Easy Ways To Make Money In Animal Crossing New Leaf

Money Making Guide

Last Edited: 4 Nov 2016 4:33 pm

Wondering how to make lots of money (Bells) in Animal Crossing: New Leaf? The answer is Quickscoping. MLG style, specifically. And no matter what season you are in, there are always quickscopes on the Tropical Island, some of which are worth 10,000 or more Bells.

Skip to How to Make Your First Million Bells

But before you can even get to the tropical island to make your millions, you'll need to slog through the demoralizing task of getting your first home built, then paying off your first home loan - all told, you're looking at a nearly 50,000 bell investment before you can start making any real money. Having said that, you can actually scrape the cash together pretty quickly if you spend your first few days in your new village wisely.

Making your first 50,000 Bells

There are many ways to go about scraping together a nest egg in Animal Crossing: New Leaf - some more time-consuming than others. Here are a few:

Fishing

Fishing is the most obvious way to get money early on - you could easily earn enough selling fish to Re-Tail to pay down your home loan in your first day with Animal Crossing: New Leaf. But what if you can't find a Fishing Rod in Nookling Junction? The answer is Isabelle, the game's secret weapon for helping those just starting out as Mayor.

Isabelle will offer you several dialogue options when you sit down in your mayor's chair - the most important when you're starting out is "Advice for Living Here". Following Isabelle's advice will not only bolster your Approval Rating, but also give you access to several items you might otherwise have trouble acquiring. One of these is a Fishing Rod, which she will sell to you if you can't find one otherwise.

Money Rocks

Money Rocks have been a staple of Animal Crossing since the beginning, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing about them. Here's the scoop: once a day, a random rock in your town will become a money rock, and if you hit it with a Shovel, bells will pop out - up to 16,100 a day in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, depending on how many whacks with the shovel you give it. You'll have to hit the rock with several successive hits to make the most money come out, and every time you hit the rock, the force of your shovel will knock you backwards a little bit, meaning you'll lose a little bit of time moving closer to the rock to hit it again and lessening your chances at a maximum payoff.

Dig three (or more) holes behind you, acting like a wall and you won't get knocked back as much, and you leave as much room as possible for money to fall. You can also dig two holes in a corner, hitting the rock in a diagonal way as shown in the picture below. Better yet, plant Bushes in those same locations for a more permanent solution. Any of these make it easy to get 16,100 bells.

Gems and Gem Rocks

While you're wandering around your village looking for your money rock, you might come across a rock that shatters when you hit it with your shovel. When it breaks, a gem will pop out that will be worth up to 4,000 bells! The list of gems and values is as follows:

Amethyst (2,000 bells)
Emerald (2,000 bells)
Ruby (2,000 bells)
Sapphire (2,000 bells)
Silver (3,000 bells)
Gold (4,000 bells)

Shaking the Trees

You can also get more bells by shaking the trees in your town. As a bonus, if you shake all the trees that don't have fruit, in addition to getting bells, you'll get two pieces of furniture, you might find a spider or bagworm, and you'll get stung by bees, which makes your face look bad but leaves behind beehives worth 500 bells each! If you're quick, you can catch the bee swarm before it stings you--bees are worth 2500 bells at Re-Tail.

Isabelle's Foreign Fruit

You could run around your entire town shaking down all the fruit from your trees and getting a few thousands bells, but it's a lot easier to make money if you have access to fruit that isn't native to your village. But what if you don't have anyone to play online with (and trade fruit with)?

ACNL_Isabelle_Mom_Fruit.JPG

Once again, it's Isabelle to the rescue! Continue doing everything she tells you to do in the "Advice for Living Here" dialogue menu, and eventually, she will provide you with an unexpected surprise: a basket of foreign fruit from her mother! You could sell the fruit, of course, and make a nice little profit, but for a more long-term payoff, go plant the fruit in the ground - somewhere where there's plenty of space for trees to grow - and in a few days, you will have your first three foreign fruit trees. Ka-ching!

Doing Favors

Another quick way to earn a little cash is to wander around your village and get to know your neighbors. If you talk to them enough, some will ask you to run errands for them - usually, delivering an item to another villager. Completing these errands usually ends with villagers giving you random clothes and furniture that - let's face it - you probably don't want. Take these rewards to Re-Tail and get the gift you really wanted - bells!

Dream Suite

Uploading your town at the Dream Suite takes only an internet connection and a single minute. Your thanks is 5,000 Bells FREE every day you do!

