Some of the best ways to earn money in Stardew Valley only unlocks after you progress in the game.
However, there are some methods you can use to earn some money early in the game, even during the first year.
In this guide, I will walk you through some of the easy and fast ways to make money in Stardew Valley.
1. Start Fishing
If you are a beginner in Stardew valley, you have only a few easy ways to earn money until you get stable and develop your farm.
Among those few ways, fishing is the most profitable.
If you check the map, you can easily find the points where you can catch fish. Especially, the ocean, mountain lake, Pelican town, and Cindersap forest near Leah’s cabin, and there are many places to fish.
What you need to do is get a fishing rod. During the second day of the spring, Willy will send you a letter to meet him at the beach. After a cutscene, you will get a bamboo pole. Once you increase your fishing skills, you can purchase better rods from Willy’s shop.
After getting a bamboo pole, you can catch fish. It’s a bit difficult for beginners to catch fish. But eventually, you will practice. Also, there are many baits that you can use to attach your rods, which you can buy from Willy’s shop. These baits will increase the chances of catching fish.
After catching fish, you can sell them. The prices for fish depend on their size.
Bonus Tip– Check the fortune teller on the TV before you go to fishing. If it’s a lucky day, you will have more chances of catching bigger fish and earning more cash.
2. Do Some Harvesting
Planting seeds and harvesting vegetables and fruits are another great income for Stardew Valley players.
You can plant seeds on your farm after a few steps. On the very first day, you will notice that the entire farm is full of trees, stones, woods, grass, and other things. You can cut trees and woods using your axe, break stones using a pickaxe, and cut grass from a scythe. First, clean the area where you want to plant seeds.
After that using the hoe, you can dig the area to plant seeds.
Then your farm is ready to plant seeds. Then you need to find seeds. You can easily purchase seeds from Pierre’s shop for each season.
Bonus Tip– Try to purchase seeds that can give the harvest within a small amount of time. You can purchase more from those seeds and plant more. It can give you money within a small time and after harvesting, you can again purchase it and plant.
After purchasing seeds you can plant them in the area that you made. Make sure to water them every day except on rainy days.
Bonus Tip– You can put fertilizers for the tiles where you plant seeds. This will increase the quality of the vegetables and fruits that you grow which means it can give you more money.
Also, make sure to put scarecrows near your plants, otherwise, crows will eat your plants. You can easily craft a scarecrow using 50 wood, 1 coal, and 20 fibers.
After harvesting the vegetables or fruits, you can sell them.
3. Foraging Around the Town
While you are walking around the town and forests, you can see some foraging items like daffodils, spring onions, leek, mushrooms, and walnuts everywhere. You can sell these items for additional cash.
The amount of money that you will receive after selling foraged items is vary depending on the size and the variety. For example, you can earn between 50g – 100g when you sell wild horseradish, depending on the size.
4. Accept and Complete Quests
At the beginning of the game, you will receive various types of quests to complete.
Basically, there are 3 ways that you can come quests to complete.
First, a quest can be received for you as a letter at the beginning of the day. If you check the mailbox, you can check the letter and accept the quest. If you finished it, you can earn money.
The second method is the notice board of Pierre’s shop. Check the notice board daily for quests. As mentioned earlier, you can accept it, and after finishing that, you will receive money.
The third method is the special order board. On the 2nd of the fall in 1st year, after a cut scene, you will see the special order board installed near the mayor’s manor.
There are many special orders that you can fulfill, in the order board. You have a time limit to fulfill the order and at the end of the process, you will receive money.
5. Make Animal Products
Building a silo, coop, and barn can help you to start animal husbandry. You can build those buildings if you meet Robin, the carpenter with the requirements.
After building those buildings, you can make many animals including chickens, rabbits, ducks, cows, sheep, pigs, goats, void chickens, etc. Each animal will be unlocked once you upgraded the barn and coop. You can buy animals from Marnie.
One of the best benefits of animal husbandry is producing animal products. Your animals can produce eggs, milk, wool, truffle, rabbit foot, duck feathers, etc.
You can sell these goods for a good price.
Bonus tip– Keep in mind to feed the daily and cuddle them. Also if you can let them eat grass from the outside, it is also good. When you do that, their hearts will increase and they try to give the best quality animal products.
Again, the size and the quality of the animal product affect their price.
6. Make Artisan Goods
We discussed how to build a silo, coop, and barn and start animal husbandry.
You will receive many animal products from this. The next step you can do is to make artisan goods using those animal products.
Before making artisan goods, you need to craft artisan equipment. There are some artisan equipment such as a mayonnaise machine, bee house, preserve jar, cheese press, loom, keg, oil maker, and cask. You will receive each recipe to craft those by leveling up your farming levels.
After receiving the recipes, you can craft that artisan equipment using the ingredients required.
Once you crafted the equipment, you can place those anywhere you want on your farm.
When making artisan goods, you can use these equipment. For example, you can make a mayonnaise machine to make mayonnaise using eggs. You can use an oil maker to make truffle oil using the truffles.
Depending on the size and the quality, you can earn more money using artisan goods. For example, you can sell truffle oil for 1065g.
In Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to earn money in Stardew Valley. Once you level up your skills you will have more opportunities to earn money.