Let’s play one of my favourite subplots in any Animal Crossing game, who wants to be a bellionaire?! It’s Nook. It’s always Tom Nook. But you’re probably a close second. Bells make life in any Animal Crossing game much more fun. You can upgrade your house, buy all the furniture and clothes you want and of course get all that sweet island infrastructure. After living in a shabby tent and finally getting some solid walls around you feels amazing. But wait you’re going to need 5 million bells to get that full house upgrade? I don’t think just shaking trees and selling fruit is going to get you there. I guess you better get started on this list.

 

Save Expensive Fish And Bugs

The generic rule of thumb of making money in Animal Crossing is to go fishing or catch rare bugs and sell it to the Nook twins Timmy and Tommy. You should do alright netting some Red Snappers, Peacock Butterflies and the like. But if you happen to catch some of the rarer fauna on the island you should hold on to them and wait for C.J. and Flick.

Flick is a bug enthusiast that will buy any bug you sell him for 1.5x their normal value. For example, a tarantula sells for 8,000 Bells at Nook’s Cranny. Flick’s markup will net you 12,000 Bells instead. So when he’s in town it’s time to get bug napping and make those sales! Check out our full Animal Crossing insect guide to learn more. Flick is the best way to maximise your profits from tarantulas, which we’ll write more about below.

C.J. who I assume is related in some way to Chip, is a beaver ‘seasports influencer’ that will appear on your island randomly. Like Flick with bugs, he’ll buy your fish for 1.5x their normal value. You’ll need to complete a simple challenge before he starts buying your fish. It’s random but ranges from “catching five fish in a row” to “catching three fish of the same size” etc. When he’s in town do nothing except fish and sell to him to easily rack up a ton of bells. So while waiting for him to appear, save these catches: Tuna, Oarfish, Blue Marlin, Barreleye, Gold Trout, Coelacanth. For our full Animal Crossing fishing guide check it out here.

 

Tarantula Farm

Combine this strategy with the one above and you’ll be a bellionaire in no time. Tarantulas are one of the most valuable bugs, but they’re very rare and dangerous. You can, however, farm them. In the Northern Hemisphere this will be from November through April, while Southern Hemisphere players will need to be playing from May to October.

First, use a Nook Miles ticket to go to a resource island at night (7 pm – 4 am), and then strip that thing bare. Chop all the trees, pull all the stumps, break all the rocks, pick all the flowers etc. What you’re trying to do is create a situation with the maximum number of spawn points for ground creatures. Just dump all of these items onto the beach to free up inventory space. And if everything goes according to plan, you should be swimming in terrifying arachnids.

If you’re having trouble catching them start building trenches. Holes are an excellent defence against the ferocious tarantulas and their bite. The best method is to dig four holes, one on each side of you, all over the island. The idea is that you run back to these traps when a spider is chasing you and jump over the holes into the centre. Tarantulas (and scorpions) can’t reach you when you do this, leaving them running in circles within arm’s reach. From here you can use a net to scoop them up safely. Tarantulas will stop spawning at the end of April so I’d start catching them now.

 

Bury More Than Just 1,000 Into A Money Tree

A glowing patch on your island signals one thing – bells. Dig it up, and you’ll find 1,000 bells. This is chump change for a bellionaire like you but if you bury the bells back in the glowing patch it’ll turn into a money tree. In a few days time, the tree will fruit with sacks of bells hanging off it. If you put in 1,000 bells you’ll get back three sacks of those bells hanging off the tree. x3 the investment in a few days? You’re better off putting in a sack of more money, say 10,000 bells into the glowing hole to reap 30,000 per tree.

If you’re wondering how to split up your wallet into bags of bells just head over to your inventory and select your money with A. From here you can split your bells into increments of 100, 1,000 and 10,000, depending on how much you have.

 

Play The Stalk Market

Every Sunday morning, a wandering vendor named Daisy Mae will appear around your town square. Daisy Mae will sell you Turnips, but the price is variable. One week she may be selling them for 100 Bells, but the next week she may be selling them for 150 Bells. You can buy as many Turnips as you want (as long as you have enough money). Once you have the Turnips, the idea is to sell them for more than you paid. Just like stalks… I mean stocks.

Every day (not including Sunday), Timmy and Tommy in Nook’s Cranny will tell you the current price of Turnips. The price actually changes twice a day (once at midnight, once at noon). There is no hard and fast rule for the stalk market but you’re generally getting turnips at a good price if you’re buying them from Daisy Mae at less than 100 bells. As for selling price that can be anywhere from 50 – 800 bells. Turnips don’t keep past the next week so even making a 50% loss before the next Sunday is better than nothing.

The best way to sell Turnips is to communicate with friends who are also playing. If one of your buddies happens to have a great Turnip price in their town, you can travel there to buy or sell them. This ensures that you’re not as reliant on your town getting great prices.

 

Interest On Your Savings

Now this isn’t the most glamourous way for you to get bells. But you’re ideally getting something for doing pretty much nothing. Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ interest rates are set at 0.5%. Based on however much you slide into your account before the first of each month, you’ll get a tiny fraction of that deposited on top of your savings when a new month rolls around. A 0.5% rate for 1,000,000 bells is a measly 5,000, so while your fortune won’t multiply overnight, it certainly won’t go down. Just dump your savings into the bank on the last day of the month and you’ll wake up to a little extra.

 

The Money Rock

Every rock on your island can spit out eight materials per day. Most will be stone, clay, iron, or sometimes gold, but one will have nothing but bells. Getting eight taps out of each rock is a science, though. The moment you hit a rock for the first time that day, an invisible timer begins to count down — and every millisecond counts. To ensure you’re not pushed back by enough taps to cost you the final whack, make sure to dig two holes behind you before you start the process. This way, you won’t be pushed back enough to fail a strike, almost guaranteeing you get the best result. Just don’t stop spamming that A button until you’ve wrangled every last bell out of it for a total of around 15,000.

If you’re really lucky the next time you’re on a Nook Miles run you’ll find yourself at Money Rock Island. You’ll know you’re there when you see a massive moat in the center of your destination with nothing but rocks on the tiny landmass in the middle. Just like back home, this island has a rock with stacks of money waiting to be whacked out of it: Only it has five. There’s even a sixth rock with money inside you need to break to bridge the gap. It might not have the payout of a perfect tarantula island run, if you did it right you’ll be leaving with 90,000 bells.

 

Hot Items

This isn’t something you’ll do every single day, but it’s one to watch out for at least. Each day, Timmy and Tommy pay double for a certain item. It’s always one you have the DIY recipe for, so you can almost always put this opportunity to good use. Don’t burn through your supply of iron ore whenever they ask for a table, but it’s a good way to turn any excess or common materials into a decent payday. Turn all that wood into a load of benches, chairs, or beds whenever they’re paying out for them.

When you start to learn some more elusive recipes, you can even double the worth of something like gold nuggets. Though you can sell these for 10,000 bells a pop, using one to craft a hot item like the Golden Gears will immediately bump up the return to anywhere over 20,000 bells. That 2x increase can really add up. We got Hearths one day, which let us craft pockets full of them and sell them for over 10,000 bells apiece.