Scribe's Sims Cheats and Hints

Money, Money, Money

Makes the world go round, doesn't it?

In the un-cheated version of The Sims, each little Sim family, whether its a single girl or dude, or a Sim version of The Waltons (I've heard that the most you can put in one family is eight. I haven't tried it yet), begins life with a mere $20,000.00.

That's not a lot in the Simverse. Just buying an empty lot can whack off anywhere from $3,500 to about a third of your savings, and that's before you have so much as a single floor tile or sheet of dry wall to call your own. And if you choose one of the already built homes, you still have to furnish it. Just supplying the kitchen and the bathroom (can't have the Sims starving or embarrassing themselves) will probably take up the rest. They you'll need to get an income to stock the fridge, and so the Sim takes the first job that comes along, and before you know it he's stuck in a dead end career, working in a mail room when he REALLY wanted to be an actor...

Sorry. I'm a fiction author. It keeps coming out.

Any way, there are solutions to the money problems, some sneakier than others. Let's give you the easiest, and cheatiest, one first, and get it out of the way.

You can do all sorts of neat things with your Sims game if you know the COMAND PROMPT command. This lets you tell the game to do things it normally wouldn't. I think it's programmed in to make it easier for the programmers to test things.

You all know how to do CTRL+ALT+DLT, right? This is a sort of variation. Press at the same time SHIFT+CTRL+C. A gray box, with a cursor in it, will pop out in the upper left hand corner. Here is where you type your commands for all sorts of goodies, but right now we're discussing mone. Type in (removing the quotation marks) "rosebud". That's right. Someone was a Citizen Kane fan. Then press ENTER.

Voila! One thousand Simoleans have been added to your Sim's savings! And you don't have to keep doing this over and over to fatten the amount, either. After you do it the first time, press SHIFT+CTRL+C again, and get the box. Then begin to enter a series of ;! (that's semi-colens and exclamation marks). The ;! Is the way to tell the game 'repeat the last order'. So, if you type in five pairs (;!;!;!;!;!) and hit enter, you'll be given $5,000 Simoleans. You can repeat the pairs till the command bar is full before entering, and really watch your dollars mount. I think you can get between thirty and fifty thousand Simoleans at a time.

Oh, but that's the EASY way. Maybe you want a way that doesn't seem so much like cheating, hm?

For this next tip, you'll have to use the COMMAND PROMPT again. Press SHIFT+CNTRL+C. This time enter (without the quotation marks) "move_objects on", and press enter. Now you're going to be able to do all KINDS of stuff using the BUY mode, but I'll get to that later. This is about getting, and keeping, cash.

First off, you don't ever have to pay a bill again, with the 'move_objects on' command. When the bills appear in the mailbox, just tell your Sims to get them. When he lays them down, go into BUY mode, pick up the bills, drag them to the BUY section, and click. No more bills. I've played long, long games, never having to put out a cent. This is very convenient when your amount of possessions goes up, because your bills increase to reflect that.

If you have the Hot Date expansion, you can do it by investing in vintage magazines. Just have your Sim go downtown and start buying magazines. They're in several locations. I like to go to the little shop on the right hand side of the beach, since the newstand is close to the register, and the shopping can go more quickly.

Now, have your Sim start buying magazines. It doesn't matter which ones, but you might as well go for the cheap $3 one--greater profit margin. Buy as many as you like, or keep buying till your Sim is tired, hungry, cranky, and wants to go home. Remember, when you return home, you'll go through a time warp and arrive back at almost the same time you left. This comes in handy for having your Sim recover before trotting off to work again.

Your Sim can carry (as far as I know) unlimited numbers of magazines. Usually they'll tire to the point of falling asleep before they get more than thirty or forty. As soon as the Sim gets out of the taxi, he's going to start laying the magazines out on the ground in a neat row of lines. (Note: if there's a free surface in the house, table or counter, he'll start laying them out there).

Let the Sim go on about his business. If he goes to sleep, you'll probably have to slow the clock down (clicking on the series of arrows by the clock), so that the game doesn't just speed on through. After midnight on the day that you bought the magazines, go into BUY mode. Pick up one of the magazines. The game should tell you that it is worth over $400 dollars! Wow, I wish everything grew in value like that.

Now you can pick up the magazines one by one, drag them down to the blue BUY section at the bottom, and click, selling them for whatever the game says they're worth. You can get TONS of money like this. You could easily survive and prosper without having a job at all. :)

Another way of getting cash without using the COMMAND PROMPT at all works for Unleashed, Vacation, or Superstar expansions. Go to the Sims official site. They have an area where you can download new items for the game. It's the Get Cool Stuff section, but I have the exact URL, to make things simpler. http://thesims.ea.com/us/index.html?menu=getcool&content=getcool/

On the right side of the screen, they have three downloads for the Double Deluxe Pack, 1-3. Each of these contain Asian themed objects, and building items (tiles, walls). I'm not sure which pack has which, so you might want to get them all.

