Recently, I decided to play University with a challenge: Start a household of 8 Sims, earn as much money as I can in the Freshman year, then have four groups of two Sims from that household share the money they got evenly and move out. Initially, it worked well, but... while they had enough simoleons to cover their houses and furniture, they were left pretty damn broke afterward: 300-500 simoleons! And the bills came right on the next day!

I haven't looked at the bills' prices yet, but I am 88.7% sure I won't be able to afford them - and the remaining 11.3% says I'll be able to pay them, but will be left even more broke afterward. In order to counter this, I need to make simoleons, and fast - else the Repo Man will be paying a visit to deprive me of my already-extremely-basic appliances.

On one hand, this made the experience interesting: now the thing i'm worried about the most isn't about my class performance, but rather how much simoleons I have so I can stay on college. But I don't know what to do! My conscious told me to do the straightfoward idea of selling paintings, but most of my Sims have low creativity and thus make paintings worth §11 at most(plus it takes up considerable study time). Plus, there's the fact that I want only one of those Sims to be a painter, so it'd ruin the ideas I have for them once they become adults. My natural instincs tell me "Just say 'screw it' and motherlode your way out!", but I don't need to say I don't want to cheat outside of the direst consequences.

What should I do?

Part time jobs! They can work as a barista or in the cafeteria, and it's possible to tutor dormies for money if you see them doing an assignment. These activities will also keep them on the community lots and the semester will zoom by, then the grant money will arrive and they'll be saved.

Since the repo man doesn't come till the bills are way overdue, this isn't generally a problem on campus - just let them sit unpaid and rush through the semester for grant money. They won't need to buy groceries since they can eat free in the cafeteria and parks.

If you also have Seasons, you could probably have any of them get acquainted with some playable character that has a money producing career reward (Culinary, Science, Slacker); then have that character give them that reward.

another option (regardless of expansions) could be to fulfill enough Wants to get a money tree.

Dig for treasure .. just make sure ya fill in the holes and don't dig too deep :p

Thanks for the tips - I completely forgot about the Money Tree and digging for treasure.



Well, they don't live on campus anymore, so part-time jobs may be difficult. Also, won't the Repo-Man come three days after the bills were delivered? Or it works differently on campus?

Just go and work as a barista or at a cafeteria both pay well. So they graduated? if you sent them to uni and they are still at uni, yes they are on campus, the whole thing is the campus. if they don't live at campus then they are back in the main hood either graduated or dropped out. I think you mean they don't live at a dorm. That doesn't matter, just visit a dorm and take over the cafeteria. You just click on the stove top 'work in cafeteria'.

in base game, 4 days after delivery. bills change color each day. delivery day, white; 1 day after, yellow; 2 days, orange; 3 days, red; 4 days, explode.

*facepalm* When I said "they are not on campus", I meant "not on dormitories". Wow, I make these errors a lot.

I wasn't too sure if English was your first language and perhaps your game called the dorms a campus or something. But you understand what Peni means about part time jobs now? Just visit a lot and if there is a cafeteria or a coffee bar your sim can work there. You should easily be able to make college bills.

In the premade universities, the Student Union Buildings, gyms, and some of the others have cafeterias, in addition to the dorms.

A semester generally lasts about three days, so you're almost certain to get grant money before the Repo Man shows up. You can speed them up by going to community lots, but you can't slow them down.

The difference in the way the semester clock runs means that, though bills are coded the same way as in the main hood, the effect is different. The semester clock counts down for each individual sim on a lot. The bills are still working on the code for the time on the lot. So Mary leaves the residence as soon as the bills are delivered in order to go work in the SUB cafeteria. She stays out until 10 PM. Her semester clock advances 12 hours, but she returns to the lot, where it is still 10 AM and John, who stayed put, now has exactly as many hours as he did when she left and, most importantly, the bills have only been there five minutes! If the bills are enormously high, John and Mary may each have to spend a lot of shifts in the cafeteria - but in that case, their semester will end on the second, or even (if you're relentless) on the same day the bills came due. And it might, in that case, be better for them to ignore the bills and the part-time jobs, and focus on making dean's list ASAP - in a two-person household, that's $2,400 dollars and if you have bills that high, you really just need to move into a smaller, less plush residence!

If they have certain skills, they can make money in a variety of ways :
1. Work as a barista - or as a bartender (or both)
2. Teach fitness to less fit Sims
3. Perform on musical instruments at a community lot
4. Perform freestyle (they need charisma skills for this to work)
5. Work in the cafeteria as a cook (cooking points obviously needed) (as mentioned above - it pays well).
6. Go fishing and sell the fish

7.

Hobby-based competitions can be lucrative if your sims have high enough skills/enthusiasm. Send them to a lot with multiple computers for a gaming competition or to the music&dance hobby lot for a dance competition. In college, most of my sims tend to have extremely high if not maxed enthusiasm in one of those! I won't recommend the culinary lot since you'd have the overhead of whatever preparing the food would cost, but if you have a sim who you're reasonably sure can outcook anyone else, go for it.

7. Grow veggies. That won't yield that much, though.
8. (Probably related to the post above, though I did this long before I got FT) ... paint pictures. An easel can be your best investment!

Thanks for all the help, but turns out all I really needed was a handful of Money Trees -- which I was able to afford. Now I only need to keep them watered, which shouldn't be too hard.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you need to water the money trees? I'm watering them twice a day to be on the safe side.

another option (if you also have Open For Business) might be for them to open some kind of business; if business are possible for the sub-neighborhood type and for the Age.

Yes, Gazania - the easel! One of my very first Sims in my (now vanished) neighbourhood was a full time painter - he simply painted for 8 hours every day (well, I made him )

I just water money trees every time I harvest them.