How to make money?

[Kuppz90]

Hi , i just started out an hour ago but i was just wondering , whats the best ways of making money in this game? i was thinking of that , since its possible to buy cars i guess , and whats the gas stations for really?

[romulusnr]

Best way to make money is drug dealing, I've made nearly all my money this way. Usually acid. Liam in north Dukes always has tons of acid on hand. Coke and E are good money makers too but not as easy to get as acid IMO. I stopped b/c I have plenty of money and it gets a little tedious. In fact last time I did a major drug deal it was to get the Wooden Spoon reward... which was more work than I'd expected!

The gas stations are to make molotov cocktails. At the $200 level I can usually get 14 made easily. Cheaper than 8 for $300 through AmmUNation, though more work :) I don't bother with grenades b/c molotovs work the same and are easier to get.

You can only use the gas stations while on foot... took me a bit to figure that out.

[Wolfmight]

Drug Dealing. I've made over $300,000 very early in the game by doing the right trades.

Keep an eye on your email for dealers very eager to buy certain drugs or dealers selling them at high prices to college students.

I've made a ton off Acid and Ecstasy and they're very plentiful around the city.
When a dealer is eager to buy Acid or X, they pay you way higher prices for the stuff...even reselling the slightly overpriced drugs from normal dealers to these eager-to-buy dealers will produce a profit. The PDA has a starting database with specific locations of dealers that specialize in selling certain types of drugs and what they're most interested in.

For example; When a dealer emails me about wanting to buy Acid or college students paying top dollar for Acid, I go around the city buying as much Acid as possible and loading it up in my safehouses. That's another thing, as you start making over $40,000, start buying a safehouse every so often as your wheeling and dealing the drugs. Having them close by not only saves on driving distance, but also taxi fares and sometimes taxis can take forever to find or their all occupied.
And speaking of taxis - mark your destination in your pda and use taxis to save tons of time traveling. Can't use them when you've got stars though (i believe).

Cocaine is very expensive and holds several thousand dollars in profit at normal buying from the suppliers and reselling to the most interested buyers - and very eager buyers are by far the most profitable way to make money reselling cocaine - with profits soaring to $19,000+ when you have $100,000s to invest in the stuff. Save right after you purchase a ton of snow. Fortunately in this game, you can just reload the game if your stash is confiscated & surprisingly enough, when the cops bust you - they don't take all your drug money gains unlike real life.

Weed doesn't make much, but it makes a few thousand when dealers are very eager to buy. Normally though, there's more valuable drugs to resell than weed - especially when you can only carry 50 quantity at a time and store the rest in your safehouses. It's the cheapest to invest in though - however time is money and you should spend your time investing in the most expensive drugs you can (at reasonable prices of course).

What's really cool about the safehouses is no matter what house you store your drugs, they all connect to the exact same storage box...like a network connecting to the same shared folder. That's GTA for ya.

Also, although less common, keep an eye out for dealers offloading a certain drug in their inventories at very very small prices. You can get killer profits - unfortunately, they usually only offload less than 20 quantity as a one time only deal or something, anyone know if their stock respawns sometimes? I have yet to see it respawn for these guys. If you really want to make the very most profit, you can save these ultra cheap buys untill someone is eager to buy and pay huge prices for them... it can take awhile, but you'll see maximum profits.

Later on, after a few early missions, you'll be able to high-jack drug delivery vans near-by the dealers and take them back to one of your "secluded" houses (don't worry, they mark a route on your map when you jack one). You can get any type of drug this way, however, you usually don't get high quantities of them over 15 packs from what I've seen from many of them - but perhaps there's a rare chance to get a huge load still. The drive can be a little time consuming too if you don't own a lot of houses or several "secluded" houses. Best to jack the vans near-by your secluded houses... repeat. You'll open the dashboard and remove your free $$$ merchandise you can resell for 100% profit. Save up to a high amount before selling (saves trips to the dealers...time is money).

my advice for starting out, buy a drug or two from dealers that specialize in certain drugs, and resell to normal dealers most interested in the same drug. Take full advantage of most drug discount emails and eager buyers.

Once you get $100,000-$150,000, get an eager buyer for cocaine, and sell them 50 packs at a time...you'll see another $100,000 after literally 5-6 full load offs of 50 packs. Excellent method for very fast money when you have enough to invest.

[Wolfmight]

update:

Today I won a house in the "I'm Rich $15" scratch cards - I got the suite off Star Junction! Didn't even spend over $2000 on scratch cards when I won it! NicE!

Also, I've gotten a eager buyer for cocaine and literally have over half a million dollars now from all my offloading of 50 packs of cocaine (kilos?). Went from $300,000 to $525,000 very quickly with $19,000-$25,000+ profits on top of getting my investment back. Dodging busts and finding taxis - the transportation process hits obstacles many times. I used up every second I had to make the transfers.

I also found 16 packs of cocaine in a highjacked drug supplier van, so you do indeed find good stuff once in awhile. That and 10 packs of heroine.