Rags to Riches Challenge
In this challenge, you struggle your way from homelessness to the rich life!

You start by creating a save file. Name it something good, something you'll remember. I suggest just naming it "Rags to Riches". You create one sim. S/he can look any way you want, but I think it's "fun" if they wear clothes you imagine a homeless sim would.
Then, move into any empty lot. It can be either large or small, you choose. It doesn't have to be expensive or a certain size (like in the Legacy Challenge). When your sim has moved in, press CTRL, Shift, C to open up the cheat window. Then, type in "testingcheatsenabled true". No spaces except between "enabled" and "true". Press Enter. Then open the cheat window again (CTRL, Shift, C) and type in "familyfunds ________ 0". Replace the line with the last name of your sim. What this does is it basically sets your household funds to zero. Then, do whatever you want to earn money! Except getting a job, don't get a job. That sort of defeats the point of the whole challenge. I would suggest fishing to begin with. I also suggest turning off aging, because you don't want your whole sims's life to be spent fishing, now do you? If you see any seeds, PICK THEM UP!!! You can plant them, and get food!

The goal of this challenge is to have a house, and 10,000 Simoleons in household funds. The definition of a house is:
1 Bedroom with:
- a bed
- a dresser
- a mirror
1 bathroom with:
- a toilet
- a sink
- a shower/tub/combo (shower is cheapest)
1 kitchen with
- a fridge
- 3 countertops
- a sink
- a stove
- a bin/trashcan/thing
- a table
- at least two chairs
1 living room with:
- a sofa
- a TV
- a bookshelf
- a coffee table
All of these have to be separate rooms (except the living room and kitchen, they can be in the same room) with a roof! At least one window for every room, and obviously a door to and from every room! I'm going to be mean, and say you have to have a tree outside as well. And a bush/shrub.
USEFUL THINGS:
- fishing! You don't need to purchase a fishing rod to do this, which is weird and convenient.
- planting apple seeds (and other seeds) that you find can give you free food (apples)
- painting, writing books, playing the guitar and (Late Night) moonlighting (?) at bars can earn you money.
- Hanging out at the park, could get you free food! I think there are some picknick baskets in Sunset Valley Central Park (or whatever it's called) where you can get free food. Other sims can cook stuff, and you can just use your awesome ninja skills to grab a plate of their food.
- pick up everything you find. Wildflowers (Seasons), gems, seeds, anything!
- have a lot of friends. You can crash at their house if it's an emergency.

RULES :
There arent really any rules... Um, yeah. Now that I think about it...
- Don't get a job. It defeats the point.
- Getting married, no. It would get you money, which is defeating the point. Boyfriend/girlfriend is fine, though.
- Sims cannot move in with you until you have completed the goals. I mean, there's nowhere to move in, so...
- No taxis! Your sim barely has any money, remember? To get to places I would suggest zooming in on it from the map, and then clicking a spot on that lot and select "Go Here".
- You may use your phone. You found it, or something. Whatever. Just... use it.
- Move into an EMPTY LOT. Moving into a house would just totally defeat the point.

Anyway, that's it! Good Luck!

I'm currently playing the challenge and I honestly LOVE it. I used an old copy of a household because I was too lazy to create a brand new one. When my teen started out in starlight shores all she had was a free buydebug trash bed that was there. she had absolutely nothing else so she immediately went dumpster diving hoping to find some decent items to sell. she didn't find anything truly awesome but by the end of it she had five hundred dollars. she then went to a nearby park hoping to find some veggies or fruit for her dinner that night. she found a single apple tree to harvest and fished a little bit hoping to be lucky enough to get a fire pit by the end of the day. she then went to the stage park where she found some wild flowers that got her a good amount of money. she used that money to buy a ipad (Multitab 2000 from the sim store) so she could take lessons as she went through her day, she also bought a high class broom and a fire pit which she moved close to her bed so she could be warm at night. when this was all over she had about 150 simoians to keep for herself. Not a terrible start. Its day 15 now and she has a small shelter nothing like the house she is supposed to have but she also had to buy items to take care of four cats (the household I used had a cat starting out with I thought I could simply leave the cat at another house hold until she got on her feet but the family turned around day 2 and impregenated her cat so she had to take in all of them. she fought with the family over it now she's enemies with the woods family) but she has two rooms one main room that has her bed, a desk with a computer, a cruddy tv because she figured she could learn how to hijack the other tv channels, a cheap but amazingly comfortable chair (from the sims store when I got it I didn't expect for it's comfort rating that it'd be so cheap just 250) a cheap but nice looking dresser (came with showtimes for about 400 I think) an art easil, and some pull bars (I don't know its name it came from showtime too) to exercise at home. she also has a bathroom which she wanted to be nice so theres an expensive two in one shower that doubles as a bathtub, the cheapest toilet I, and a nice sink in there though she forgot to add a mirror and by the time she remembered she had only 30. the cats are living it up outside the house since they don't get hot or cold she bought them dog houses so they could take cover when its raining though they never do, they have a box of toys which they lost two of them, theres cat beds everywhere which they sometimes ignore and sleep on the ground, there's a cat jungle gym the mother uses a lot, and they have an electrical litter box which burns up any nasty stuff for when they go. The only thing I could do better on is my sim doesn't have a garden at all I just figured I'd gather from the random plants at the parks near her house if she needs it she's a self employed author too (well I don't have ambitions so technically she's unemployed) which she uses to help pay her bills for when items to gather are few. she's thinking of going back to school sometime soon which would be great considering her past situation.

