Farming is not the only way to make money when you start out in Rune Factory 4. In the beginning, you won’t have a monster barn and you won’t have access to dungeons with high-level loot – but there are other ways to make extra gold.
If you’re looking for more ways to rake in some dough while waiting for your big harvest day, you can try these early game money-making tactics.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- 1. Get Milk From Wild Buffamoo
- 2. Shear the Wild Woolies
- 3. Only Take Baths with Companions
- 4. Go Adventuring with Clorica and Kiel before breakfast every day
- 5. Turn Fish Into Sashimi Before You Sell Them
- 6. Mix Grasses & Herbs into Medicines Before Selling
- 7. Gift Handmade Items to Townspeople for Free Stuff
- 8. Start a Curry Business
1. Get Milk From Wild Buffamoo
Buffamoo drop milk, which is a great source of gold early game.
A small box of milk will sell for 260G.
At the start of the game, however, you won’t have a monster barn to keep tamed Buffamoo in. Luckily wild Buffamoo can still drop milk when you hunt them.
A great place to farm Buffamoo for milk is a patch of forest below the Summer Spring.
If you head south from the Water Ruin and turn right at the very end, you’ll reach a spot where Buffamoo regularly spawn.
You can spend your time clearing the area of Buffamoo over and over again, as they will spawn almost every time you exit and enter the area.
This is a great way to make extra gold from milk while also leveling up your weapon skill.
2. Shear the Wild Woolies
Woolies are low-level monsters that spawn in the areas near Selphia: Castle Gate.
Even untamed, these monsters can be sheared for fur which you can ship for a little gold.
This is a great way to earn a bit of money, as Woolies spawn frequently and abundantly in the areas right outside the town.
1-2 Woolies spawn every time right outside the entrance of Yokmir Forest, so you can use this area to do this tactic.
You can buy clippers from Bado or Blossom, but there is also a chance for Woolies to drop a pair when you hunt them.
Once you get your clippers, you can go on a shearing spree and amass a great amount of fur to sell.
3. Only Take Baths with Companions
It’s always good to take a bath when you run out of RP and/or HP, as bathing is also a skill you can level up in Rune Factory 4.
Paying for your baths, however, can be expensive when you’re running on a tight budget.
To get the most bang for your buck in your bathing experience, make sure to invite some companions to join you.
After your bath, there’s a chance that they’ll give you a post-bath dish to enjoy. You can sell this off for some gold since your RP and HP will be fully replenished anyway.
Tip: Make sure to invite 2 companions because there’s a chance for both of them to give you a dish. Some confirmed gifts from companions are listed below:
- Amber – Formula A
- Bado – egg bowl
- Clorica – juice
- Dylas and Lin Fa – medium-sized milk
- Forte – hot milk
- Kiel – hot chocolate
- Vishnal – ice cream
4. Go Adventuring with Clorica and Kiel before breakfast every day
I made 260k gold in 1 day in my first spring with this money-making tactic.
Get your friendship level with Clorica and Kiel to level 3 as soon as possible so that you can invite them to join you on adventures.
For this tactic to work, you need to make sure that you don’t eat anything before you invite Clorica or Kiel to join you.
Once you invite them to your party, lead them out of Selphia: Town Square and enter the areas with monsters.
Your companion will notice that you haven’t eaten yet and will hold up a random dish to throw at you.
Make sure to dodge the dish so that it lands on the ground.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get an expensive dish that you can sell off for a lot of gold. I was able to get a level 2 Ultimate Curry (which sells for 262,500G) with this tactic.
Clorica and Kiel can be pitching legends on some days, so it’s recommended that you invite them out separately. You can also ride a mount to dodge the dish a bit easier when you try this out.
5. Turn Fish Into Sashimi Before You Sell Them
When you start fishing, you’ll find that you can easily make some extra gold from whatever you catch.
Instead of selling your freshly caught fish, consider turning them into sashimi first.
This will make them slightly more profitable to sell, not to mention it’s a good way to level up your cooking skill.
To make sashimi, you’ll need to get a knife from Porcoline. You’ll also need to learn some sashimi recipes by eating Porcoline’s cooking bread.
Some sashimi sell for a lot more than others, so it’s worth learning different recipes.
6. Mix Grasses & Herbs into Medicines Before Selling
Grasses and herbs in RF4 sell for a really small amount of gold.
If you turn them into powders and medicines, however, their value increases exponentially.
Hold off on selling your stacks of herbs and grasses until you can craft them into more valuable items through your chemistry station.
For instance, Heavy Spice is craftable at skill level 10 and will sell for 180G. You’ll need purple grass to make it, which only sells for 5G at level 1.
As you make more things using the chemistry station, your crafting skill will increase and more recipes will be available to you.
If you keep unlocking new things to craft, the stacks of colored grass you’ve collected in your adventures will prove to be a gold mine.
7. Gift Handmade Items to Townspeople for Free Stuff
For every 5 handmade gifts you give to the townspeople, they’ll give a gift back to you.
There is no limit to how many gifts they’ll give you in a day, so you can technically give them an infinite amount of handmade items without them getting tired of it.
A broadsword is a cheap, low-level craftable that you can use as a handmade gift for this tactic.
Make sure you’re not using valuable materials in crafting it so you can minimize your cost of investment.
Different townspeople gift different items, so it’s best to save your handmade items for the best gift-givers. Here’s a list of your best options:
| NPC | What They Give You for Presents |
|---|---|
| Clorica | Dishes |
| Vishnal | Dishes |
| Porcoline | Dishes |
| Volknanon | Dishes |
| Doug | Dishes |
| Bado | Weapons, armor, and rune abilities |
| Arthur | Nutrients |
| Nancy | Nutrients |
| Dolce | Nutrients |
This tactic is a great way to earn some extra cash while also increasing the level of your crafting skill.
8. Start a Curry Business
It’s advisable to work on your cooking skill as early as possible, because cooked dishes will sell for a lot more than if you sold their ingredients on their own.
One craftable that sells for way more than the price of its raw ingredients is curry.
There are several different curry dishes in the game, and they all sell for a ton of gold.
If we’re talking early-game, the earliest curry recipe you can make is Curry Rice, which is craftable at cooking level 55.
This recipe only needs:
- Rice
- Curry Powder
- A Carrot
- A Potato
And it sells for 2400G.
If you grow your own carrots and potatoes, you’ll only need to spend on rice and curry powder, which sell for 500G in total at the Sincerity General Store.
If you want to up your curry game, Curry Rice can also be used as a base curry dish for more complicated curry recipes.
For instance, you can use Curry Rice and flour to make Curry Udon which sells for 5000G.
Later on in the game when you reach cooking level 89, you can make Dry Curry. This uses the same ingredients as Curry Rice, but can sell for 8600G.
You will need to work on your cooking skill right away for this tactic, but it’s definitely worth the investment.
Guide Navigation
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Rune Factory 4
- 8 Tricks for Early Game Money in Rune Factory 4
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