Need some extra cash? You could get a second job or sell off your CD collection. Or you could try selling something a bit more…biological. Sound yucky? Don’t let that put you off—it’s a serious business.
BLOOD BANKS. Technically, it’s illegal to sell blood. You’re actually selling “plasma”—the yellowish base of blood that transports nutrients to your body’s cells. Blood banks collect plasma from donors (18 million people donated in 2008) and then sell it to hospitals, which use it for transfusions. So how do you go about selling your blood? Find a blood bank (they’re often in the seedier part of town, or near a college), and pass the screening. Drug users are excluded, as is anyone who’s gotten a tattoo in the past year—it’s a hepatitis risk. Blood banks also don’t accept anyone with a communicable disease (for obvious reasons) or major health problems. You’ll relax on a reclining chair while a medical technician sticks a needle in your arm. Thirty minutes later, you’ll be one fluid bag of plasma poorer, but about $30 (and a glass of juice) richer.
SPERM BANKS. They may elicit chuckles, but sperm banks are a very important part of helping women or couples conceive children when they are not otherwise physically able to do so. And it’s a $75-million-a-year industry. Sperm banks and fertility clinics don’t accept just anybody—donors have to be pretty impressive guys for strangers to want to use their chromosomes. Standards vary, but most facilities want men who are healthy, have a relatively clean family medical history, are at least 5′10″ tall, and are college-educated. Average payout: around $100 per “donation.”
EGG BANKS. Eggs are harvested from a woman’s ovaries and are used to conceive a child by combining them with donated sperm, then implanting one in the mother-to-be’s uterus. The most sought-after donors are women between the ages of 18 and 32 who are in generally good health and have a clean family medical history. The donor takes daily hormone-booster shots for a month. Then, at a clinic, she’s sedated and 10–15 eggs are extracted via a large needle. It’s a much more physically taxing process than sperm donation, so the payout is much larger: as much as $10,000.
In 1987 Peoria, IL, paid a PR firm $60,000 to help counter its image as America’s most average city.