From Dumpster to Deluxe

I love Rags to Riches challenges and I saw some utilizing the dumpster from Eco Lifestyle for that. Since I like my challenges extreme, I added some rules to make it more difficult.

Main Goal:

Build a home with found or crafted furniture

Rules:

• You start with 0 dollars and a fresh young adult sim in Evergreen Harbor. Your lot should have the Reduce and Recycle trait.
• Your lot should be empty at the start of the challenge.
• You can't sell through the inventory. You have to use a sales table or retail lot. You can only mark up sales to 100%. No ridicilous 300% mark up prices.
• You can only use furniture found in dumpsters or crafted by your sim (like fabricating, woodworking or painting).
• You can only use essential items (sink, toilet, shower, fridge, stove, computer, books) on other lots after you have found/crafted them yourself and placed one on your own lot.
• You can make money via tips from singing/instrument use, or using the recycler or selling water/power. No lottery.
• You can use fabricator and recycler on community lots.
• Items you can't find in the dumpster (like the woodworking table, sales table, solar panel, fabricator etc.) can be bought in build/buy.
• You can only recycle burned items (unless you use the optional challenge).
• You can buy meals at restaurants or food stalls.
• You can buy walls, windows, doors, fireplaces, bins, floors, wallpaper, lights with your earned money in build/buy.
• You can marry, but you must have at least 1 bedroom (with bed), 1 bathroom (with sink, toilet and bathtub or shower) and have a room with the items: fridge, sink, counter, stove, table, chair. Each with a light.
• Your spouse must follow the same rules. The spouse can't have a career, but can craft/make stuff, like candles, juice, flowers etc. Nothing that gives royalties.

Minimum House:

• 3 Bedrooms
• 2 Bathrooms
• Kitchen
• Living Room
• Hobby/Study Room
• Dining Room
• Pool
• Garden
• Wallpaper/Floor in every indoor room

Optional:

• You can't replace burned items with money, you have to use the Smog Vacuum.
• To get the Smog Vacuum you need to be in the Civil Designer career and choose the Green Technician path. To keep it challenging, delete every simoleon you get from the career with the money cheat (ctrl+shift+c, type "testingcheats true", and then "money X" with "X" being the amount of simoleons your household had before the salary). Imagine that your sim uses the salary to pay off a debt or uses the funds for crafting.
• However, you can keep every career object you get as a reward. For instance, you will get a fabricator on rank 4. You can unlock the Smog Vacuum by submitting design blueprints at the mailbox. The Smog Vacuum will be a level 1 fabrication recipe. With the Smog Vacuum you can repair all those burned items.
• After getting to rank 10, you can quit the career. The job essentially robs you of your precious time.

Difficulty Levels

Easier:

• Your Sim has the Freegan trait.
• You start with a Dumpster on your Lot.
• You can buy items on the flea market.
• Your spouse (and only your spouse) can make/sell stuff that gives royalities (you could add this mod http://modthesims.info/d/642168/low...ntings-etc.html to reduce royalties).
• Optional: Your spouse can be in the freelancer career (you could add this mod https://modthesims.info/d/609496/50...d-may-2020.html to reduce payouts).

Expert:

• Have the Off-The-Grid Lot trait on. The home has to be off the grid.
• No tiny homes.

Extreme:

• Only 50% mark up at the sales table.
• Items you can't find in dumpsters (like the woodworking table) can be bought, BUT at double the price.

Hardcore:

• Have the NAP Plan "Sharing is caring" on. Can be repealed only after you have built at least 1 bedroom (with bed), 1 bathroom (with sink, toilet and bathtub or shower) and have a room with the items: fridge, sink, counter, stove, table, chair. Each with a light.

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Let me know how the challenge goes for you and what difficulty you chose. Have fun!
Here are some mods I use to make the game even more challenging: http://modthesims.info/showthread.p...5&cb=1591389513

I've never done a challenge before, I may have to try this one out on my next play!

Love this challenge! Had tried something similar when Eco Lifestyle came out, but I really like the structure of this. I'm restarting with a fresh save now to follow this challenge- planning on the extreme version! Question- what is the thought on selling items through Plopsy?

Is there a mod that makes the dumpster fuller? The dumpster gets empty pretty fast and sometimes gives small things.

I usually go with challenges along the lines of the Castaway challenge, the Homeless challenge or with the Runaway Teen challenge (I like some aspects of the Rags to Riches challenge but, personally, I don't see my sim getting married and my dream house does not necessarily need to have a pool) and I am looking up some more ideas of how to make my own version of these challenges when I came across your From Dumpster to Deluxe challenge.

However, that rule that says you can't sell from your inventory has me scratching my head.
If you start with 0 money and can't get a job, it will take you forever to get enough money to buy the sales table (yet alone a retail store) as it is just by making money from seeds/crystals/fish you gather around the world. But, if you can't even sell the stuff you gather... how are you supposed to actually even make enough money to get the table?
I mean, if I collect stuff from the world and don't actually sell them to by my dog a bowl of food the poor thing will just die from starvation before the Flea Market ever comes to town. xD

To make money in the beginning, I would go to a community lot (under the marketplace option) and setup on one of the tables already there!

I wish there was! I also wish there was a mod that would automatically loop through the "dive for deals" interaction until the dumpster was empty. It does get a little monotonous going through that pie menu over and over again!

I tried to place a Come and Get it Street Store table on a Retail lot but I don't seem to be able to use it, it says that there is nothing to stock from the table's inventory but it won't let me actually stock the table.
What do you mean by marketplace option?

Thanks for all your interest!
Regarding earning money. Yes, the way to get the sales table is difficult, but since you are constantly dumpster diving, you get furnitures and meals out of that. Even money. So, it was okay for me to survive.
You can earn money through singing and getting tips from that.

But I didn't account for having a pet. I would suggest, you use a sales table on a community lot. You know, vote to turn a community lot in a marketplace.
Or, you could even start with a foodbowl for your pet. Just configure the challenge until you are happy with the rules.

I don't have the Knitting Stuff pack, so I don't know how much money you can make from Plopsy. But since it isn't selling from inventory, I would try it out. If it is similiar to the sales table, it's okay.
Maybe with an added rule, like, you can only have 10 items at once listed on Plopsy.