Are you starting a brand new game and wondering how to get money in Sims 3? If you want your sim to be living in the lap of luxury, you will need a strategy on how to maximize your money. In this article, we will go over the main ways to rake in the Simoleons for your sim household.
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What are the Best Ways on How To Get Money in Sims 3?
There are many ways on how to get money in Sims 3 quickly and successfully. Some of the main ways are to pursue a career or profession related to your sim’s traits, likewise you can make a lot of money pursuing skills and hobbies that produce income. Other methods include collecting and gathering items, business partnerships, being a kleptomaniac, or even dumpster diving for treasures. Of course, you will always have the option of marrying into wealth or using in game cheats.
Careers and Professions
The most common way for sims to make money and increase their overall wealth is to pick a career or profession that is best suited to their traits. Some careers will pay higher hourly wages, allowing your sim to make the most for their time. These will be the most consistent and regimented options for your sims, with increasing promotions and raises that they will be able to earn. These are the highest paying careers in Sims 3 at level 10:
- Astronomer: Both branches of astronomy pay the same amount for career level 10 at $1000 per hour.
- Video Game Developer: Both branches game development pay the same amount for career level 10 at $987 per hour.
- Acting: Superstar Actor at Career level 10 pays $752 per hour.
- Film Director: Distinguished Director at Career level 10 pays $605 per hour.
Skills and Hobbies
Many skills can be utilized as income driving hobbies for a sim. Here are some of the most profitable skills and hobbies in Sims 3:
- Fishing: Once you have a high enough angler skill, you will be able to make thousands of dollars in a day if you target high value fish. Your sim will benefit from having the Angler trait, which will make your sim learn the skill faster and catch more fish. Additionally, the Loves the Outdoors trait will make your sim enjoy their long hours outside fishing. Simply head on over to city hall and register yourself as a self-employed Angler and make bonuses on your profits. The most valuable perfect quality fish to sell are the Death Fish at $1000, followed by the Robot Fish for $250, the Vampire Fish for $200, and Lobster for $150.
- Hacking: If your sim has the Computer Whiz trait, they will be able to hack on their computer between the hours of 9PM and 7AM. The more your sim hacks and gets better at it, the larger amount of money that they will bring in each night. You will eventually be able to pull in thousands of dollars each and every night.
- Gardening: This method for how to get money in Sims 3 pairs best with the Green Thumb and Gatherer traits. You will be able to grow your own produce to sell everyday. If you’re lucky, you can even find special seeds around town that can grow into money trees to continuously net you money. Growing many money trees is an excellent passive money maker. Register yourself as a self-employed Gardener at City Hall to make bonuses on your profits. Check out our How to Garden in Sims 3 guide for more information!
- Nectar Making: This is a great skill that is complimented by being a gardener and having a green thumb. This is due to the fact that you will often grow your own produce to make the nectar to sell. A great recipe for nectar and a perfect quality can give you hundreds of Simoleons per bottle, making this a potentially lucrative hobby.
- Become a Writer: This pairs best with the Bookworm trait, which will allow your sim to write novels more quickly. Sims that have a high writing skill and genre experience will be able to write books that are best sellers for even more money. Books will give you royalties, which is a passive income that will provide you money once a week for six weeks. It takes a little bit of time to write each book, however, it is a very easy way to earn a lot of money. Don’t forget to register your sim as a self-employed writer in order to collect bonus money!
- Painting: If you have a sim that has the Artistic trait, painting is an excellent way for you to make money. The higher skill level the sim has in painting, the better the paintings will be. This will result in a painting that has a higher value and sell price. This method is even better if your sim is also a Perfectionist because they will produce higher quality pieces.
- Inventing: Your sim can become an inventor with a Scrapatronic Workbench. The Eccentric trait will benefit a sim who pursues this field for self-employment. You will be able to sell the items that you create, which will increase in value as your inventing skill increases. The most valuable items that you can create are a time machine, a miner, and a harvester.
- Sculpting: Purchase a Pedestrian Sculpting Station and begin increasing your skill. You can register your sim as a self-employed Sculptor at City Hall to get bonus money for your profits. The Savvy Sculptor trait will benefit your sim greatly with this way of making money, as it decreases your sim’s chances of destroying their sculptures. The list of sculptures that your sim will be able to create is extensive. However, the topiaries will make you the most amount of money for your time.
