Tommy Defonteny 
Electronic Arts via HGG / Tommy deFonteny
Tommy is our expert Clash of Clans writer.
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
In The Sims 4, earning enough simoleons for your sims can be a daunting task. Knowing the 10 best ways to make money in The Sims 4 will allow you to ensure that your bills are paid while your Sims explore the world around them. Here are the 10 best ways to make money in the Sims 4.
We’ve ranked these from least to most lucrative.
Let’s dive in to 10 on the list!
10. Fishing
Was your Sim born to stand on a riverbank, casting their line into the water until the day ends? Although this could put some simoleons in your sim’s pocket, this is far from the quickest way to build up a fortune in the game.
If your sim has a nature-related trait, like Loves Outdoors, then spending time making money by fishing would also provide a positive emotional boost to your sim too! One of the main upsides to trying to make your money through fishing is the control over your sim’s schedule. So if you want your sim to be able to hang outside on their own time while putting some money in their pocket, then fishing might be for them!
9. Collecting
Another good way to earn some money in the sims is to try your hand at finding and selling collectibles around the world. In The Sims 4, there are a variety of different collectible sets, like Frogs, Metals, and Microscope Prints. Each set of collections will push you to grow one skill after another for your sim.
Investing your sim’s time in finding collectibles will also pay off financially. If you chose to sell the collectibles you find, rather than maybe use them to decorate your house a bit, you could earn anywhere from $150 Simoleons for some rare metals to around $450 Simoleons for some rare microscope prints. Although your findings catch to get you some nice money, relying totally on collecting for money can be unpredictable.
8. Gold Digger
If rooting through rotting tree stumps or sifting through the dirt for rare collectibles isn’t something that your sim’s enjoy, there is another way to try and get your sim some riches to sit on.
Some sims aren’t built for a full-time career or to go on wild adventures to find some money for themselves. Another way to help your sim fill up their bank account is to sweep someone quite wealthy off their feet. A chance encounter with a stranger your sim has at their local lounge could lead to a marriage that changes your sim’s financial situation forever. Although your love for the person may not have been your main motivator for having them join your household, at least you can afford the nicest kitchen appliances now.
7. Programming
If your sim finds themselves flourishing in front of a computer screen, there are several ways you could turn this fun skill into a nice little cash flow. One of the easiest ways to exploit your sims programming skill to make money is to start hacking. To start, you’ll only be able to hack once a day. Although hacking won’t make you rich quickly, it will provide a nice little bit of money for your sims.
If hacking is quite what your sim is looking for, try making plugins. Although plugins are more useful for developing the programming skill, creating them will provide some nice little cash bonuses that you could throw into your savings.
As your Programming skill advances, you could try your hand at creating apps! Creating an app will be a large time commitment for your sim, by the time of completion it will have taken around 24 in game hours to complete. You’re able to stop your sim and resume by selecting the continue making app button after clicking on a computer.
Mobile apps will provide daily royalty payouts which will provide a consistent income for your sim. However, the downside to royalties, the amount of money earned will eventually dwindle down to nothing.
If it happens to be that creating apps isn’t bringing in the money you’d like, you could move on to try making video games. Developing video games in the sims come with an even bigger in-game time commitment for your sim, this time being about 36 hours. Very similar to the mobile app, the video game pays through royalties that will, unfortunately, dwindle to nothing.
If after all those options, nothing still seems to fit the money-making path your sim desires, they could always turn to more devious programming activities. By making viruses, you can quickly and consistently put money in your pocket. But is the money worth your sim using their forged programming skill for evil?
6. Painting
If you take your sim and throwing them into the world of canvas and easel painting, you also set them up for the opportunity to make a fortune. Although painting can be a time-consuming task and paintings won’t consistently sell for high values until you max out your painting skill, this path allows you complete control over your Sims’ schedule.
Taking the time to build up your sims painting skill and consistently selling the paintings your sim creates, you will find yourself with a decent chunk of change in the bank. Although it won’t make your sim the most money, it will provide your sims with enough funds and time to explore all the aspects of their virtual world.
5. Part-Time Jobs
Part-time jobs provide a unique money-making opportunity that the more traditional jobs don’t allow – teenagers can work them. Your journey to riches can begin even earlier in your sim’s life with part-time jobs. The option to select which shift to work for certain part-time jobs makes them even more flexible to fit into the lives of teenage sims still in school.
Your young sims, just entering the world of sim-adulthood, have a few options at their disposal in terms of putting some money in their pockets with part-time jobs. Maybe your teenage sim already shows some interest in cooking, they could benefit skill-wise, emotionally, and financially from grabbing a job as Barista or Fast Food Employee to earn some money after they get off school.
