When I was young my mother would go to laundromats and other places that had magazines and take the cents off coupons out of them. Back then stores would take them and give you money even if you didn’t buy the product. I still remember my mom buying $20 worth of groceries and paying for the whole thing with coupons. Back then there were places that distributed excess US Government food products, my mom would hit the 3 or 4 locations that gave out the food each week. What we didn’t eat, she would sell. Still remember the 5 pound blocks of cheese and canned mutton.
Like many others, sold plasma when I was young. I was married with a young son while I the Navy in San Diego. The first 3 months I was stationed in San Diego I was working in the ship’s galley, I would take home leftover food at the end of each day.
I have also dumpster dived for stuff to sell, steal kegs of beer from trucks making deliveries to taverns and sell them to teenagers for well over the normal price, sell scrap metal that did not belong to me and on one occasion, did the dine and dash thing.
My redemption, if there is such a thing, happened while I was at the bottom. I only had a few dollars on me and no idea where the next buck would come from. I was out driving some country roads after a windstorm looking for downed trees and such I could snag to use as firewood. I found an envelope with over $2000 in cash and another $6000 in checks plus a deposit slip. I thought I had found a gold mine. Instead of keeping the cash, I returned it all to the people it belonged too. It was an older couple, the money was from an estate sale they had just had for their son that was killed in a car crash. They were very thankful to get the money back. I got a nice reward plus they hired me to help get their son’s house ready sell. They became good friends and still called to offer me odd jobs even after I got a job with excellent pay.