In Animal Crossing: New Horizons you start with just a tent, no bells and a new currency, "Nook Miles." While Nook Miles can be used to purchase a number of items, you will also need bells.
Nook Miles are earned simply by living your life. Selling, collecting, fishing, bug catching and even just looking at your new Nook Phone can reward the currency. So what about bells? In this quick guide, we take you through the basics of earning bells fast, especially in those first few days.
Sell All The Things
Tom Nook's Guest Services is about to become your first favorite place so familiarize yourself with it. Here you can craft items and more importantly sell items; It's the act of selling items that will bring in bells quickly.
Tom Nook's nephews, Timmy and Tommy, are in charge – because apparently we don't have child labor laws on our new island. One will wander around offering advice of varying degrees of usefulness while the other takes up the role of friendly shopkeeper.
Selling items can net you bells fast. Everything is for sale here, even weeds. Apples, logs, shells, and weeds are each easily collectible from the very beginning. You'll also be able to craft a flimsy net and fishing rod in order to add butterflies and fish to that list.
Additionally, we recommend buying a catapult to shoot gifts out of the sky and a shovel to break rocks as quickly as possible. Both these activities will net you some nice rewards, especially breaking rocks as one per day will contain a bell stash.
Collecting
Collecting can be done immediately and will only get more profitable as you continue the game. Every day you can collect produce from trees and shells from beaches; You can use tools to smash rocks and collect fish and bugs.
Playing at different times is a great way to maximize profits. Different bugs come out at night and tarantulas especially can be very profitable. For early morning players, Emperor butterflies are often still hanging around from the night time and are worth 4,000 bells.
To catch the tarantulas – approach slowly. If they begin to lift their front legs, then stop before they charge. Keep inching closer and fling your net when their legs are down for the best chance of netting 8,000 bells.
From Trees
You've probably noticed all of the trees located on your island, but there's more to them than what appears. Some trees can contain hidden rewards. You can occasionally shake bells out of trees, but make sure you keep a net handy in case you hit any wasps!
Speaking of trees, growing money trees is highly advisable. Money trees literally grow bells, but they take some searching, investment, and few days to grow to actually produce the island's currency for you.
Finding Treasure
You can also look out for golden sparkles on the floor. These indicate a stash of 1,000 bells waiting to be dug up. The treasure can either be found in a bag that can can be opened to gain the reward instantly or it will be buried in the sparkling hole you uncover.
If you bury the bag, it will grow into a bell tree in a few days time, netting you three bags of equal value to the one you buried.
Under Rocks
There's another way to gain bells immediately -- and it's really easy. One of the five rocks on your island will contain bells. Hitting this rock eight times in a row will net you a whopping 20,000 bells.
Nook's Cranny
Once this store appears on your island then there are more options to make a quick buck. Each day there will be a "hot item" – worth double its usual price. Keeping some basic crafting materials on hand in your home's storage is a smart move if you want to advantage of this.
The store also has a dropbox outside so you can still sell when the store isn't open. Although this is a nice feature for those who can only play at night, as the game is linked to real-time, it will cost you. Sales made here will only be at 80% of the value you'd get if sold in-person. Plus, the money will appear in the mail the next day – similar to Stardew Valley.
More ways to make bells will unlock as you continue to play, such as collecting and selling items while on Mystery Island Tours, trading fossils, selling to special visitors, and using the Stalk Market.