More Awesome Than You!

Can anyone recomend any good hacks / ways to keep my sims poor??

It doens't seem to take much effort to take a sim and go from broke to 10 bedroom house / sports car / swimingpool rich.... gosh i wish real life was that easy,

I currently use the increased bills package with is great so im looking for more stuff like that.

I know i could use money order to send money to an random pc but im looking for something abit more organised that actually does "get rid" of the money and does it automatically so i don't forget who is suposed to be paying and how much etc.

For starters, grab the awesome no 20K handouts, which eliminates EA's rather dumb strategy for determining starting finances.  Instead, the rich will stay somewhat richer, while the poor will be lucky to afford a telephone. 

As for prolonged poverty, there are several financial mods available here (http://www.sims2wiki.info/wiki.php?title=Content_List/Hacks_and_Hacked_Objects/Business%2C_Jobs%2C_and_Finance#Finances.2FMoney) that "burn" money, some of which can be programmed to do so on a regular basis.  The banking mods are also kind of interesting.

I usually open the cheat window with ctrl+shift+C in the neighbourhood view and type in the command "familyfunds familyname amount".  For example, if I wanted the Brokes to have only 2 000 simoleans, I'd type in "familyfunds broke 2000".

I find that easier than trying to find hacks that are compatible with everything else I have.

no20khandouts is great, and harderjobs helps prevent things like Sims getting a position as a CEO right out of college.

I use increased bills too.  And like the others said, no20khandouts and harderjobs.  I also use syberspunk's Uni careers hack, so that some of the higher-paying non-uni jobs now require an education.  I use Inge's mortgage shrubs, so that my sims can take out loans to buy their homes, businesses, student loans, and such.  There is the private school bill hack.  I make my sims pay $1000 per semester for college tuition, paid via Monique's hacked computer.  They also pay rent for living in the dorms.  In my neighborhood, one of my richer sims is a real estate mogul/slumlord, and my renting sims pay their rent to him, again via Monique's computer.

Also, from a gameplay perspective, I don't allow ALL of my sims to skill up quickly, go to college, and make lots of friends.  I try to vary it as much as I can, and base it on their personalities and current wants.  If they don't want to gain a skill point, they don't get one.  If they don't want to work on a promotion, they don't.  That way, the sims in my neighborhood are varied - some smart and some dumb, and as a result, some rich and some poor.  I also impose a few personal rules to make it even harder - only parents with logic >3 can teach their kids to study.  Only parents with logic >8 can feed their toddlers smart milk.  Only sims with outgoing >8 can practice speech without a want for it.  Only sims with active >8 can workout without a want for it.  That usually gives me a more realistic distribution of wealth and poverty.

There's a lot you can do with a few good hacks and a little imagination :)

There really should be a Red Light District lot somewhere on the net imo. Would make those 20 woohoo wants a lot easier to fulfill as well.

What darcee said ('cept for the uni stuff, and thanks for the idea with requring logic for homework help!) -- also,  there's a shiny new "no inheritances" mod available here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=9555.0) as of last week end (nukes the "life insurance" payouts when a sim dies from old age).

Do you buy your Fortune sims the piles of stuff they ask for?

I do, but I usually just stash it in their inventory if they already have too much stuff.

Part of my whole randomizing everything playstyle (for non-challengy families) is that I also roll two things (at adult transition, or at teen if they aren't CAS):
1. Will they perma-plat? Y/N  If they are going to perma-plat and their LTW want is career-oriented, then I'll let them reach the top. If not, #2.
2. Maximum job level. I roll for 0-10. If a 0, they get to be a lowlife jobless loser. 10, top of career. 1-9 is the other intermediate levels.

This will help to control the amount they have in the bank, but still...unless they've rolled a 0-2, they will still get rich fairly quick. I have them give monetary gifts to children who move out (if it's only 10k, the kid gets only 10k to move with) using familyfunds. I have them pay for college if the kids go. $10,000, less scholarships they earn before going. You can also use mods like Monique's Computer or Pescado's private school bill one to charge for private school.

