Making money is a difficult thing for most people. Thousands of books have been written on the subject, billions of man-hours wasted in vain pursuit. In the next few minutes, I'll show you how to make Great Big Gobs of Money without Really Trying at all!

There are multiple methods for making oodles of money. Of course, they each assume different skills, abilities, and attributes on your part. I'll start out with the more sure-fire methods first and then move on to some of the sketchier methods later, but you may have to pick and choose which methods suit you best.

Method One: Be obscenely rich.
This is my most recommended method for making bushels of money. Simply have a bucketload of money, use it to purchase something that is guaranteed to go up in value, (Real Estate, IT stock, or, for example, Johnny Depp) and hold onto it for a few years. Sell it off, and retire to your very own tropical island with your profits. It just couldn't be more simple!

Method Two: Be ridiculously lucky.
This too is an excellent method. With a simple purchase of a lottery ticket you can go from someone with a net worth equal to your cat, to someone with a net worth equal to, say, Johnny Depp. This method is very popular among optimists, people with IQs lower than their cat, and people who are very, very bad at math. The very ambitious can combine the first two methods through use of the stock market.

Method Three: Have wealthy relatives.
This is an excellent method because of the many ways to capitalize on this situation. With literally thousands of rich people alive, you can surely arrange to be related to one of them. (Say, Johnny Depp) If the relatives are relatively old and frail, simply getting on their good side before they bite the big one is an age-old scheme. If they are younger and in good health, there are multiple ways of "helping them along". I mean, they're going to buy the farm eventually; what's fifteen or twenty years, between family?

Method Four: Make new friends.
Now this method takes a bit of explanation. You can't just go making friends willy-nilly. A person only has so much freetime, and you can't go wasting it on degenerate freeloaders who only want you for your personality, or some such nonsense. You need to get in with the good crowd. Say, for example, the Mob. The Mob is an excellent resource for quick, no-questions asked money. They have multiple, flexible financing options, including several low-interest* loans. If you're very friendly, they may have some odd jobs for you to do. Take a small, nondescript cardboard box (No doubt containing a fluffy, cute teddy bear) halfway across town, give it to some friendly gent named Tony the Disemboweler, and make an easy two grand. Wonderfully simple! And, if for some reason you run afoul of your new friends, the FBI has a wonderful relocation program to help you out.

*"low" meaning a 47% Daily Percentage Rate, compounded hourly.

Method Five: Get married!
What could be more joyous and wonderful than a marriage? A marriage where you make heaps of cash! Finding the right person, however, can be quite challenging. Make sure whoever you're going to marry has a significantly higher net worth than you, and isn't simply coasting on his or her parents' money; you don't want to marry a gold digger. Unless you can convince, say, Johnny Depp to marry you, finding someone that both has money and is likeable can be a nearly impossible chore. To make it easier on yourself, consider marrying a workaholic -- they'll go out and make money for you to spend, while you go out and make friends with Sven the studly tennis instructor.

Method Six: Start a Blog.
This is one of the shakier methods out there; you may actually have to put in some work to make this one fly. The general idea is to write useful, entertaining articles, somehow entice people to read them, then somehow turn those people into cash. Far-fetched, I know.

Method Seven: Start a business
Whew, you'd have to be desperate to try this one. It involves tons of hard work, know-how, and persistence. I'd recommend one of the other methods listed over this one any day.

Well, now you know How to make Great Big Gobs of Money without Really Trying. I hope this helped. Stay tuned for more brilliant ideas; you never know when a real gem might turn up here.

-Jeff