustles with that same weird, creative, and unconventional vibe. If you know of any other oddly specific or unusual side hustles like this, please drop them below! I’m looking for ideas that are actually doable and can make decent money.

It’s definitely a weird one, I know. Sometime last year, I posted trying to sell a gf experience. Didn’t work out so well, but I did have a guy reach out asking if we could just talk about what he wanted to talk about. We agreed $50 per conversation. He calls and we only talk about his interest in his all his friends girlfriends. He doesn’t ask for anything from me. I won’t go into detail of the conversation for sake of privacy but all we did was talk while he fantasized and I egged him on. I met a few other men interested in the same dynamic after that. I learned that some men are ashamed of their fetishes and just want to share it with someone without judgement. I’d make about $300 a week doing this.