Making Money Fast in HM DS

Making Money Fast in HM DS
Version 1.30

Here you'll find the tried-and-tested money-making methods in Harvest Moon DS. Some are directly related to making funds, while others make it easier to make a profit with other plans.

Table of Contents Basic Money-Making Tricks
Intermediate Money-Making Tricks
Advanced Money-Making Tricks
Glitch-Based Money-Making Tricks
Update Log

Basic Money-Making Tricks

These are just simple tricks that don't require any special effort to do.

Foraging

The most basic money-making method is to gather stuff lying about the fields daily, and sell it. This will net you a good 1000G a day minimum, since all grasses sell for over 100G, and the seasonal wild plants and flowers also sell for a pretty penny.

Requirements: None
Challenge: None
Payoff: 1,000G to 5,000G per day
Rating: 3 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? Yes

Selling to Van

Every day ending in 3 and 8, a merchant shows up at the inn's 2nd floor. This merchant, Van, will buy just about anything for 100% to 200% of its actual value. If you haggle with him, you can get a killer deal on your goods, and make up to twice as much as you would just shipping them.

Requirements: Day ends in a 3 or 8
Challenge: None
Payoff: Up to twice your normal profit on anything you sell him
Rating: 5 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? Yes, but you can't sell most accessories

Return to Top

Intermediate Money-Making Tricks

These tricks require a bit more effort, but they work much better than the basic tricks.

Jewelery Hoarding

One of the easiest infinitely-renewing sources of cash in HM DS is the jewelery you can dig up at the excavation site. Instead of hunting willy-nilly for it and using up all of your stamina to find 1 to 6 pieces, however, you can save as you enter, dig around to find where the jewelery is, then reload and dig up those exact spots and no other. This way, you only take up energy to gather the goods for sale, so you can get 50 jewlery per 100 stamina (which is how much you start the day with).

Requirements: One free save slot, and a bit of patience
Challenge: Slightly tedious
Payoff: 2000G per jewelery, up to 4000G per if you sell to Van
Rating: 7 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? Yes

Return to Top

Advanced Money-Making Tricks

These tricks require some effort to set them up, but the pay-off is enormous.

Infinite Workdays

Ever wanted to effortlessly get all of your chores done in a day, and still have time and energy left over to do some random tasks like weeding? Well, this is how you can do just that! This trick is key for many of the more advanced tricks, so take note.

The trick starts by unlocking the first three mines (getting the Legendary Sword is optional, but useful for other advanced tricks). To do this, just reach the bottom level of each mine and kill everything down there. To unlock a mine, enter the excavation site from the waterfall area at any time that nobody is in the excavation site, while you have a hammer (so don't go upgrading your hammer until you have the first 3 mines unlocked!). To have an easier go of it in the mines, stock up on Turbojolt XL's from Van.

Anyway, once you have the third mine unlocked, you can begin hunting down Cursed items. This includes tools and accessories, and the accessories are our focus here. These rare goodies can be found on floors 324, 335, 348, 352, 368, 371, 387, 399, 406, 418, 424, 435, 442, 453, 462, 478, 485, 497, 724, 735, 748, 752, 768, 771, 787, 799, 806, 818, 824, 835, 842, 853, 862, 878, 885, and 897 (thanks to Ushi no Tane and Cherubae for finding this info!).

Now, cursed accessories don't always show up on these floors, even if you reach them. So that's where the tried-and-true save/load trick comes in. First, you need to use holes to drop down to a floor or two ABOVE your target floor, then dig down to the floor just above it (if necessary; you may get lucky and land exactly one floor above it). Be sure to heal up with a Turbojolt XL after big drops, and whenever you run out of stamina. Save in Diary 1 after you find the stairs down and equip the hammer, then go down and save in Diary 2 immediately. Now, here's where the loop starts...

Break all the rocks on the floor. You'll want to save periodically, so work in rows or columns, and save after each column (this is so you don't lose much progress if you get "lucky" enough to find a hole). Once all rocks are cleared, save again in Diary 2 and start combing the floor with the hoe. If you find a cursed accessory that's not the Cursed Kappa Hat (a wide-brimmed tall witch-like hat), note the location and reload Diary 2. Go back to that spot and dig again. Repeat until you have the hat. If no cursed item shows up at all, reload Diary 1, go down, save in Diary 2, and repeat this process.

Once you have the Cursed Kappa Hat, life is about to get much easier. The last thing to do is make sure you have at least 100,000G on hand. Head back home and some time between noon and 5PM (not on Saturdays or Sundays!), equip the hat and call Church. For 100,000G, you can undo the curse on the hat, so do that. Now you have an accessory that will not let fatigue rise! This means you can work forever, even when your character is out of stamina! This is the best accessory ever, if you didn't guess.

