How To Grow Money Trees In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a little bit of everything, including fun updates that reflect the different seasons; but one of the best things about the game is shopping for adorable items. Nook's Cranny has plenty of goodies like furniture, appliances, and collectables, while the Abel's Sisters Shop lets you explore many fashion options to change up your look.

You can also visit the Nook Shopping kiosk in Resident Services (or just check out your phone) to purchase daily special items or find things that you've already bought. And when you've run out of room for all of your things and need to expand your personal space, Tom Nook offers to repurpose your home by adding new rooms and levels to your house — for a price, of course. 

Getting the best stuff in Animal Crossing: New Horizons can get pretty expensive, however, and though catching fish and bugs does put a few Bells in your pocket, it can take a while to pay off those larger investments. While money may not grow on trees in the real world, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a system that lets players grow and harvest their own trees filled with bulging sacks of Bells.

While exploring your island, you may find stars on the ground where you can dig up fossils to be assessed by Blathers, the know-it-all curator at the museum. You may have also come across a glistening gold light in random places, and after digging it up you will be rewarded with a sack that contains 1,000 Bells.

While it might be tempting to put that find away in your pockets, there's something better you can do with it — bury it back in the ground. Yes, really. And be sure not to cover up the hole (the glowing one emitting a bright yellow light). It will only work if you bury the bag in the same hole you found it in. If you accidentally add the Bells to your personal fund, just take out another amount and bury that one.

Once you bury the Bells, a small sapling will appear. You can either leave it there, or you can dig it up and put it in your pockets to plant it somewhere else. Unfortunately there is only one treasure location per day, so don't forget to keep an eye out.

Once you have your money tree planted in the ground, now you wait. It can take about three or four days for trees to grow to their full maturity, so in that time you can continue to dig up bags of Bells and make more saplings for your own money tree orchard. Or, for the impatient ones, there is always time travel. Just don't try to change the date to a special event, because that no longer works.

After enough time has passed, the full-grown tree will bear bags of Bells for the player to harvest. The amount of Bells the player receives depends on how many Bells were buried. If you buried the original 1,000, then the three bags will contain 1,000 Bells each. However, if you decide to invest a little extra — say, between 10,000 and 100,000 — there is a small chance that you can reap a larger reward of three times that amount.

The money tree will only grow Bells once, and after that it becomes a regular tree. That's all right, though; just chop the tree for resources, dig up the stump, and plant another Bell sapling in its place.