First million I made was just from selling sharks and beetles and such like everyone else said.
I mainly started wanting more bells after I saw the crowns. I wanted to buy and catalog them so badly that I saved up lots of money just going to the island and then kept saving until I saw the crowns again. Plus, I wanted to upgrade my house fully and fund the PWPs around my town so that also cost millions and finally the main reason for continuously saving was to get the gold badge for bells.
My first million came from bugs on the island, and perfect fruit selling. Gradually I build up 70 million over about 13 months, from island bugs, turnips, and selling/trading items and villagers on TBT and Reddit. Then I decided to sell some tbt bells for in-game bells to help me reach 100 million for my gold savers badge. Now I have 136 million sitting in the bank, which I dish out to friends and family who play. If I ever decide to have a second town again, I'll probably give some funds to that project. But ORAS coming out soon means that won't happen for a very long time
Same as most of the folks here (beetles, sharks, turnips) for my first million, and I reached 100 mil by more turnips, sell things to lazy campers, and trading like crazy (also with the help of several bell giveaways). I wanted to save up 100 mil for the badge and ABD.
I spend a lot on turnips and used to spend it on clothes I didn't have or my mortgages. I made my first million by selling junk and beetles from the island.
Got my first million from collecting rare bugs on the island. Pick bell bloom as soon as I was able and left it that way for a month or two. Setting the island up for catching the best bugs helped.
Made three trips each night and came back with 400 to 500K each time.
After that I moved on to perfect fruit and than turnips. Having a good group of friends that will share their high or premium items helps. I've never sold anything on any boards. Just give it away for free.
I used my bells to fund three towns. Got them full houses and furniture them. Also used my bells to get all the items from retail and the clothing store. Three towns have repeat Gracie items. Just spent some of the bells for DLC from other countries on different boards. Think I paid 20 million for the 7-11 set. I've bought a lot of items for friends and than give them away for free.
Than I talked to my brother about a player having a billion. He challenged me and I passed that this year. Last night I opened a town that was closed and found another 100 million. So I'm at 1.5 billion now. Do I need that many bells? No but it was a goal and I did it without cheating.
I think everybody made their first million by selling island bugs.
After several resets, I found it a lot easier to just make a cycling town and auction off the popular villagers. I used to get like 6 mill for villagers like Kid cat and Erik
Just like most of them, I also made my first million selling beetles from the island which can be caught 7pm-4am i believe... They sell for 6-12k each so yeah, it's pretty fast to get a million that way.
As for the most expensive things in-game, well, there's Nook's expensive house upgrades... Gracie also sells really expensive stuff too in my opinion. Like her furnitures cost from 80k-300k so yeah.. Aside from those two, most expenses are from forum trades, like hybrids, landscaping items, art, rare DLCs
My first million bells were from beetle-hoarding, and then I started to sell items on here.
And now I use the turnip method, even though I've already achieved my goal of 100 million and I think turnips are the easiest method to get lots of Bells in <40 min
My first million made was from beetle hunting. After doing that, I either entered numerous raffles and managed to win, or I continued to beetle hunt. Now I mainly just do raffles, and I have almost 8 million saved up in the bank easily. It's actually really simple to get millions of Bells after you get past a certain milestone.
As for using them, I mainly use my Bells for villagers or items.
I made my first million from the island catching bugs and fish at night. The rest, 99 million (as I went for the badge), FREAKING TURNIPS!
What I spend it on, house upgrades, tons of furniture, pwps AND MORE TURNIPS!!
I also made my first million from bug/shark catching on the island. If I go to the island around 11pm, I can usually net 400k worth of bells in under an hour. I have no clue how people do it in 15 minutes because they don't spawn that often for me! Even when I go in and out of the building.
I grinded the island at like 8 pm before I would go to bed and just sell those bugs to Re-Tail. Didn't do turnips because I had nothing to invest with, in fact I still don't use them today.
Once I figured out the island, that's where I made all my money.
And then I discovered turnips right as I was starting to get tired of the game (I always knew about them, but I didn't realize how easy they were if you just find other people to connect with).
As for what I do with all the bells I've accumulated,
absolutely nothing.
I occasionally buy items I need from people around the forums, but that's about it. I'm not sure there's virtually any use for a billion bells if we're speaking strictly in-game, no villagers or anything. Even houses don't require that much.