Once you have the right pack downloaded and installed, new items will appear in your BUY section. IN the Decoration section, look for a Japanese fan in the hanging wall ornaments. It costs $81 dollars. Get a couple to brighten up the walls. Heck, get a dozen. They're pretty. Now wait. One day. Two days, maybe. Every now and then use the BUY mode to take one of the fans off the wall, and see how much it's worth on the open market. After the appropriate time has passed, you'll suddenly be told that the fan is worth anywhere from $700 to over $800! This is another way you can live well without ever having to work a day.

Some of the decorations objects appreciate in value, and some of them just get old. Experiment. Hang something on the wall and check it every now and then. If it goes down in value, you can chuck it and try something else, but some of them will go up, at least a little. I know that the portrait in the oval frame increased a little, and I think one of the vintage posters did, too. I've seen a hint that the 'white stone plaque' will increase dramatically, but I haven't been able to figure out which one they mean.

And a bigger one, but it takes a little hand-eye co-ordination. Do the "move_objects on" cheat for this one (once you use the code, it will stay in effect till you shut the game off. You'll have to do it again the next time you start up the game.) In the Miscellaneous section, there's a fireworks launcher. Buy that, and set it up outside the house (don't want to risk fire).

Set off the fireworks. Here's where you have to be quick. The second that the falling spark appears, QUICK! Go into BUY mode. You have to do it before the fireworks hit the ground. If you can catch it in mid-air, use the hand tool to grab it, then sell it for, I think, about $7,000 dollars.

Another way to get money is to use the Genie. You'll have to be careful with this one, because he isn't always very efficient when he grants the wish. Make sure you have the "move_objets on" command working will help you, if you need to correct his mistakes. Before you rub the lamp, save your game. That way if you don't like what happened, you can just exit without saving, go back, and it's as if it never happened.

Buy the Magic Lamp. Clean it. The Genie will appear, and offer you a wish. You will have to choose between two things (ex. Do you want help with love, or money? Do you want a blessing of fire, or air?) Each choice has a good, and a bad outcome.

On the 'love or money' wish, if you choose 'money', you'll either get a pot of gold (can be any amount, often over $1000), or three or four piles of bright red, about-to-bring-the-collection agent bills. If you get the bills, and don't want to do the whole 'exit without saving bit', you can just use the 'move_objects on' cheat to get rid of them.

You can use the 'move_objects on' cheat to turn what would be a disaster into a cash bonus. When he offers you the blessings of the spirits of the earth, or the spirits of the air, and you choose air, you get either a flock of flamingos (good), or a plague of roaches. Bad, right? Not with the cheat code. Instead of having to stomp and spray like a crazy person, go to BUY. They you can pick up each swarm of bugs, and sell it for over $400!

Also, you'll have a wish where you choose between work, or leisure. Beware the work choice. You can either gain, or lose skill points. But on the leisure one--if the Genie is competent, something nice will appear--like a pool table, or video game. You can either keep it, or sell it for quick cash. Another wish asks you to choose between fire, and water. The fire one is tricky. Often he sets something expensive in the house on fire. If you're quick with the extinguisher, or have a smoke detector installed, all that will cause you is irritation, and a loss of hygiene. If the Genie is competent, I think you get an across the board mood boost (something about the warm winds, etc.) For water, you get either a flood, or a nice water fountain. You can keep, or sell the fountain. And the flood doesn't have to be all that awful. If you don't feel like mopping up, use the 'move_objects on' command, and you can pick up the whole puddle in one swoop, and delete it. I'm going to go over all the things I know you can do with the 'move_objects on' code later. It'll be good to have them centralized.

Other, more strenuous ways to earn money:

Paint. You can sell each painting as you finish it. As your creativity grows, so will the price you can command. But this is a lot of work for a little return.

Sell vegetables: I think it's with the Hot Date expansion that you can plant Victory Gardens. I think the planting plots are in Others in Decorations, or it might be in the plant section of Build. Anyway, after you buy and place the plots, you can go to Old Town to the Farmer's Market, or one of the shops in Old Town, and buy seeds. They have tomatoes, green beans, carrots, and lettuce available. Be sure to talk to the Old Farmer at the market for all sorts of advice. He'll also sell you some plant tonic, which should make your veggies grow to super size--then they'll command a better price.

Take the seeds home, and plant them. Then you get to spend a lot of time and effort making sure they stay watered and weeded, and eventually you can harvest them. Then you can either story them in a pantry (available in the refrigerator section), or sell them at the market. But beware--often gophers or rabbits will get into the garden and destroy plants, unless you have something there to keep them at bay. (Try a scarecrow or revolving windmill from decorations). Again, a lot of effort for a modest income, but if you have a hearty, active Sim with a lot of available time, they can farm for a living.

And another quick way to get more money--marry for it. Anytime a Sim gets married, or moves in with another, their money joins the communal kitty. This is also a good way to get new friends, because they'll bring along anyone you aren't already friends with. In fact, if you can talk a Townie into marrying you, you can immediately find yourself with a whole SLEW of friends. Then, if you don't like them, kill 'em off, and keep the cash and friends. :) Sounds morbid, but it works, and you never get caught. Apparently the Sims police only investigate burglary, not murder.

How to Kill a Sim will appear in another cheat section.