I also move families every generation as a general rule, and more than half their current cash has to be used to build the new house.

I move my sim-children out into their own households too, keeping with the realism play-style.  But you're right, it does take a lot of money to rebuild and refurnish a house.  If any of my Sims do inherit their parents' home, they have to pay a 40% estate tax.  I'm so mean to them :)


I do if it makes sense.  If they don't already have it.  And if it isn't stupid, like wanting to buy a guitar when they don't even have a toilet yet  ::)

Another useful thing is to make them start out in a 1 x 1 lot as these deteriorate so quickly in value - and are too small to have both a car and more than one person living there.  Lose the garage and you have room for two adults and a child, but they have to work very hard if they are to move up the housing ladder and have room for a baby as well...otherwise they have to wait until the existing kid moves out!

Or you can blow it on one of those outlandishly expensive vacations. People can lose $2000/day, while elapsing no actual time in the real neighborhood, that way. Failing that, there's always the tried and true standby of blowing it on ale and whores.

Inge made a mortgage shrub that I think you can still get at simlogical.com

Load your sims up with debt!

Or, you could try playing one of the many challenges out there that relate to simulated poverty. Hint hint.

A long time ago Kathy (and her hubby i think) from Insim made me a hacked cash register.  It works just like the grocery dialog except you can remove 100s, 1000s, or 100000s of dollars.

I don't know if theyve still got it at insim but when I get home I'll attach it here.

The simple answer is just to donate a bunch of it using the old FFS money order to some NPC or townie. This keeps the NPC and townie families stocked with cash so they continue to function on ownable business lots, as the NPC and Garden Club families can actually apparently run out of money (and then refuse to buy anything).

Why not spend thousands on clothes?  Kitting the whole family out every few days should make serious holes in the bank balance!

Wait, what? How much cash do they initially have?

And make trying to make any wardrobe adjustments a complete pain in the butt!

Yes, it's still there in form of a spawn- or buyable adjuster.

I believe they start out with 20,000 simoleons between them.......

Exactly.  The easiest way to burn money is with the terrain tool.  Make the grass greener/browner/sand, whatever.  It burns money and does nothing useful for your sims.

Well, I suppose it would work, but how many hours would it take....?  As to wardrobes, why not use Pescado's clothing adjuster to buy them all loads of formal wear - which I would not think you were likely to want to change very often (just select stuff that doesn't also appear in everyday) and you pay 600 simoleons a time.  However, I think Pescado's suggestion is probably the best if you play OFB businesses a lot - your employee townies could just keep selling to your employee townies forever - but of course, in the end, your sims would profit from that too!.....

Now, how about this - spend a few minutes (or hours) changing the prices of some of your favourite custom walls and floors to 100 simoleons a time.  Room scores should benefit hugely, but repapering one room will set your sims back a couple of grand at least, and if you do it for an external wall, re-facing the outside of your sims' mansion will run into anything up to fifty grand.....

$20K, usually. Townies and Downtownies don't run out, but Gardenclubbists and NPCs will go into a quasi-depletion state.

Where can I get increased bills mod?

I was wondering the exact same thing myself.

Can we get a link please?

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,8312.0.html

That'll work nicely but i don't suppose you have a link to one without the dorm billing part do you?  I'm not too keen on having a dorm cost money.

Why should dorm students be given a free lunch?  someone has to pay the cook.....

And ever thought of having a look yourself, there may be an earlier version which is separate - but it may, of course, wreck your game if it's for an earlier EP.

well the cook is an elder, so working a minimum wage job, $50 a day. Now split that up between the 6-12 dormies and there's not a lot left to pay ^^

There's all that food they keep in their back pocket, though! ;D

I already checked around everywhere.  There's that one that i didn't even know it was on MATY until it was posted and one by squinge which is lost in the void of darkness since his forum section is gone.  I haven't managed to track down any other increase bill mods or earlier versions.

