Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream: The Complete Guide To Fast Money, Island Upgrades, And Shop Unlocks
Running a self sustaining island of digital weirdos is not cheap, and you are going to need a mountain of cash to unlock everything.
It is incredibly easy to go broke early in this game. You start out buying basic bowls of rice and cheap t-shirts, and suddenly you are expected to fund a trip to outer space just because a guy in a hotdog suit felt a little sad today. The economy is brutal if you do not understand the underlying mechanics. You will end up staring at a screen full of hungry residents with exactly three coins to your name. Now before you waste your tiny starting budget on a single ridiculous outfit, I am going to walk you through exactly how I farm cash, force the island to expand, and unlock every single building on the map.
If you want to read up on the rest of my strategies, you can find all my coverage in our Tomodachi Life hub.
The Art Of Getting Rich Quick
Money makes the entire island function. Without it, you cannot feed anyone, which means you cannot fix their moods or level them up. The game gives you a few different ways to earn cash, but relying on just one of them is a massive mistake. You need to combine passive income with active grinding.
The Daily Fountain Trap
The fountain in the center of your town is your absolute best source of passive income. Every single day, your residents will gather around it and throw money at you. They literally crowd fund your omnipotence. But the amount of money you get is directly tied to the overall happiness of your island.
If you leave half your residents miserable, your daily payout is going to be embarrassing. This is exactly why I prioritize resolving arguments and fixing bad moods immediately. If you are struggling to keep the peace, you absolutely need to read my guide on how to fix friendship fights and depression. Keep the island happy, and the fountain will easily fund your daily grocery runs.
Farming And Selling Treasures
Your active income comes from playing the minigames. Whenever you see a green bubble in a window, you have to click it. I outlined this extensively in my beginner's guide and daily routine, but it bears repeating here. Winning these minigames rewards you with a random treasure.
You do not keep these treasures. They have zero functional purpose other than looking shiny in your inventory. You take them straight to the Pawn Shop and sell them. A lot of people hoard the gold bars or the diamond rings thinking they might be needed for a quest later. They are not. Sell everything immediately.
The Pocket Money Method
When you level up a Mii by feeding them their favorite foods, you get to choose a reward for them. One of the options is giving them pocket money. If you are desperate for cash, do not do this. Giving them money just adds to their personal savings, which they eventually use to buy themselves a trip to space. It does not go into your wallet. Always choose to give them a song or a room interior instead, unless you are specifically trying to trigger their space travel event.
Expanding Your Concrete Empire
You start the game with a tiny, depressing little apartment block. It looks like a cheap motel. Expanding this building is not tied to how much money you have. It is entirely tied to population.
To increase your island size and upgrade the apartment building, you just need to create more Miis. The building upgrades automatically when you hit specific population milestones. You start with room for 24 residents. Once you fill most of those slots, the game forces an upgrade to a 50 room complex. Keep adding residents, and it will eventually cap out at a massive 100 room skyscraper.
If you want to fill those rooms quickly, you need a diverse cast of characters. Check out my breakdown of all personality types to ensure you are not just cloning the same boring person a hundred times. And if you make a mistake and need to clear up a room, simply follow my steps on how to edit, delete, and change Mii names to evict them to the digital void.
Unlocking Every Shop And Building
When you first land on the island, the map is mostly empty dirt. The game locks almost all the interesting content behind progression walls. You unlock these buildings by simply playing the game, but knowing the exact triggers helps you speed up the process significantly.
The Social Hubs
The purely social areas like the Cafe, the Amusement Park, and the Observation Tower unlock naturally as your population grows and you solve basic problems. These areas do not sell you anything, but they are incredibly important for the game's social ecosystem. This is where Miis go to hang out, fall in love, and get into weird arguments.
The Mii Homes area is particularly crucial if you are aiming for the long game. You need a couple to tie the knot before this opens up, so brush up on my guide to getting married in Tomodachi Life. Once they move into a house, they can have kids, which opens up an entirely new layer of the game involving sending the children off via StreetPass.
Documenting And Completing The Island
Once you have the Photo Studio unlocked, you can start taking proper, high quality images of the absolute madness unfolding in the Cafe or the Tower. Do not just take blurry pictures of your screen. I put together a dedicated walkthrough on how to share Miis and screenshots so you can actually show off your fully upgraded island to the internet.
Getting a 100 room apartment building and unlocking every shop on the dirt map is a massive milestone, but it is not the actual end of the game. If you are truly sick enough to want to see everything this weird little simulator has to offer, you will need to start hunting down the rarest items. Check out my final guide covering trophies, the ending, and travel tickets to figure out what you should be spending all that hard earned cash on.
