How to make 30,000 Bells with an Animal Crossing: New Horizons Money Tree

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Tom Nook will personally assign you to overhaul an uncivilized island, strong-arming you into establishing amenities like bridges and paths. Your altruistic island management is all well and good, but Nook also expects you to fund these endeavors with Bells from your own pocket. Doing so can be tough, especially without the Bells glitch that was patched out. Outside of gambling big on the Stalk Market, a fruitful side venture that can earn you lots of Bells is something called Money Trees.

With Money Trees, you can earn at least 30,000 Bells in a matter of days, so use your agriculture skills to pay off that outstanding loan using these tips.

How to grow a money tree in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

1. Every day, a small glowing spot will appear on your island (as pictured above). Find the glowing spot. Once located, use your shovel to dig the spot. You'll receive a bag containing 1,000 Bells.
2. Go into your inventory menu and select your Bells. You'll be able to turn your Bells into bags.
3. Plant a high-value bag filled with Bells into the hole, ideally 10,000 Bells.
4. Wait for a few days until it bears "fruit" in the form of bags full of Bells.
5. Shake the tree to receive three Bell bags, each containing a sum equal to what you initially planted. The Money Tree will then revert into a normal tree.
6. Repeat the process every day to get a rolling income of 30,000 daily.

How to Harvest a Money Tree in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Money Trees present the most efficient and reliable way to earn capital in New Horizons, but you can also lose quite a bit of money if you don't do it correctly.

Once a Money Tree blossoms, you'll get triple what you planted, but only up to a point. Bags containing 10,000 or fewer Bells are guaranteed to produce triple the amount. If you plant more than 10,000 however, it's a total gamble. While some villagers have earned three bags of 99,000 Bells from initially planting a 99,000 bag, others report a return of 10,000 Bells per bag. In other words, it's possible to plant 99,000 and only get 30,000 back. So why bother unless you're flush to begin with?

Players should plant no more than 10,000 Bells unless they are willing to risk squandering whatever amount beyond that they plant with the initial investment.

To maximize efficiency, you should try grouping all your Money Trees in a single location. After first burying your Bells in the glowing hole, you can dig up the sapling and replant it wherever you want. So the best way to do this is consolidate the money trees in a single location.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now available for Nintendo Switch.