Favorite Offbeat Way to Make Money in The Sims 3

[Galena]

I love hacking, and you can get alot of happiness points with the related wishes.

[grimsoul]

With pets my new way of making money is having my dogs hunt. I was surprised how much they can bring in from the gems and metal they bring home. Just running 2 dogs and my sim not making any money he had his Lifetime wish of Living in the Lap of Luxury in about a sim week.

[RunAmokSims]

I have to say the way I had a lot of fun in a game was marriage.  Marry a Sim, get the gifts and then kick him out. Then on to the next sucker, oops...husband. My faithless Sim became quite wealthy.

[Magz from Oz]

Breaking space rock boards without a doubt.  I regularly get Tiberium from this method, get it cut into heart shape and place it on the lawn.  In a few days it turns into a spire cut and grows into a large spire cut at 35k+ simoleons each for an outlay of 1k.  I score a lot of gems especially the high value ones like soulpeace, pink diamonds and opals.  Beats the heck out of scouring the landscape for gems and finding mostly low value gems.  I use Warfreak's guide and sell everything below the average and keep and cut the rest.  I do display some of it because it boosts the decorated moodlet, the rest just goes in WA treasure chests or is used in transfiguration.

[Seabody]

I don't think I ever explained why Kleptomania is my favorite.

I've always had great luck in swiping what I want from Sims. My Sim almost always get what (s)he wants to grab.

[Hosfac]

When I start new games, I typically start with a single Sim on a vacant lot and build the house as I go and I don't use the money cheats.  An unconventional way I make some starting cash is by buying all the skill books available at the consignment store every day and selling them from my inventory.  They will always sell for quite a bit more than they cost.

Your Sim isn't going to get rich, but it will keep him in Mac 'n Cheese while he's waiting for his career to take off.  You can make about $750 on a good day off of a tiny initial investment, depending on how many books are available and their level.

[Sarah_n07]

With pets my new way of making money is having my dogs hunt. I was surprised how much they can bring in from the gems and metal they bring home. Just running 2 dogs and my sim not making any money he had his Lifetime wish of Living in the Lap of Luxury in about a sim week.

Exactly! I now earn around 18,000 ( or more! ) daily, only with a single sim and a dog!

[warr2098]

I like hacking, maybe I shall start mooching now though...

[e1r1i1n1]

Did anyone on here ever think of using the cheat to get money? All you have to do is press controll, shift, c , and when the cheat box appears, type in motherlode. It's a good way to make easy money. Yes I know motherlode is actully not a word but if you type it in just like that, you get 50,000 simolens. This is a good cheat to know if your sim has the wish to be worth several 100,000 simolens. I find it helpful if your decorating a very nice house too. 

[Magz from Oz]

If you want to cheat your way to properity use the familyfunds cheat instead of motherlode.  In the cheat bar typre in familyfunds then space the type in the household name then space then the amound you want to appear in their funds e.g. familyfunds Steel 500000 will give Christopher Steel 500,000 Simoleons to play the game.

[Janna]

I'm not sure if this is unique, but my Gem collecter went to China and came home with some books that had appeared in her inventory.  Plus she found some bags of cash, some coins, artifacts that she sold.  Ended up with close to 5,000 simleons.  Pretty good payback on the cost of the trip. 
I haven't had any luck in find insects, but collect seeds is well worth it, some of the have sold for as much as $45, beats finding gems, rock worth only $8-20 cash.  In Riverview, at each end of the island, I find quite a few seeds that makes it well worth the quick stop. 

Another sim who is an artist delived a painting in China.  At the base camp, you can open the bookcases and take all of the books and sell them when you get back home. 

New to this but compared to my being an artist, writer and surgeons, this is one that I think will provide the most cash and is interesting. 

[Hosfac]

Yeah, the bookcases in the base camp have books in them that you can actually take.  They're not worth anything in China, but once you return they're worth a small fortune.