Some warnings: falling down holes the mines with no Stamina left will drain Fatigue even with this hat on. However, the hat will cut off 30 (!) fatigue from your fall, so you won't take too much damage. Restore a bit of stamina before you fall, as the game will not deplete fatigue when falling if any stamina at all is left, even if it's only 1 stamina. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Kappa Hat can only spare you from fatigue while you wear it. So if you use Fatigue-raising accessories like the Teleport Stone repeatedly, you'll still build up fatigue. This accessory is best combined with checking the Truth Bangle occasionally, to ensure you haven't built your Fatigue up too high via other accessories or from mine falls. Keeping some Bodigizer XL's on hand can help immensely.

Requirements: 100,000G, a lot of Turbojolt XL's, two free save slots, and some patience
Challenge: Tedious
Payoff: Infinite energy to work with
Rating: 10 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? Yes

Money For Nothing, Gemstones For Free

Basically, this is an extension of the above trick, but requires both save slots and is done in the second mine. The trick is simply that you go hunting for Pink Diamonds and Alexandrite, both of which sell for an obscene 10,000G each normally, and up to twice that via Van.

Single Pink Diamonds appear on medium-sized floors from floor 102 on to floor 198. Up to 2 Alexandrite appear on each huge floor between 110 and 200. So the first part of this strategy requires you to fall down holes for the first 100 or so floors, digging your way to floor 101 if necessary. Then save in one slot, go down to 102, and save in the other slot. Clear up the floor (loading the floor 102 save if you fall in a hole; it's a good idea to clear up the rocks in an orderly fashion so you don't lose track of what you've broken), and if there's no Pink Diamond, re-load the floor 101 save, go back down to 102, save in the other slot again, and repeat.

This trend continues for the next 100 or so floors. You should also save at every floor ending in 9 in your pre-goody-floor save slot, so you can try and get some Alexandrite on the floors ending in 0. Once you get past 200, you'll find a single Pink Diamond on small floors, up to 3 Pink Diamonds on medium floors, and up to 4 Alexandrite on large floors. Now you'll be wanting to save after clearing every floor, and making sure you get a rare gem each time you clear up a floor. You'll also want to use stairs exclusively, so you don't miss any gems.

You can theoretically get up to 120 Pink Diamonds and 36 Alexandrite doing this, but you'll probably get closer to 96 Pink Diamonds and 25 Alexandrite. Which is still a lot; you can potentially get around 2,000,000G from that selling it to Van.

It should be noted that this trick requires a LOT of stamina restoration. Even saving and loading regularly, you'll run out of energy in a heartbeat. Digging up Black Grasses can help slow this process, and a Blessed Kappa Hat (see Infinite Workdays) can all but prevent it.

Requirements: Two free save slots, many Turbojolt XL's, and a lot of patience
Challenge: Very Tedious
Payoff: 10,000G per Pink Diamond/Alexandrite, up to 20,000G when selling to Van
Rating: 8 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? Yes

The Hunt for the Cursed Kappa Earrings

If there's one accessory in this game that sells well, it's the Blessed Kappa Earrings; Van will buy them for over 1,200,000G each (yes, 1.2 MILLION). The real problem, of course, is actually getting enough of them to make a profit. For best results, use the Infinite Workdays trick first. Once you have the Blessed Kappa Hat, then proceed with this insanely effective little trick. For best results, do this trick on a day ending in 3 or 8 that's not a weekend.

As with the Blessed Kappa Hat, this plan involves going down into the third mine for accessories. However, this time we're only after Cursed Kappa Earrings, and we'll be after a lot of them: 10 to 15. This means you'll be doing the save/load trick an awful lot, but the payoff is immense. How to do this trick? Follow the steps in the Infinite Workdays trick for getting the Cursed Kappa Hat, but instead hunt for Cursed Kappa Earrings. Whenever you find one, save and fall down a hole to the closest floor you can manage to a cursed accessory. Remember, the goal is 10 to 15, so don't fall too far!

Once you have your 10 to 15, make sure it's not Saturday or Sunday and between noon and 5, and that you have at least 100,000G on hand, then equip all of them at once (yes, you can stack accessories). Call Church and have their curses undone. For 100,000G, you will get all 10 to 15 of them uncursed! Take them to Van and haggle with him until he offers at least 1,000,000G per earring. The end result? 10,000,000G to over 15,000,000G in funds, enough to fully upgrade your farm with Stone buildings, buy pretty much anything you want, and get any upgrade practically for free. Sweet deal!

