There are various ways to earn bells in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. This page lists the easiest ways to make a lot of bells in a short amount of time.

How to Make Easy Bells

The following sections describe easy ways to make a lot of money in Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

Find Friends to Play With Online

If you want to make a lot of bells, it helps a lot to be able to visit other players' towns, so be sure to make a lot of friends! The next two sections explain some of the benefits of visiting other players' towns.

Sell Perfect Fruits in Other Players' Towns

Your native fruits trees might grow a perfect fruit, which is worth a lot in your town, and worth even more in a town where it's not the native fruit. If you plant a lot of perfect fruits in your town, you can sell them in another player's town to make a lot of bells. Read the perfect fruit guide for full details.

Play the Stalk Market

If you save up a lot of bells, you can buy a lot of turnips from Joan on Sunday morning. Then you can check with Reese about the Stalk Market prices throughout the week. If you're lucky, you can sell the turnips for a huge profit! If you can visit other players' towns, you might be able to make an even better profit if you sell your turnips there. Read the Stalk Market guide for full details.

Fish and Catch Bugs on the Island

If you visit the resort island after 7PM, you will find a lot of very valuable bugs and fish! Catch them and put them into the box next to Leilani's counter to send them back to your village and sell them to Reese. You can make over 100,000 bells per trip!

Dig Up Fossils

Every day you can find four fossils in the ground. Just look for cracks in the ground and dig them up with a shovel. Take the fossils to Blathers so he can identify them. Donate them to the museum. Eventually, you will start finding a lot of fossils that you already have in your museum, so you can just sell them. Some of them are very valuable!

Find the Money Rock

There are rocks in your town. Each day, one of the rocks will have bells hidden in it! This is known as the bell rock. To get the bells to come out, just hit the rock with your shovel. When you hit the rock for the the first time and make some bells come out, a time limit begins. If you keep hitting the rock within the time limit, more bells will come out. You can make up to eight groups of bells pop out of the bell rock. To increase your chances of getting all the bells, dig three holes behind you to keep you from bouncing away from the rock each time you hit it. Also, make sure that all eight of the spaces on the ground around the rock are empty (no holes, no flowers, etc.) because if a space around the rock is occupied, fewere groups of bells will come out of the rock. If you have good timing, you can get all eight groups of bells to come out of the rock. If your money luck for the day is good, you could even make 32000 bells from the money rock!

Find the "Fake" Rock to get Ore

Each day, there will be one "fake" rock in your town that wasn't there before. Hit it with your shovel to break it. It turns into a piece of ore. There are several types of ore, including gold, silver, ruby, emerald, sapphire, and amethyst. You can sell these in Re-Tail for extra bells, or you can save them and use them to make custom furniture.

Check the "High Price Item" at Re-Tail

Every day, the Re-Tail shop chooses an item or a type of item that Reese will pay double for each day. Just read the sign next to the door of Re-Tail to find out what the high price item is for the day. The high price item might be a specific item (for example: sharks) or it might be a type of item (for example: hats). Sell these types of items to Reese that day and you will get twice as many bells for them as usual. TIP! Keep valuable items in your storage, such as thrones and crowns, then wait for them to become a high price item at Re-Tail and make lots of bells!

Shake Trees

Every day, some of your trees will have 100 bells hidden in them. Two of your trees will have furniture hidden in them. Five of your trees will have beehives hidden in them. Shake all of your trees to find these things. You can put the bells in your wallet, sell the furniture, and sell the bees and beehives for extra bells. If you don't want to deal with bees, just open your gate. Bees can't come out of your trees while your gate is open!

Shoot Down Balloon Presents

Every day at XX:X4 o'clock, a balloon present might float over your town. Buy a slingshot from the Nooklings' store, then use it to pop the balloon. Open the present to find a piece of balloon furniture. You can sell these to Reese for extra bells.

Buy Fortune Cookies

The Nooklings' shop sells fortune cookies. You can buy these if your 3DS has Play Coins. To earn Play Coins, save and quit your game, then go to the 3DS home screen, and close the 3DS and walk around while carrying the 3DS in a bag or in your pocket. You can earn up to 10 Play Coins per day. Buy fortune cookies from the Nooklings' shop, eat them, and give the paper to Timmy or Tommy. You will get an item in return. You can sell these items and get bells simply for walking around! For more information about Play Coins, check out my Play Coins guide.

Build a Police Station and Sell Items from the Lost and Found

The police station is a public works project. After you build one, you can take items from the lost and found. Sell them to Reese for extra bells!

Improve your Feng Shui

In Animal Crossing, Feng Shui is the art of arranging your furniture in ways that increase your luck. To do this in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, you have to put specific colors of furniture in specific areas of your house. Check out the Feng Shui guide for full details. If you have a lot of yellow and green items in the correct places, you increase your money luck. You can find more bells, villagers will pay you more and charge you less for items, and so on.

Wear Katrina's Good Luck Item

Katrina is a fortune teller who might visit your town up to one day a week (Monday through Saturday). After you get 20 fortunes from her, you can build a fortune teller shop for her in Main Street. If she is in your plaza, or if you have built the fortune teller shop for her, talk to her to get your fortune told. She will tell you about a "good luck item" that you can wear during the day to improve your luck. The good luck item is a type of clothing item, such as glasses, or men's accessories for example. If you wear it, your luck will be improved until 11PM. By improving your luck, you might get more money from trees, more money from the bell rock, and so on. Read the Katrina guide to learn about the different types of luck in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, including money luck.