I think having to live with a bunch of brain dead idiots is more or less payment enough, generally dorms is when your flat dead broke.  If you can afford it you move to a house on campus which has bills anyway.

heh, here is Squinge's increased bills hack, it is the x5 ver.  I have no idea if it is compatible with Bon Voyage or not.

My copy of increased bills reported as clean with hackdiff, and it is seems to work without problems (as far as I can tell) in my game.

Thanks, hehe 5 times that's bound to make em broke.

With BV, having sims save up to buy a vacation home is a pretty good way to burn some money.  I have yet to build anything overly impressive and it is 70-80k for a nicely furnished home.

Yea, and EAxis didn't make it easy to have a lot of vacation homes available, either -- there's not a lot of empty space in the pre-fab vacation hoods to drop more homes.  I think the Asian hood is the worst.

How do I change the prices of objects (also, can you change the comfort levels, engery etc.?)  Thank you much.

I like charging for college, private school. etc.  Using moniques computer I charge extra for cars but if I knew how to change the price that'd be better.

The asian one aint so bad once you rearrange the lots a little. The Mountain one though. EWWWW!

You can change the price of custom objects easily enough with Sims2Cat from www.simwardrobe.com (http://www.simwardrobe.com) but although you can alter the comfort/energy levels to appear higher or lower in the catalogue, it doesn't, in fact, change the actual comfort/levels because these are dictated by the original cloned object.

You can, however, increase the niceness factor if you want, I'm not sure if it is all that effective either, though.

I get around that by only allowing my sims to buy stuff from OFB shops, that are owned by the local area vampire. Hes an old, evil and cranky geezer who owns a horde of robots, and charge X10 on the prices on all common objects. If they want a computer or a car, they better have the simoleons for it, or they will just have to do without.

okay, i like the ofb idea, that is why i got that version.  however, how do you get it to go 10x or more what the origianal price was.  All I can get are the options r.cheap, v. cheap, cheap, average, expensive, v. expensive, r. expensive.  And cars are still kinda cheap.

Click on the price tag button, and you'll be allowed to enter a custom price.

I tend not to worry about the money. I look at it as my money, not the family's. If I'm playing a poor family, I give them enough money so that I can do what I want. If I want the repo man to show up, I just don't pay the bills. If they do buy something at an owned commercial lot, I sell it the next time I play that family. Admittedly, not the most realistic scenario, but it works for me.

If you give your sims jobs in OFB owned businesses, their income is going to be pretty low.  OK the coding of the wages is borked (I have sims with no income from working all day as a manager), but it has the desired effect!  That's what I did In Meadow Lawns; most of the townies and a lot of playables are working for the Jackman family.  Of course a sim with a career LTW is never going to get permaplat working in a flower shop, but you can change the LTW or think of it as upping the difficulty level.

Don't forget Pes's hack that implements the borked maxis code and charges school fees for private school.

I would like a hack that makes sims pay taxes for owned business lots and vacation homes.

I like the stuff Monique made, but its not quite what I find myself needing. What i could really do with in my game, is a mod that allows me to send a percentage of the households funds to another sim, playable or NPC, at set intervals, like every week there is a 3% tax deductet per adult sim in the household.

Sadly, i gotta calculate those numbers by myself, and then forward the simoleons using the computer or pescados money hack. Either works, the other thing would just have been handy.

What about Monique's automatic thing where the payer sends money to the payee with every set of bills? http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=203984

Like i said, I use the stuff Monique made, although it is not exactly what I was looking for, it provides an alternative workaround. With Moniques automatic payment, you get to set the amount (Id have prefered a percentage of the total simoleans per grown adult in family) and that gets deducted every time the bills arrive. (Here I would have prefered to be able to set it once per season).

So, its close, its just not over the finish line for me in the race of perfection. MAybe I should finally get off my butt and see if i cant figure out how to modify this stuff myself.