Requirements: 100,000G, Blessed Kappa Hat, two free save slots, and a lot of patience
Challenge: Very Tedious
Payoff: At least 1,000,000G per Blessed Kappa Earring
Rating: 10 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? No

Cursed Tools 'R Us

Getting the Cursed Tools will make things so much easier for getting work done. The real trick is finding them, of course...

Like the accessories, the tools are found on specific floors of the third mine: 24, 35, 48, 52, 68, 71, 87, 99, 106, 118, 124, 135, 142, 153, 162, 178, 185, and 197 (thanks again to Ushi no Tane and Cherubae!). Unlike the accessories, however, you can only get one of each tool. This is bad, and here's why: any time you dig up a spot that could have a cursed tool, it will randomly place any cursed tool there. If you already have that tool, you will find NOTHING in that spot. So even if a floor has a cursed tool on it, you could potentially never know.

So, how to do this? Well, here's what I suggest: get the tools in a specific order. That order is: Watering Can, Hammer, Sickle, Fishing Pole, Hoe, Axe. This is based on their priorities of appearance, which are almost exactly the opposite of that. To find a cursed tool, use the same techniques as the cursed accessories, but with a twist: for each cursed tool you have, clear the floor up entirely with the hoe 1 more time after loading from a save if you find no tool.

It's not a fool-proof technique, but it puts the odds in your favor for finding all of the cursed tools in a reasonable timespan. Unfortunately, you have to pay 100,000G per tool to uncurse, as you cannot stack them the way you can stack cursed accessories. Once you have all 6 uncursed, you can start finding Mythic Stones in the third mine on floor 255 and lower, on any floor ending in 5. You can only find 1 Mythic Stone at a time, so take note. With those, you can upgrade your Mystrile tools to Mythic!

Requirements: 600,000G, Blessed Kappa Hat, two free save slots, and a lot of patience
Challenge: Very Tedious
Payoff: Blessed and eventually Mythic tools, which make work much faster
Rating: 9 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? Yes

Crop Leveling and You

Crop leveling is undisputedly the best way to make mad sums of cash-money in the long run. But there's the rub: in the long run. Even at best, it will take you over 3 game years to get a single crop to level 100; most will take much much longer. That said, the payoff is immense: crops at level 100 sell for 10,000 times their level 1 value. Think about that for a second: 600,000G per Turnip, 1,000,000G per Yam, etc. Sounds tempting, huh?

So, here's how to get on crop leveling pronto, and start making insane profits as soon as possible. First off, you'll NEED the Legendary Sword. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about this; the Super Field is mandatory. You'd also do well to at least get a Blessed Kappa Hat (see Infinite Workdays), but I suggest you get a nice big chunk of starting money to work with too (see The Hunt for the Cursed Kappa Earrings). I also suggest you try to get the process started on Spring 3, for optimal performance (yep, we're talkin' EARLY here).

Throughout all of this, be sure you're buying at least one item from the Supermarket every day it's open. We need the Coffee Table from TV Shopping for this plan, so we want TV Shopping opened as soon as we can manage it. Obviously, once TV Shopping is available, you can stop shopping from the Supermarket. The upshot of this is that you should end up with the third-level Rucksack by the end of it, which helps immensely in all of this. You'll also want to upgrade the Watering Can to Mystrile before Spring 12, an easy task.

To start with, you'll need to build a Bird Shed and Animal Shed. Why? You can't get the Maker Shed built without them, and the Maker Shed is key to this plan. Each one takes 3 days overall to build, so if you get started on Spring 3 (use Jewelery Hoarding combined with Selling to Van to scrounge up the funds necessary), you should have everything for the Maker Shed ready by Spring 9. Use Spring 8 to do the Hunt for the Cursed Kappa Earrings (and Infinite Workdays, if you didn't do that already) and make some good starting funds.

Once the Maker Shed is present, make sure you have some Adamantite (I'd be honestly AMAZED if you'd gotten none from the mines during the accessory hunting), and call up Saibara the Blacksmith. Have him make a Seed Maker. This critical step done, have Gotz work on some more useful buildings, and basically keep Gotz busy from now on. Once you have TV Shopping and can order, start doing so until you get the Coffee Table; it's almost always offered first, which is good for this plan. As soon as the table arrives, have Gotz upgrade your house twice, and then start him in on making you your three basements. Meanwhile, have the blacksmith make you a Can Food Maker after the Seed Maker, and then focus on getting all tools up to Mystrile (this will be a snap, if tedious, thanks to the Blessed Kappa Hat).