Are we allowed to have pets to help with the money?

Hey, I just did it.
It didn't really take long, mostly been in the central park, waitig for flowers and fishing. so it took me about three hours to do. But it was fun ^^

Imma give this a try, sounds fun!

Halfway done with this challenge. My sim has a small 1 bd 1 bath house and furnished according to rules. 1$ cc is really handy for this challenge as well as dumpster diving and selling those unknown seeds. they go for like 100$ a pop. plus the house has a tree and two bushes at the door. I'll try to attach pics here or on tumbler and let you see em.

a trick i used also was either the frugal trait or the gather trait. You find better stuff dumpstrer diving with it. Didn't know that till my sim started finding gems and ore in the trash.... the screenshots are on my tumbler page, I'm under Shadowkat-83.

Finished the challenge, took me two days. Dumpster diving, gardening and fishing. Mastered fishing and lv 7 gardening.

I'm in.. but I will only have a tent on the lot that's it. the rest, uhm... i will use public comfort rooms and stuffs for the meantime, like the park and beach. this will be fun.

just finished the challenge! took me 10 weeks and 4 days (in-game). lvl 7 fishing, lvl 10 gardening, lvl 9 painting. such a fun challenge!! might do this again with another sim!

I decided to combine this with the Random Legacy and rolled Freelance scientist which means earning money by searching the galaxy, solving the impossible, and doing the science skill. It takes a bit of time to build, but now that my sim has mastered the science skill she can clone plasma bugs so I'm four bugs away from finishing this challenge.

I decided to go w/this. I chose Aurora Skies b/c I've never played that town. I bought the largest lot on 36 Sulfur Springs Rd. Like the first poster here, I "bought" the trash bed in buydebug for 0 since she had to have a bed and couldn't even afford the sleeping bag, lol. On her first day, I took her fishing and the next day consigned it to the shop. Aurora Skies has a community garden so I took her there to harvest the plants. One of the parks also has a fire pit where she roasted her fish or veggies to eat. She also consigned the ones that she is not able to plant yet. At the end of day 3, she has $352. AS also has a beach that has a shower and bathroom stalls there. So far she has not done any dumpster diving. Haven't found any there anyway yet. Her two major traits are green thumb and angler. She is about to start planting. If I can continue to sell veggies at the consignment shop, she should have enough for a greenhouse and a small house for herself by the time fall comes. I'm thinking about combining this challenge w/the Grow as You Go Farmacy challenge if I can.

One thing nice about having $0 to your name except for the land itself is that the burglar doesn't come, LOL

At the end of week 1, day 4, she had almost $3k. She had a bit over $2k from consignment sales and then entered into an eating contest. She was very hungry when she went in and won first place to the tune of $1k! She also had an opportunity to "unclog the city hall pipes." She got a fish and $500 for that. She is now building her garden and small house.

Well, I got as far as just needing the finishing touches (bedroom mirror, coffee table, etc..) when the game locked up. Now I have to start again w/upgrading the house. Fortunately, I took a pic of it before forcing the game to close so I can build it again when she has the funds. I'm combining this challenge w/the "Farmacy Go as You Grow" one where you can only make money from farming and nothing else. Still doing good though! She gets a lot of money for the honey, Garlic, and Red Berry Beans and sometimes opportunities. The only downside to the beekeeping is that she gets stung almost every time. When I'm finished w/the goals for this challenge, I'll continue w/the other one, getting her married to have the kids and husband help out w/the chores.

I am finished w/this one now. Rather I should say w/this leg of the challenge since I combined it w/the Grow as You Go Farmacy challenge. The house is worth $29,567 and she has $2,857 on hand. She made all of her money through consignment sales of her farm produce. The next leg of the challenge is continuing on w/the other one.

Hi! I've been doing this challenge and I love it! I actually have a doubt about one thing, and I hope you can help me: in the expansion pack of island paradise, you can 'check for diving work' in different rabbit holes. Am I breaking the rules if I do any of these 'diving works'?