How to make $200 in one week

When the editors of INside pitched this idea to me – making $200 by any means necessary – I immediately had a flashback. I was sent back to the dark times, the dirty days where the leather of my chaps was as black as those horrible nights.
But that was a long time ago ... ancient history ... February.Now, I’ve become a campus entrepreneur, making money in wholesome ways – ways that don’t end in applying expensive, medical creams. Here are five, easy ways that turned my fist full of shame into a fist full of dollars. You can do them, too!

$60
List items on half.com
How-to:  Sign up to sell at half.com by creating an account
(located at the top of the site); and then click Start Selling Now.
Everyone’s got some dusty, old books or DVD sets lying around their apartment (or crack den, if you live in the Villas). Whether you’re a “7th Heaven” fan turned blood-letting, devil-worshipper or a straight guy disappointed by plotlines in “The L Word,” you can find an old season to sell. To make my bling-a-ling, I sold “Felicity - Sophomore Year Collection” (where she pulls a “Britney”), accompanied by the Jenna Jameson autobiography and “Uptown Girls,” a movie so boring I turned straight ... just for something to do.

$80
Participate in a psych study
How-to: Find experiment postings located on bulletin-boards in the Psychology Building at 1101 E. 10th St.
If you’re an alcoholic or occasional substance abuser, then psychological experiments are available for you!  Most of the experiments are designed to measure either delinquent activity or unusual bodily defects – but are generally fun. For my experiment, lasting for two sessions of three hours each, the researchers attached electrodes to my face and made me watch pornography. Um, how do you say awesome in French?

$20
Sell your clothes for cash
How-to:  Visit Plato’s Closet in Bloomington at 1145 S. College Mall Rd.
Ironically, Plato’s Closet is the perfect place to go after you’ve just come out of one. The transition of sexualities inevitably yields a drastic wardrobe change – from baggy to boot fit, from A&F to H&M. Thus, I decided to sell two pairs of jeans from Abercrombie, mangled severely (after a viciously masculine bear fight), as well as a Hollister t-shirt that, unbeknown to others, is actually haunted by the ghost of Estelle Getty.

$20
Place bets with children
How-to:  Harass your siblings. Or a friend’s.
My little brother is a geography whiz. A genius. He remembers the capital of Arkansas and sometimes Canada. Though he’s well educated about geographic areas, it turns out that Sean has a very scarce knowledge of lesbian film trivia. Most nine-year-olds do. While discussing the movie “Six Days Seven Nights” this past weekend – for reasons unknown – he tried to convince me that Meg Ryan played the female lead. Too bad Anne Heche isn’t Canada, Sean.

$20
Write for INside Magazine
How-to:  INside is always on the look out for new talent.
Email us at inside@idsnews.com.
When my one-week deadline became mere minutes away from expiring, I found myself – tragically $20 shy of my goal. Desperate for some quick cash, I flipped through the pages of my black book, called up my usual client, and earned the last of my money. My editor reminded me, two hours later, that I was getting paid $20 for writing the article.