It could even be that your sim finds themselves energized frequently and doing their best to stay in shape. In this case, picking up a part-time job as a manual laborer would allow your sims to pick up some money on the side. If none of these seem to fit your sim’s interests, they could always give Babysitting or being a Retail Employee a try!
Part-time jobs provide great opportunities for all sims, even teenagers, to earn some good money. The hours are a little shorter and the income isn’t nearly as much as top-tier career ranks, but adult sims can have more than one, the earning can start sooner with teenagers, and at the end of the day, your sims will have a consistent flow of money.
4. Freelancing
If the rigidity of part-time jobs is off-putting but the lack of structure that comes with just earning money from fishing, finding collectibles, or art like painting, then freelancing may provide your sims with a satisfactory solution. If your sim chooses to freelance, they will have to pick between three industries: digital art, writing, and programming.
Your sim will complete work by picking up gigs and doing each task the gig requires. As you progress gigs will be worth more and the quicker you can complete the gigs, the more you can do. There is a lot of potential and freedom that comes with the freelancing career and would allow your sims to build skills, earn money, and choose what to do with their newfound free time.
3. Gardening
Gardening finds itself at the 3 spot on this list because of its versatility. A small garden that a sim tends to between shifts at work will rake in a couple of extra dollars every day. But if a sim focuses on gardening as a full-time commitment, then your sims will be able to bring in hundreds of dollars a day just from gardening. The bigger the garden and the more time your sims invest in the garden, the more money you will ultimately make.
This is one of the few money-making instances where you can also literally hire help. Hiring a gardener will allow someone else to take care of watering, spraying bugs, and weeding your plants. This will save your sims a significant amount of time since they’ll only have to harvest or sell the plants.
2. Writing
Writing books is one of the best non-career options your sim has to bring in hefty amounts of simoleons on a consistent basis. You earn royalties every day for your published books, eventually, they will dwindle to nothing. However, if you commit your sim to increase their writing skill while writing and publishing books, then you can find your sims bringing in thousands of dollars a day just through book royalties.
1. Careers
All Base Game Career Paths:
- Tech Guru
- Style Influencer
- Secret Agent
- Painter
- Entertainer
- Culinary
- Business
- Athlete
- Criminal
- Writer
The best way to consistently make money in the Sims 4 is to get your sim into a career. The biggest downside to the career option is that you must send your sim away for their entire shift. Although building up and using vacation days at your job will allow you to give your sim some free time to explore other skills and activities all the while you still earn a day’s salary. Even having more than one sim in a household would allow you to send one sim to work while using the other to engage with other money-making options on a day-to-day basis.
So, we know that although careers will give your sims a consistent income, but will take up a lot of free time, what else makes careers the best option in The Sims 4? Careers encourage your sims to develop skills and complete activities in order to gain promotions, which overall will lead to a more well-rounded skill set. Careers also provide large cash bonuses as well as practical, valuable, and exclusive gifts for reaching certain milestones. We’ll look at a few of the careers in the game to dive into the extra benefits a career can provide for your sim.
Astronaut Career
When you reach level 7 of the Astronaut career, you are rewarded with a $15 wage increase to a total of $119 simoleons an hour. You’re also gifted with a $1,689 bonus, the Salyut Aeronaut Chair, and exclusive clothing items. The best part is this isn’t even the most lucrative level of the career path.
Athlete Career
Another aspect of careers that adds more control to your sim’s life is that once you reach a certain level in a career, you have the option to pick between two branches in which to progress. In the Athlete career, the two branches you get to pick from when your reach level 5 are Bodybuilder and Pro Athlete. When you hit the max level of the Pro Athlete career branch, level 10, you are rewarded with a $333 an-hour wage, a $1,452 bonus, and an MVP trophy.
Culinary Career
To look at what other exciting things careers provide, we’ll look at the Culinary Career. At level 6 the career branches out into the Chef branch and Mixologist branch. When you hit the max level of the career under the Chef branch, you’ll receive a $410 an hour wage, a $3,037 bonus, Discretion Stove Hood, Pro Performance Range Hood, The Obelisk, Pancake Pro Free-Standing Griddle, and career exclusive clothing.
Before You Build Your Fortune
There are a ton of different ways to make money in The Sims 4. However, knowing the 10 best ways to make money in The Sims 4 can make your journey to being the wealthiest sim in town just that much quicker. Whether your sim is a foodie or outdoor enthusiast, there will be a way to keep them happy and fill their pockets with cash. Happy Gaming!
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