Here's a challenge I came up with and am currently undertaking myself.

Basic story:
You are a very poor sim who has always dreamed of making money and earning everything themselves. You have no inheritance and you didn't have enough money to go to university, but you think you can make it out there somehow.

Goal:
To reach the top of your chosen career and fulfil your lifetime want. Once you reach the top, you are free to get married and start a family.

Rules:
Make one CAS adult (no uni prior) sim in the Pleasantview neighbourhood.
You are free to choose any traits and any appearance, the only rule is that they must be a fortune aspiration sim.
Start with any size empty lot and move them in without building anything.
Change familyfunds to 500.
After the initial familyfunds adjustment, you may not use any more money cheats, mood improvers, or unfair career/aspiration object unlocks.
You can get a job as soon as possible with the paper or whenever you like. You cannot keep the computer that's given to you in one of the future eps.
You can only choose their lifetime want when you first move in, after that it has to stay the same.

Upgrade your surroundings accordingly and however you like as you progress in your money making quest. Remember that you have to stay on the same lot the entire time, no moving in and out to get extra cash.

You are allowed to use your aspiration rewards, but you have to earn them fairly.

They cannot move anyone in or get married until they are at the top of their career.

Community Lots: At first, you are allowed to go to the 4 default community lots in Pleasantview: the shopping center, the pool, the park, and the clothing store.

After you are promoted to the 5th level of your job or can afford to buy your first car, you are allowed to also go downtown or on vacation lots.

You can date anyone you want, but you can only go downtown after you get a car or are promoted to level 5, and you can only get married and move someone in after the 10th stage in your career.

You are allowed to dig for treasure, freestyle for tips, bartend, be a barista or dj, paint for money, and write novels for money. You can use community bbqs for food if you need to.

You are not allowed to own a business of any kind. If you have Open for Business, pretend you don't for this mission.

If you have Seasons I encourage you to turn on all four of them to make things more interesting, like seeing if you can upgrade to having a house (4 walls and a roof at least) before winter strikes.

Your goal is to reach the top of their career and fulfill their lifetime want.

After you complete either one (like getting to the top of the career chain) you may now play without the previous restrictions (now you can start a business, travel anywhere you like, get married, move anyone in, etc.) and try to fulfil your other achievement without cheating. It should be a lot easier to play after you've got a steady and hefty paycheck plus your partner's marriage money and paycheck.

Feel free to post your personal progress here and have fun!


Update: I've finished the 1st part of the challenge (getting to the top of the career) in a real time day, so it can be done. I used no cheats, and lived modestly until I had accumulated 22,000 slowly but surely, then completely remodelled the house, the next day my sim got promoted to the top of his business career.

After playtesting this I thought it was very fun and rewarding, I hope you will think so as well!

Sweet! I'm going to have to try this. I never really tried any challenges before for sims except the legacy challenge and that got boring fast.

one quick question?
Can the sim in the challenge get pregnant? What level career can she be before getting pregnant? Just wondering.

Thanks! It was fun for me to play through so far and I'm glad you are going to try it. ^^ Keep me posted!

Your sims can get pregnant whenever they want, I didn't mention it because it is optional. Only moving in or marrying someone brings in money, pregnancy though doesn't bring any money in (and therefore okay and doesn't impede the challenge) so if you've got a female sim, go for it!

Also, I don't care if you ask someone how rich they are or whatever, you can date anyone you want whatsoever. You just can't marry them or move em in before you reach the top of a career, then feel free to marry anyone.

More Tips:

I recommend getting the most aspiration points that you can (try dating for easy wants to fulfil) and purchasing the elixir of life often if you need more time before you become an elder. Then, after you gain some riches, you can still enjoy a life not being poor when you are young, and celebrate your victory with a longer adult life.

Try living modestly at first even when you gain the first stages of promotion already, so you have smaller bills to pay. Buy a good bed though. That helps!

I've already started the challenge. I'm posting pics on my blog cuz I
don't use tinypic or photobucket. It's pretty hard, but I'm having
fun! Oh yeah, thanks for the tips. I haven't been able to buy any
aspiration stuff yet.

No probs, I'm glad you are having fun! Your story looks interesting so far. Good job :D

I'm finished! It was a hard but fun challenge. I think raising a kid made it even more challenging. It was so addicting I had to pry myself away from my computer. :D

Good job! I liked your story and seeing your progression. Happy that you enjoyed it so much. Thanks for trying out the challenge!

