JULY: FARMING
You can make a living from breeding i.e. pigs and chicken and growing vegetables! This kind of home business is actual due to the ongoing Food Expo 2003. Do you have a web shop offering equipment, furniture or even clothing related to our next article? Please contact web master before July 20.

The legendary SimInvest objects have been available for nearly a year already. Choose between SimAccount and Silver, Gold and Platinum Invests, including various levels of risks. Always remember that you should not invest money that you can not afford to lose! Instructions included in pack.

You can now make money and at the same time support the work of the Grey Sims organization. Buy a lot from their monthly lottery, granted by SimCity Police Dept. It will not make you a millionaire, but it adds some excitement into your life, and with some luck it can add nicely to your budget.

Some times you will need a loan to get ends to meet, or to make the right investment. Currently offering bank loans of §500, §5000 and §10000. The former 2 have been available for some time, but the pack now also include the §10000 which is new on SimSit's STUFF section.

This is an example on collector's art that will increase in value as time goes by! Opera Grande, §1790, is an original by Simmerville artist Chris JB who is currently gaining popularity all over SimCity. If this tendency continues, you will be offered a lot more than §1790 on the day you want to sell your investment.

Click to proceed SimSit's section at STUFF.
Click to proceed Chris JB's section at STUFF.

This set of 5 simple walls has been available from BB-design for a long time (try page 6 or higher). Perhaps you already have them in your regional catalogue.

Click to proceed to BB-design's section at STUFF.

Are you into home businesses? Let's take a closer look at financial investments. All you need to get started is some scent, strategies and patience - and of course a lot of Simoleons to waste!

Investments can actually make a pretty nice income, but you would of course need a certain capital to start off with, a good plan, and you should expect the investments to take quite a while until they start paying off. Sims in this business use to say that "investments is a tool to let your good luck flow". Well, now you can see for yourself how right they are.

Skills and equipment
Most sims who try making a living from finances do have a home based office. It can of course be a desk in one corner of the bed room, or they might even run some kind of a local business with a section of their house facing the street welcoming customers. It's also typical to wear a smart skirt/jacket or a suit with a tie, because these sims like to signalize a solid and clean attitude in order to build trust and reliability towards their contacts. But you don't need to open a public business, the desk in your bedroom will be just fine.

A desk, a computer, a phone, some office stuff like filers or bookcases, and absolutely some coffee machine near by. And you might like to get hold on some proper clothing.

Most important to get started is the capital, and in order to success in this business you will need quite a lot of Simoleons. Many sims in this business would not consider any investments less than §10000 as serious business, but a hobby. But everyone will need to start with what they've got, and with some luck your investments will allow you to invest twice as much in a few weeks.

How much you will need depends on your goal for the investments. If you want to deal with finances as a hobby not so worried about the results, you won't need much. Maybe it's enough to buy a couple lots from the actual SimCity lottery and hope for a 1st prize? If you want to build a fortune you will need more capital, because the more you invest the more you can earn.

Is there a risk?
Of course this is risky business! That is why you should make sure you do not depend on the profit from financial investments. Always keep some spare savings or art items that you can sell of in case the investments do fail. And that is also why you should spread the risk by never place all your capital in just one project.

There are many different ways to place your money. You can buy expensive paintings and sculptures which will pay off slowly and that are considered safe investments. But be aware that the less expensive items will not increase in worth, and it's not always easy to tell until you have already lost some of your money. If you want some more risk but with the chance of a quicker profit you can do high risk investments that will pay off a lot more if you are lucky. This business will also include gambling on slot machines or lotteries, or even to just pick up a lucky phone call to your office desk.

The additional risk when investing is burglary. Do buy an alarm, and do not place the items near the entrance to your house. This will give the police more time if the burglar appears.

If you need extra start capital you can of course take up a bank loan, just be aware the interests might add more costs to your budget than you are able to realize as a profit from your investments. Loans will keep growing until they reach a negative value of nearly §30.000, and this will affect your households net worth and might cause trouble if you want to move to another house and need to pay the loan(s).

The pay cheque
Let's say you want to start with a capital of §10000 that you can afford to lose without harming your all over financial situation too badly. In this example your main project will be to buy a SimInvest Silver worth §5000. Because of the bank fee on the first day this placement will need a week until it starts paying off §400 per day. But with some bad luck you do risk to lose the entire investment.

