I Love This Story.............

From "themeaningofmoney.com"..............

I am always looking out for creative ways to make money to report on for my websites. I recently found a fun one in a great little true story, written by a man who had certain survival talents and decided to demonstrate them. He was dumped in the middle of a large city with no money on him. Soon he had a nice hotel room and some cash. The things he did deserve the warning, "Don't try this at home," but they're good examples of the possible.

He first went to the drive-through windows of a few fast food restaurants to collect the change that inevitably drops on the ground as it is passed from cars to cashiers or vice-versa. When he had a dollar in various coins, he went to a store and exchanged it for four quarters. With those he bought a newspaper from a coin-operated paper box, but when it was open he took all sixteen papers. I should note that he claims to have repaid the newspaper company in full after this experiment in survival.

Hawking them on the street, he sold the sixteen papers at full retail of a dollar per copy. He then took his sixteen dollars to a bar he already had in mind and ordered the cheapest beer available, and started a conversation with the bartender. After his first beer he made what is commonly called a "bar bet" with him for the next drink. Although I don't remember which trick he used, there are many that can be learned from various books. You can make a nickel go through a hole in a piece of paper the size of a dime, for example, without tearing the paper, and there are the usual card tricks that can be learned with a bit of practice.
He won the bet, got his next beer and then got a few of the other people in the bar interested in his tricks (he knew a lot of bar bets). After a ten dollar bet or two, which he naturally won, he found other "targets" who were willing to bet even higher amounts. That evening he had enough to pay for a nice hotel and still had $5 or so in his wallet.