How do I get a lot of gold?

[Warp Totem Masked Person]

Spoiler

So, on my multiplayer farm, we want an Island Obelisk.

The problem with this is, we need 1,000,000 gold. How do get this amount? I earn about 100,000 gold per season, but winter is coming, and I won't be able to plant crops!

 

[Mystical Junimo]

1. Complete the pantry
2. Get some ancient seeds from the mutant bug lair (easiest way)
3. Donate them to the museum and then you will get ancient seeds (the one you can plant)
4. Plant the seed in the greenhouse
5. Wait for them to grow
6. Harvest the ancient fruit and seed maker it for more seeds
7. Repeat step 4, 5 and 6 until the greenhouse is full with them
8. Get a big shed of kegs
9. When the ancient fruit are ready kegs them and you will get about 243,000 a week
With that money you will get it in about one month

 

[Odin]

Also worth mentioning that you're not the only one to ask this, if you scroll through this section (or search for "gold" or "money" in this forum) you'll fine lots of different advice on this. Mystical Junimo's recommendation is definitely a good one though.

 

[Salty1]

Side note: if you don't have access to ancient fruit and have trouble chasing the returns on starfruit wine, aging cheese is also a pretty solid way to go. If you've leaned more animal-heavy with your farm, that can be a decent alternative and will encourage you to build up casks in your basement if you haven't already (for opting towards ancient/starfruit wine when you can). But we don't have a lot of details on the scale/scope of your farm, or what your current operation really is like, so it can be difficult to critique. And if you didn't get the artisan farming profession, that's also going to shift the playing ground a lot.

There's other stable things to do on the side, like setting up crystalarium sheds, but that requires a lot of resource investment that you might be pivoting towards your end goal instead.

 

[Warp Totem Masked Person]

1. Complete the pantry
2. Get some ancient seeds from the mutant bug lair (easiest way)
3. Donate them to the museum and then you will get ancient seeds (the one you can plant)
4. Plant the seed in the greenhouse
5. Wait for them to grow
6. Harvest the ancient fruit and seed maker it for more seeds
7. Repeat step 4, 5 and 6 until the greenhouse is full with them
8. Get a big shed of kegs
9. When the ancient fruit are ready kegs them and you will get about 243,000 a week
With that money you will get it in about one month

Thank you!

 

[Fat Link]

Buy tons of barns, upgrade them all to deluxe and fill them to the brim with pigs, then make sure your foraging skill is at level 10 and set to botanist.

That way whatever amount of truffles the pigs collect for you each day will be of the very highest iridium quality to make you the maximum amount of money you can get out of them each time.

Doing this you won’t have to waste your time turning them into truffle oil which makes less money overall than a simple iridium quality truffle.

If you pet your pigs or get auto petters for them and Max their hearts out and keep them well fed and heated they are supposed to be so happy and content from all that they will dig up even more truffles for you each day than they would otherwise without the added love and affection showed them.

And of course you can supplement your income using the other methods the other posters have already given you but just know pigs make you the most amount of money and the fastest at that moreso than literally anything else you can do in Stardew Valley to my knowledge.

Oh and also remember when it comes to aging your wine in the cellar you make more money doing this with Starfruit wine than ancient wine so it’s best to sell ancient wine from kegs immediately and age Starfruit wine in the cellar.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Choosing the Artisan Profession adds 40% to the g totals from Mystical Junimo's excellent recommendations and also makes the Truffle Oil sell for more than Iridium quality Truffles. However the additional g for the Truffle Oil isn't huge so if you need g right now, sell the Iridium Truffles, but if you need more g in a few days or weeks' time, mash 'em into Truffle Oil. Doing that during Winter with a backlog of unoiled Truffles is also a strategy to get money during those leaner months.

Also you can still farm by planting and harvesting Wild Seeds (Wi) in Winter and make decent money especially with the Botanist profession. But a word of caution: as a Board-Certified Lazy Farmer™, I must strenuously recommend only doing this if you already have full Sprinkler coverage. Cold, wet, and exhausted is no way to go through Winter.

 

[Miretar]

I have never had the patience for ancient fruit. Once the greenhouse is complete I fill it with strawberries and put them in preserving jars. I also put cauliflower, rhubarb and red cabbage in preserving jars.

Raise pigs for truffles.

Build as many crystalariums as you can and have them produce diamonds.

That was too slow so I did some research and someone recommended fish ponds filled with lave eels. If you have used the fishing buff meal you’ve been sent, pick a lucky day, head for level 100 in the mines and catch as many lava eels as you can.

Then build fish ponds. The eels will ask for certain things and then produce more eels. You can take those eels out of a pond and put them in another fish pond. The eels give the following on most days: roe, gold ore magma geodes and spicy eel. Age the roe in preserving jars and sell it for 700 gold each. Smelt the gold ore and sell it. Take the geodes to Clint and. Have him open them and sell what’s inside.

Keep the spicy eel—it is a speed and luck buff.

Did I mention that you can harvest the ponds on horse back? Between the strawberries and the eels my farmer has no need to grow crops. This year I planted some for fun.
I currently have 27 ponds of lava eels and have so much spicy eel that my farmer can eat 2 a day and still have plenty left over.

The nice thing about the eels is also when you feed them say thank you.
this is how Hesperis farm made many millions.

 

[Elenna101]

In general, process all your crops in kegs or preserve jars (kegs are usually better for fruit, jars are usually better for vegetables). This will double or triple your income from crops.