Quick question.. Home grown produce and fish. Are we allowed to make money by selling them from the inventory or harvesting to sell?

Also, how do you change the life time want, if the CAS sim has a life time want that's not a career top?

Okay, okay! Last question (I promise!) Can I make a pet along with my CAS sim? - if so, can the pet have a job? I love pets!

I tried it, it took less than a full afternoon. I didn't let my guy garden or fish, because I wasn't sure. I loved the game play at the beginning when he was sleeping in a "lean-to" of sorts and going to the community lot to cook hot dogs. He got rich way too quickly. I could see trying this again and having making a living by gardening be the goal. It would need a few tweaks, though, such as buying a couple of trees to start and having slightly better starting funds. Also, the goal would have to be earning your gold badge instead of reaching level 10 in a career.

this looks like it could be a good time spender i will try it out

by the way what level in your carer do you have to be to get pets

Depends how much you want to challenge yourself. It can already be done in a day or an afternoon without getting a pet job or selling off produce or fish. If you really want to, there's nothing stopping you. Play how you want. I've only set out the basic guidelines, if you wanted to make it more challenging (like do nothing except for your career for money and food) or easier, you are free to.

VerDeTerre - Sure, try that, it sounds like a fun alternative. Maybe start off with as much money as you would need to buy one tree and set it to constant autumn to get free fertiliser.

thanks because i was thinking about getting my sim a dog with her next promotion

Here's one tool you can use to change lifetime aspiration. http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php?topic=20.0 Use at your own risk, and take care to read what you click on before messing around.

No problem, legodoom. Have fun!

Trying, digging for treasure might help her along.

For career level ten, it's a damn good thing I've memorized what Mr. Big looks like!

ok doing the challenge public now check the progress on my new blog http://legodoomsimmingfun.blogspot.com

Just started this challege today based on what I remembered of the rules, but it seems I forgot the most important one, lol, instead of making my sim a fortune sim I made her a popularity/pleasure sim. I'll still play the challenge out, and then try it again with another sim. So far though it has been fun. Norma Jeane Baker is working her way to the top of the Show Business career. She's had a few close calls with the aspiration meeter going red because she couldn't get all of her needs met while still making it to work on time, but so far it hasn't been too difficult. I suspect that having a fortune sim would be harder, so next time I play it may end up differently. I'll Norma Jeane's pictures to my blog later today when I have time.

Here is my first blog post for this challenge: Rags to Riches

I've been playing for a while now, and shes got a career in the adventure track. She has a small shack with a fridge, shower, toilet, cooker, mirror and counter in it but I couldn't fit in the exercise bike. Heres a piccie, but only one, sorry .



Her funds are currently 12,695 simoleons.

Right this challenge is To see if you can make it from 20000 Simoleons to being a millionaire.

Story:

You lived in a lovely place, So nice that you could live there forever. Unfortunately you got involved with some very bad loan sharks. You lost all your money. They took over 200,000 Simoleons! You only had your savings and that weren't much. You run away to A far away place where no one knows who you are. You movie into a house that's not very big.

You continue the story!

Rules. Move your Sims into a house that costs up to 11,000 Simoleons. Use the family funds cheat to make your money only a small 1500 Simoleons. E.g. familyfunds Lawson 1500.

NOTE:

You are allowed up to 6 Family members! Unless you have children on the way or alien abduction

Points.

The Nice Ones:

5+ For every promotion.
30+ For every Child that makes it to an adult.
10+ For alien Abduction.
15+ For every new Baby
30+ for every 100,000 Simoleons.
20+ For every Grandchild.
50+ If your Sim dies, They have Completed Their LTW (They must be elders that die for no other reason than old age)
100+ For every 1,000,000 In The funds.
15+ For Level 10 Jobs
20+ For every Level completed on Sims House (foundations not included)
40+ if Not married, Marry again
5+ For Every Best Friend

The Bad ones:

-15 For every Death
-50 For Maxmotives
-20 For Losing Job
-10 For fake sicky (your money not mine )
-1 For every Thing sold for money
-50 For 0 Simoleons
-20 For every Divorce/Break up
-20 For every Sworn Enemy

Hope you Enjoy The Challenge!

TSC

I want to try this challenge ^^ Doesn't sound too complicated and I wanted something a little different.
I'll post some photos later ^.~

Wait, does that mean every time we call work sick when we're not? Anyways, great challenge. It's both simple and can have a lasting storyline.

Omg love this idea, tryin' out now