The Cheapskate Edition

Egg retrieval takes about 15 minutes, Fellers says. The donor is sedated with a local anesthetic so that she can't see the giant needle going into her vagina. When it's over, she's taken to the recovery room, where she should be good to go after 30 minutes. Most women return to work the next day, Fellers says.

The upside: After the six- to eight-week process, donors earn $3,000 for a successfully donated egg. The rates for donations can go up once someone is considered a "proven" donor. And it shouldn't affect your ability to reproduce in the future.

The downside: There's the whole shooting-yourself-up-with-fertility-drugs thing, which, besides making one feel like a farm animal, brings the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation, an uncomfortable condition that in rare cases requires a hospital stay. Fellers says she has yet to see any of her donors go through it, though. Donors can also gain weight, which Fellers says is not permanent.

Not good for: Women who don't have a flexible schedule, who dislike the idea of a needle in the vag or who balk at answering questions such as "How many sexual partners have you had in the last five years?" or "Ever had sex for drugs or money?"

Bummer, boys: There are zero sperm banks in Kansas City, and the one on the other side of the state has stopped taking donors. Andrea Drury, the lab supervisor at Procreative Cryobank LLC in St. Louis, says her office quit paying men for sperm in 2005. "It wasn't advantageous," she says. Drury explains that the St. Louis bank is very small, and its selection couldn't compare to massive sperm banks such as the California Cryobank in Los Angeles or the Northwest Andrology and Cryobank, founded in Missoula, Montana. The St. Louis sperm bank is now just that: a semen storage facility for people who want to save their splooge for later.

If you're willing to help the pharmaceutical industry by offering up your healthy body for testing drugs not yet approved by the FDA, several companies in Kansas City will pay for your services.

How it works: Pharmaceutical companies pay companies to test their products, and they, in turn, pay volunteers who submit to inpatient stays or outpatient visits to their facilities, depending on the clinical trial. Studies requiring inpatient stays tend to pay more.

Once you go through the (you guessed it) rigorous medical screening, you might qualify for one of these studies. Some sound pretty innocuous. For example, at Johnson County Clin-Trials (15602 College Boulevard in Lenexa, 913-825-4400), a friendly receptionist says the office's flu-shot trial ("a novel, investigational flu vaccine that's manufactured without the use of chicken eggs") is closed, but an upcoming outpatient bird-flu study likely will pay volunteers at least $800.

A representative at Quintiles (6700 West 115th Street in Overland Park, 800-292-5533) says the majority of its studies are in-house, requiring overnight stays. One upcoming trial is for a medicine that treats multiple sclerosis; it pays $2,400. But there are rare instances of outpatient trials — for instance, one new product due soon for testing is called Purtox. Like Botox, it's administered via an injection between the eyes to diminish the appearance of forehead lines and wrinkles. If you're in the control group, though, you're just getting 0.1 milliliters of saline in the face. For this, testers must show up for nine outpatient visits. Compensation is $945. That works out to $105 a visit.

The upside: For inpatient stays, most labs provide movies and games, and beds are equipped with monitors for watching TV. You're sitting around playing Call of Duty, watching Judge Mathis and getting paid.

The downside: Medications you're taking can limit you from participating in certain studies.

Not good for: Anyone with a strict nine-to-five.

Are you really surprised that there are Web sites for buying and selling dirty knickers?

Ebay specifically poo-poos the selling of used underwear, but last time we checked, a marketplace for adult items called Ebanned.com listed 236 online offers of dirty panties for sale.

The market isn't restricted to women's underthings. Alex Penney, who is 18 and plays with the art-rock band the Ssion, says he made $50 selling his dirty undies on Craigslist.

Originally, he posted an ad titled "Smooth Son Seeks Older Daddy" as a joke. He says the ad was accidentally redirected and posted not to Kansas City's Craigslist page but to one in San Francisco.

"Lo and behold, I start talking to this guy who was also cruising Craigslist as a joke," Penney writes in an e-mail message. "But he saw my accompanying picture, which was this weird Polaroid of me naked at my friend's lake house with my head back so you couldn't see my face — not that I really cared. I ended up sending him a filthy pair of my underwear for, like, $50."