- Alchemy: The alchemy skill will allow your sim to make elixirs at an alchemy station. If you want to use this way for how to get money in Sims 3, you will need the supernatural expansion pack. These elixirs can be sold for varying amounts of money, depending on how valuable they are. This is not the easiest way to make money because you need to have access to the ingredients required to make the elixirs. The most valuable ones tend to have harder to find ingredients. You can sell these from your inventory or at a consignment store.
Collect and Gather Items
You will be able to explore the town you live in and other travel locations to find unique items to collect. The items you can collect and sell are butterflies, bugs, rocks, nanites, metals, and flowers. Gem collecting specifically can be a lucrative venture. You can find gems by finding rocks in your town and putting them into a gem cutting machine. Sims who collect items will benefit from have the Gatherer trait because they will find higher quality items that tend to sell for a higher value.
Tiberium
Tiberium is a very rare ore that you can find randomly. Some common methods of finding this ore are collecting rocks from the ground when traveling, breaking space rocks open, or from a vendor in Egypt. Rarely, you can find this special ore while dumpster diving or rummaging through a rich sim’s trash. This specific gem can make you a lot of money. Placing a small cut of tiberium or gem dust on the floor will cause a large spire cut to grow. Be sure to not place them too close together because this will inhibit them from growing. The tiberium will grow over the course of few days, which you will then be able to sell for $40,000. This is an underrated technique for how to get money in Sims 3.
Flowers
If you have the Seasons expansion pack, you will be able to collect flowers from around town. You will be able to sell these for money from your inventory. This may seem like a waste of time, however, some flowers sell of hundreds of dollars. This can be a great way to make money quickly and easily. The most valuable flowers to sell are Sweet William for $200, Indian Blanket for $400, and Cosmos for $600.
Becoming a Business Partner
This method of making money requires an initial investment on your part. You will need to pay an upfront cost to own part of a business in your town. Alternatively, you can buy out the business after becoming a partner and entirely own it yourself. You can have multiple of these investments to increase your wealth. You will make a weekly profit off of the business without having to do anything extra. This becomes a nice source of passive income for your sims.
Kleptomaniac
Playing a sim that has the kleptomaniac trait opens another avenue for how to get money in Sims 3. This trait allows your sim to swipe things between the hours of 7PM and 5AM. You will be able to steal things from people’s houses or even from public locations. The best way to make money with this trait is by swiping the most expensive items that you can find each day. You will be allowed to steal three things per night. The most expensive items you can steal are vehicles located in public or in other sim’s driveways. Otherwise, your next best option will be to enter someone else’s house and swipe high ticket items, such as televisions, computers, etc.
Once you have stolen the items, you will find them located in your family inventory. You can choose to keep the items or sell them to cash in on your daily haul. This has the potential to net you many thousands of dollars per day with ease.
Dumpster Diving
Dumpster diving is an activity that your sim can partake in that can be very lucrative, although quite disgusting. You can find dumpsters located around town near restaurants and other public locations. Your sim’s hygiene bar will quickly decrease as you dig through the town’s trash and other sims will not be impressed by your behavior.
As you dig through the trash, you will periodically find random items. These can range from very cheap items that may not sell for much, all the way to higher priced goods such as washing machines or couches. Once you find enough items, you can sell what you have accumulated in your family inventory. This can net you a ton of money, depending on how much time you have donated to this activity.
Marry a Rich Sim
Marrying into a rich family will make your active sim accumulate the wealth of the new partner. This will allow for your sim to gain a lot of wealth quickly. Seek out the sims that live in the richest areas with the largest houses for a shot at marrying into wealth. Of course this is considered gold digging but no one will know!
Cheats
A tried and true method for how to get money in Sims 3 is to use the in game cheats. Hit Control, Shift and C to open up an area to type the cheat into. The following are the money cheats available to be utilized in Sims 3:
- motherlode: Typing this word into the bar will net your active family $50,000 simoleons.
- kaching: Typing this word will give the active family $1,000 Simoleons
- familyfunds lastname amount: Before typing this in, type “testingcheatsenabled true”. Then, type “familyfunds” followed by the household’s last name and the amount of Simoleons you wish to have. Example: “familyfunds Smith 25000”. This will immediately change the funds of the household to your desired amount. This is a quick way to get as much money as you want.