Starfruit and ancient fruit are by far the best money-making crops. Other good crops for money are strawberries (especially if you have seeds saved from the previous season that you can plant spring 1), rhubarb, red cabbage, melons, and pumpkins.

 

[GarnMcGaughn]

I’ve got 4 fields of 96 ancient fruit plus greenhouse and 3 sheds of casks lol. I make close to a million a week. More so when the casks in my cellar fully age.

 

[imnvs]

Side note: if you don't have access to ancient fruit and have trouble chasing the returns on starfruit wine, aging cheese is also a pretty solid way to go.

They have access to the island, so have access to pineapples, the new 3rd most expensive fruit in the game. 350 versus 450 base value for ancient fruit isn't bad.

In general, process all your crops in kegs or preserve jars (kegs are usually better for fruit, jars are usually better for vegetables). This will double or triple your income from crops.

See, I don't see this part quite the same way. It's not quite that fruit are good for wine, vegetables for pickles. The way this is true is that you can't age the juice you get from veggies in a keg, like you can for the wine you get from fruit in a keg. The thing is, however, you can only age so much. In every save I will eventually produce so much wine that I could never age it all. What's the difference if I make juice and don't age it? What I do is look at the numbers.

Keg, 1 week to process, value: base cost x3
Jar, 3 days to process, value: base cost x2 + 50

The thing is, preserves jars pop twice as often... so in 1 weeks time, you're actually getting over 2x (base cost x2 +50), or base cost x4 +100 (and you've already started on next week's production).

A keg can never catch up to that except by aging what it produces, doubling the x3 to a x6... but your cellar is only so big. If you want to reach every cask, the maximum you can fit down there is 125. That means that every 2 months you only need 125 bottles of wine to fill your cellar. 8 weeks or production to produce 125 bottles? 16 kegs working non-stop will get you all you need to fill the cellar... and everything else will get you more gold in a preserves jar.

 

[Elenna101]

The thing is, preserves jars pop twice as often... so in 1 weeks time, you're actually getting over 2x (base cost x2 +50), or base cost x4 +100 (and you've already started on next week's production).

A keg can never catch up to that except by aging what it produces, doubling the x3 to a x6... but your cellar is only so big. If you want to reach every cask, the maximum you can fit down there is 125. That means that every 2 months you only need 125 bottles of wine to fill your cellar. 8 weeks or production to produce 125 bottles? 16 kegs working non-stop will get you all you need to fill the cellar... and everything else will get you more gold in a preserves jar.

I'm not sure if this actually matters, though. Your "x4 + 100" number doesn't take into account that your also using up twice the amount of crops.
In the long term, I can make as many kegs and jars as I want, so the limit on the money I make is the amount and value of the crops I produce. So what matters to me is that a starfruit, for example, will make 1,550g in a jar versus 2,250 in a keg. Yes, the keg will take twice as long, but that just means I'll make twice as many kegs as I would jars. In the long run, the initial price of the kegs and jars will average out to 0. And even in the short run, I'd rather plant and tap a bunch of oak trees versus gathering or buying a ton of coal.

 

[imnvs]

I'm not sure if this actually matters, though. Your "x4 + 100" number doesn't take into account that your also using up twice the amount of crops.
In the long term, I can make as many kegs and jars as I want, so the limit on the money I make is the amount and value of the crops I produce. So what matters to me is that a starfruit, for example, will make 1,550g in a jar versus 2,250 in a keg. Yes, the keg will take twice as long, but that just means I'll make twice as many kegs as I would jars. In the long run, the initial price of the kegs and jars will average out to 0. And even in the short run, I'd rather plant and tap a bunch of oak trees versus gathering or buying a ton of coal.

I was speaking only to the gold over time, so the fastest way to get the most gold is with the jars. Yes, it is more labor intensive and you go through your produce over twice as fast, but it has the best cash return.

My real concern is the time invested, the labor intensity. That's why I have (in my 4-Corners) 4.5 sheds of kegs and 1.5 sheds of jars. My pineapples and ancient fruit could get me more money in the same amount of time with the jars... but I get more money for less work with the kegs.

As for something to do short term? I just built 50-ish bee houses and put them around a single faerie rose. 36k every 4 days without having to do anything but collect it.

 

[Elenna101]

I was speaking only to the gold over time, so the fastest way to get the most gold is with the jars. Yes, it is more labor intensive and you go through your produce over twice as fast, but it has the best cash return.

My real concern is the time invested, the labor intensity. That's why I have (in my 4-Corners) 4.5 sheds of kegs and 1.5 sheds of jars. My pineapples and ancient fruit could get me more money in the same amount of time with the jars... but I get more money for less work with the kegs.

As for something to do short term? I just built 50-ish bee houses and put them around a single faerie rose. 36k every 4 days without having to do anything but collect it.

Yeah, but it's the best cash return only if you have essentially infinite crops. I'm processing literally all my crops, so if I put them in jars instead the jars would just be empty for half the year, during which they would be making literally nothing, and I'd make less total money.

And yes, fairy rose honey is great.

 

[Dr. eeL]

Great advice from all those who have written back to you so far. However, I would ask the question, "Why are you in such a hurry to make money?" Take more time to enjoy the game on a less hurried level. Interact with the villagers more. Fish more. After a couple of years, the natural progression of the game leads to everyone having more money than they know what to do with.