You've got to use what you've got to get what you want. That's how the old saying goes, anyway. But how do you get the things you want when you have nothing? That's a trick question, because you've always got a voice, and sometimes, that's all you need. By doing nothing more than asking, the people on this list have raked in riches and rewards beyond your imagination. Things like ...

7 A College Education

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Asking other people for money is a bummer. No matter how perilous your situation may be, unless you're some kind of con artist, you're always going to feel loser-y when someone forks over their hard-earned scratch just to help foot one of your bills.

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Neighborhood lemonade sales are the first jobs to go in a recession.

But what if you could soften the beggarly blow by asking for something that people view as a nuisance anyway? Like maybe if you asked 2.8 million people to each send you one dirty, good-for-nothing penny. That's the genius-level plan that Mike Hayes, a graduate from Rochelle High School in Illinois, thought up when he found himself short 25 large for the $28,000 he was going to need to attend college (in 1987).

Instead of saddling himself with a lifetime of student loan debt or pulling a Soul Man a la C. Thomas Howell, Hayes took his cause to the people. He sent a letter to newspaper columnist Bob Greene, whose column was syndicated in over 200 newspapers, despite being a person we've never heard of. In the letter, Hayes asked readers to send one penny each to go toward funding his college education. Greene published the letter, and the response was overwhelming.

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Eleven postal workers drowned in the flood of pennies.

According to this article, as of November 1987, Hayes had received more than 77,000 letters and earned more than $26,000. Snopes follows that up by confirming that the enterprising young handout enthusiast did indeed earn enough for that college education and graduated with a degree in food science.