How to Make Your First Million Bells

Using the method outlined below, you can make over 500,000 bells per trip to the island. That's a lot of bells!

Unlock the Tropical Island

First you'll need to unlock the Tropical Island. To unlock the Tropical Island you must pay off your 39,800 bell Loan on your house (first expansion).

After paying off your loan, Tortimer, the town's previous mayor, will show up in the main menu screen when you choose to travel to your town. Talk to Tortimer on the dock on your beach after this. The next day you can travel to the Tropical Island. You can potentially unlock the Tropical island in 3 days without time travel.

On the Tropical Island you can borrow a Bug Net and a Fishing Pole from the Gyroid by the door on the island. From here, all you need to do is fill your pockets with Bugs!

Catch Bugs

The best time time to catch the rare bugs worth the big bells is at night, and the rarest bugs, like the Giant Stag come out only after 11PM, although you can make plenty of bells before that.

Circle the island carefully, looking out for the large beetles on trees. To catch rare beetles, you often need to sneak up on them. To do so, arm your Bug Net and hold A a good distance from the bug. This allows you to sneak up on the bug. Release A to spring your net and you'll have a new insect buddy. Note that some bugs will be disturbed and fly away (especially beetles) if you walk quickly near them. For these bugs you must push the analog slider very slightly towards the bug to creep up on it with your Bug Net raised.

You may want to manicure your island a bit to make it the perfect beetle catching habitat. To do this, plant palms along the sides of the island, but not in the bottom/front area. This area is too easy to disturb while walking around -- and you can scare off Golden Stags very easily.

By planting trees along the sides of the island, you can keep them in view from the bottom of the island while they are still far away.

Only a maximum of five or so bugs can appear on the island at once, so chase off bugs that aren't worth much (Fruit Beetles) so expensive bugs can spawn. You may want to enter the island cabana if too many butterflies are roaming about.

You can't take any bugs back with you in your pockets, but you can use the small box by Leilani to fill with 40 bugs and fish to bring back with you. You'll quickly find that your space here is a premium, so don't fill it with Sea Bass. Fill it with super-rare beetles!

The Best Bugs to Catch

Here are bugs that show up on the Tropical Island. Note that since it's always summer on the island, nsects may appear "off-season" as well. Click on a bug for more details on how to catch it.

Like this list? Check out the full Bug List

Bug Name	Value	Rarity	Location	Time
Scarab Beetle	6,000	2	Tree Trunk	July-August, 11PM-8AM
Jewel Beetle	2,400	4	Tree Trunk	Febuary-August, 8AM-5PM
Miyama Stag	1,000	4	Tree Trunk	June-August, All Day Best: August, 7PM-8AM
Saw Stag	2,000	3	Tree Trunk	July-August, All Day Best: July-August, 7PM-8AM
Giant Stag	10,000	3	Tree Trunk	July-August, 11PM-8AM
Rainbow Stag	10,000	2	Tree Trunk	June or September, 7PM-8AM July-August, 5PM-8AM
Cyclommatus Stag	8,000	2	Palm Trunks	July-August, 5PM-8AM
Golden Stag	12,000	1	Palm Trunks	July-August, 5PM-8AM
Horned Dynastid	1,350	4	Tree Trunk	July-August, 5PM-8AM Best: *July-August, 11PM-8AM
Horned Atlas	8,000	2	Palm Trunks	July-August, 5PM-8AM
Horned Elephant	8,000	3	Palm Trunks	July-August, 5PM-8AM
Horned Hercules	12,000	1	Palm Trunks	July-August, 5PM-8AM
Goliath Beetle	6,000	2	Palm Trunks	June or September, 7PM-8AM July-August, 5PM-8AM
Tiger Beetle	1,500	3	Ground	March-September, 8AM-7PM October, 4AM-5PM

Catch Other Stuff

Note that you can also Fish on the Tropical Island, but to make the big bucks it's best just to aim for fish with visible fins sticking out of the water. The following fish will also bring in the big bucks:

Whale Shark - 13,000
Shark - 15,000
Hammerhead Shark - 8,000
Saw Shark 12,000

If you are in need of money during the daylight hours, consider grabbing butterflies on the Tropical Island. Here are the butterflies worth the most bells:

Agrias Butterfly - 3000
Emperor Butterfly - 2500
Birdwing Butterfly - 4000

The Tropical Island is not the only way to make money in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, but for veterans it's proved to be both the easiest and fastest way to do so. Now go pay off your home loan.

In This Wiki Guide