Now, onto what you should be doing crop-wise. 2 days after you order your Seed Maker, plant the Super Field full of Turnips, 5 bags per 9-square plot (so 60 bags total). This will time it so that as soon as the Seed Maker arrives, you'll have 108 Turnips available for harvest. Pick out 60 of them that are Lv. 2, and make them seeds; save the rest for selling when your Can Food Maker arrives, or sell them to Van before then. At some point, get at least 1 bag of all of the seeds sold at the Sprite Casino; you'll need them near the end of the season.

The cycle begins here (notice how HM games have a lot of those?). Keep planting the field with new Turnip seed batches, as late as Spring 28 (do NOT plant any after that, or you may well break the whole process). Keep making 60 of the highest-leveled ones into seeds and re-planting the Super Field with 5 bags per 9-square plot. On the last batch, just make 5 of them into seeds, and sell the rest (for a decent profit, to boot!). By the end of Spring, you should have at least one, possibly two basements in place. Here's where the real cleverness comes in: put a Spring Sun in basement 1 (from the 3rd mine, you probably already have one) and plant the whole place up with 5 bags of each crop per 9-square plot. Wait 'til your last batch of leveled Turnips is harvested before planting those.

The second basement will have Summer crops and a Summer Sun, and the third Fall crops and a Fall Sun. Buy up 5 of each Summer seed type on Spring 30, except Onions (get 60 of those; our Super Field crop this season, it is). Plant up the Summer basement and the Super Field, and repeat the whole Spring process (the last day for Onions in the Super Field is Summer 25). Once Summer 30 hits, buy 5 of all Fall crops but Yams (60 of those), and plant up the Super Field with those (last day for Yams is Fall 27). Be sure to cut down every single Yam plant after a harvest, since part of leveling is getting as much profit as possible, meaning you don't want older plants clogging things up.

While the whole Super Field bit is going on, you have the basement greenhouses going too. For each time a crop reaches maturity, harvest all of them, cut down the plants (if they're regrowables), turn 5 of the highest-level product into seeds (sell the rest), and re-plant. Keep this cycle up, and you will have a huge head-start on crop-leveling for all of the standard produce for each season! You'll also get crop-leveling progress for your mainstays (Turnips, Onions, and Yams) in their off-seasons, meaning they'll hit 100 in optimal time.

Some notes: be sure to keep track of when you've harvested, so you can transfer the big three to and from the Super Field as soon as a new season is about to start (plant the field up on the 30th of the previous season for best results). Turnips take 5 days, Onions 8 days, and Yams 6 days in the basements, so replant no later than Winter 25 for Turnips, Spring 23 for Onions, or Summer 25 for Sweet Potatoes in the greenhouses. Turn all of the highest-level crops of the season's choice crop into seeds for the Super Field as soon as a season starts, and when that harvest comes in, you should easily have 60 bags of seed to work with (it's odd to get less than 7 leveled-up crops per 9-square plot harvest, after all). If you want an even faster crop for summer, switch out Onions for Pink Cat Flowers.

Requirements: About 8,000,000G minimum, Blessed Kappa Hat, lots and lots of patience
Challenge: Maximum Tedium
Payoff: Fast-leveling crops that sell for exponentially higher prices
Rating: 10 out of 10

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? Yes, but you can't use the Kappa Earring trick to make the money

Return to Top

Glitch-Based Money-Making Tricks

If you're not averse to mucking around with the darker side of gaming (exploiting buggy code), you can get some serious cash very easily for almost no effort via glitches. Note that these glitches may not necessarily work for the European version, and almost definitely won't work for later versions of the Japanese release.

Level 99 Milker Glitch

This is probably the most tedious glitch to exploit, but it's also the least glitch-like, so those looking for a middle-of-the-road solution should look no further.

Just find a comfy spot indoors, equip the Milker and a Blessed Kappa Hat (see Infinite Workdays above for how to get one) and start milking nothingness for an hour or so. Your Milker will sloooooooowly level up towards level 2 as you do this.

Once it hits level 2, that's where the glitch comes in. See, the game doesn't reset your Milker's experience. So you gain 1 level per Milker use after you fill the experience gauge. Keep using it until your Milker reaches level 99. Now, any cow you milk will automatically give you 99 Milk instead of 1. Nice!

Requirements: Have the Milker and a Blessed Kappa Hat; owning milkable cows will make it actually useful, too
Challenge: Tedious
Payoff: 99 Milk per cow milked instead of 1
Rating: 7 of 10 (you can do better if you're after glitches, but it's pretty good otherwise)

Euro Version? Yes
For Girl/Cute Version? No

1 Billion G Glitch

This is probably the most famous (and most difficult to obtain) glitch of them all. Send the Harvest Sprites down to the beach to fish for 7 days straight in winter. Nobody is sure what the exact trigger for it after that is, but if you just go about your day normally while the sprites are off fishing at the ocean, eventually you'll probably trigger this glitch.