The remaining §5000 should be spent on a couple safe art investments (painting, rugs or sculptures), but be aware that not all of them actually raise in value, and when they do it will happen quite slowly. Our general experience is that items worthy more than §1000 will increase in value over time - but there are exceptions. If you buy an art item that is still decreasing in value after 2 nights, then sell it before you lose more money, and invest in something else. If you already know an item that will increase you can of course buy several copies, but the interesting thing is to find an object that will pay off even more! 

So, if you follow this strategy, you will now have a SimInvest of §5000, and lets say a persian rug and a nice painting worth §1500 each. This leaves §2000 as your back-up capital, and if you know about any art item worth §2.000 which you are absolutely sure will not drop in value, you should place the remaining §2000 in that as it will pay off a little.

Because there is a lot more to win if you get lucky with the SimInvests, you should actually invest in two SimInvest Silver certificates, but for this example it's more fun to invest in different kinds of objects. The risk of losing money is less when buying art, but you will also earn very little per day.

So what might the situation be after 7 days? Well, there are many possible results, here are 2 of them - one bad and one good.

If you are all out of luck, there is a risk your SimInvest Silver will fail and you lose §5000. In this example the painting's value do decrease while the persian rug increases.

SimInvest: Day0: §5000, Day7: §0, Day14: 0
Painting: Day0: §1500, Day7: §1140, Day14: §1020
Rug: Day0: §1500, Day7: §1560, Day14: §1610
Savings: Day0: §2000, Day7: §2000, Day14: §2000

Total: Day0: §10000, Day7: §4700, Day14: §4630

You see that this was a bad investment, and anyone making a living from investments would have sold off the painting after a couple days because its value would obviously continue to decrease. Replacing the painting with another art item, eventually a 2nd rug, could have reduced the loss.

On a lucky day things might turn out differently, your SimInvest Silver will pay off after 1 week, and both the painting and rug pay off, too.

SimInvest: Day0: §5000, Day7: §5000, Day14:  §7800, Day21: §10600
Painting: Day0: §1500, Day7: §1610, Day14: §1705, Day21: §1790
Rug: Day0: §1500, Day7: §1560, Day14: §1610, Day21: §1720
Savings: Day0: §2000, Day7: §2000, Day14: §2000, Day21: §2000

Total: Day0: §10000, Day7: §10170, Day14: §13115, Day21: §16110

You see that this investment was a lot better, as you have increased the investment with §3115 after 14 days. This is only §220 per day, but it is only the beginning. Because the SimInvest don't pay off at all for the first week, the future daily income will be greater.

As soon as you see that the SimInvest succeeds, you should sell off the safe but slow art investments, and invest in another SimInvest Silver. If the 2nd SimInvest fails, you will still have about §10600 from your 1st SimInvest, which is not a lot more than you originally started with, but at least it will continue to increase with §400 per day. If the 2nd SimInvest succeeds, you will soon be in the situation of earning §800 per day! The goal should be to have the SimInvest Gold which pays off with §1000 per day. When it reaches a value of §20.000 you can sell it, buying another new SimInvest Gold and still keep §10.000 in cash. The longer you wait the more is the gain, but be aware that even investments worth more than §20.000 might suddenly be worthless due to down hill development on the stock market.

There is always a catch when it comes to investments. To realize the profit, which you sooner or later need to do in order to avoid a crack or to pay your bills, you must sell off the item. Make sure to secure future financial income by re-investing at least some of it. The catch is that you will need to go through the stage of risks again.

From the neighbourhoods
Many sims are quite experienced when it comes to investing their spare money. The well known movie actor Pete Jones have partly financed his huge §200.000 house in Lake Town thanks to financial investments, and together with his wife he still place money in the stock market.

In Simmerville we know the Simpley sisters have made their living based on SimInvests, making it possible for them not to work one single day after they moved to Simmerville. They didn't want to comment on this though, except explaining that it was much easier before the stock market became so risky.

Also Bertrand Montpellier (Simmerville) has started a home based career in the finance track. Although he is in the start level, still having some bank loans making it hard to make a lot of profit, he says this is the only kind of work that is appealing to him. In addition to the investments he has recently started a house trade business, that will be introduced in a later article on Simmerville web.

In general there is no need of skills or minimum capital requested to get started - meaning this business should be interesting to all, being a lifetime commitment - or just a temporary hobby.

Photo top: Mr Bertrand Montpellier in his home office.