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If you want to make money in Coral Island, it is initially difficult. With limited initial resources and some relatively expensive supplies and upgrades, it’s necessary to find ways to maximize your resources to the fullest.
Your primary method of making money in Coral Island is through your shipping bin, located just outside your house. You can also sell directly to shops if you need to earn money immediately rather than waiting for the end of the day. However, I found building up a stockpile to start making money from can take some time and can be a struggle.
Make money from scavenging in Coral Island
At the start of the game, I found your best bet is to focus on building up your money via scavenging. This can be done in a range of ways, including foraging in the woods or via fishing.
Foraging is done in two ways. Either you can pick plants that you find growing around the woods, or you can use your hoe to dig up rough patches of ground. You’ll mostly find flowers, but you’ll also find plants such as wasabi or brussel sprouts, depending on the season. These can be sold like normal crops and cost nothing to obtain, allowing you to earn some initial funds.
In addition, using your hoe on rough patches of ground can provide you with useful items. These are signified by clovers sticking out of the ground. Some of the items you obtain from this include compost and trash, but you can also obtain wild seeds. Wild seeds are an excellent early way to grow some crops for selling without having to spend limited Coins at Sam’s. Rarely, you may also dig up a coffer or a fossil. If these produce artifacts or fossils you have already donated to the museum, they will sell for high prices. These rough patches of ground respawn in random parts of the map once a week.
I think fishing is also a good option too. Fish tend to sell for better prices than crop resources, and you can obtain a lot if you spend a day focused on catching a bunch of them. You don’t initially receive a fishing rod at the start of the game, but you can obtain one from the Beach Shack once the associated quest unlocks on Spring 3.
Make money by crafting in Coral Island
Crafting is a significant way to increase the value of the resources you find in the world of Coral Island. Initially, you have limited options for crafting recipes that don’t help raise your prices that much, but befriending locals and levelling up your skills will unlock new recipes that do.
One useful crafting recipe you can unlock early on is the Furnace. When you’re able to access the Cavern and go mining, finding your first ore will unlock the Furnace recipe, which can be made entirely with foraged resources. While ores themselves sell for decent prices, using a Furnace to turn them into bars further increases their value. Just make sure to keep a few to yourself for future upgrades though.
Crafting works out even better the further you go into the game and unlock more Artisan Machines like the Furnace. One of the best ones to aim for early on is the Bee House, which can be gained by foraging up to level 3. Once it’s unlocked, you can feed any flower into it to produce honey, which increases the sale price significantly. For instance, daffodils, a flower you can scavenge in Spring, will sell for 10 Coins each normally. Daffodil honey, however, will sell for 20 Coins per jar.
Other Artisan Machines offer similar results. The Mason Jar and Mayonnaise Machine can be unlocked at Farming Level 3 and Ranching Level 2, respectively. These will allow you to create items such as butter and mayonnaise using resources from ranch animals. The Mason Jar will also allow you to pickle vegetables.
As you progress further into the game, you’ll unlock a wide array of these machines, and house upgrades will unlock the ability to cook. All these allow you to create products that sell for higher values than the raw materials, meaning that you will be making more money the more you invest into these methods.
Make Money with effective crop management in Coral Island
One of the more frustrating aspects of early crops in Coral Island is that they grow once and then need to be replanted. This requires you to buy more seeds, costing more money when you’re likely low on Coins. This is where crops that automatically regrow all season are useful, and some of these can be purchased early on.
While your initial Spring options won’t allow regrowth, if you wait until Summer, you have multiple options, even at Town Rank F. During Summer, Corn is a cheap crop that will continue to regrow all season once planted. A single corn patch will cost 25 Coins to plant and will produce crops continually worth a minimum of 48 Coins during the season. In Fall, Cranberries offer a similar effect, but grow much faster. Blueberries and Hot Peppers are also good options in Summer, while Eggplant and Sweet Potatoes are good Fall options, but they are initially more expensive.
As you increase your Town Rank, more of these types of seeds will become available at Sam’s, along with seedlings and saplings. Keep an eye out for any plant that mentions two growth rates in its description and invest in these over other options because their produce will earn you more money in the long run.
Coral Island is out now for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
