If you’re anything like millions of other global-pandemic-lockdown Switch gamers, you’re on a vicarious head-in-sand holiday in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Strolling the beach, shopping windows, listening to chirping insects and lapping waves… you’ve seen this “Stalk Market” thing – interesting, but wouldn’t it take the heart out of the experience?
You hear the turnips’ calls, from deep in the woods. What might become of you if you followed? Which kind of turnip trader will you become?
1. Dabbler
Animal Crossing’s about friendship – seasoned with a little materialism, sure – but when you wake up to a letter from Axel the elephant, you feel wanted; like he needs you even more than you need that fifth colourway of the snack vending machine. And when Bangle the tiger gave you that sewing machine? Priceless.
You love all that. But giggles and blushes aside, there is the question of cash flow. After all, the customised wrapped gifts you rush to hand out to your islanders every morning don’t come for free. So how about you grab a bunch of turnips with whatever’s in the kitty on Sunday morning. Stick it in the garden somewhere and wait till the Nook boys make a decent offer. Maybe they’ll drive a hard bargain all week, but that’s part of their charm.
Graham the hamster gets the brush-off when you’re hurrying to catch the turnip seller’s narrow window, but he’ll understand – and he’ll dig that fortune-telling set you’ve picked out for the way back.
2: Amateur
Great to set up your friends in style – but don’t you deserve an extra present for yourself now and then as well? You know, give out some gifts of the 'thought-that-counts' variety during the week and save up to pop a couple of hundred extra turnips in the yard come Sunday.
Better dig up some of the tulips to make space. Was Katt the cat doing the “Disapproving Look” reaction just then? Is that one of the reactions?
3: Farmer
Once you’ve hit a 5x payout on your little turnip pile – Nook’s Cranny deciding they’ll buy at 495 bells per turnip one day – things start to look a bit different. You just put a third room on your house and paid off the loan on the spot. Any fruit-growing or bug-hunting money goes straight into the bank until Turnip Day.
Your islanders now get low-cost gifts of cheery hellos wrapped in promises of shared wealth in just one more week. You’ve fenced off a field and made decorative furrows so your turnips look smart when you line them up. In theory, if you catch the wave just right, you could turn over a million bells in a week.
Slightly annoying that Gwen the penguin thinks she can just walk around on your farm. It’s a place of work, for goodness sake.
4: Trader
When you go in big and score, the endorphins go wild. Money making more money. Who would work for a living? But it’s a shaky income if you’re waiting for the local Nooks to play ball every time.
Enter internet. Late nite Twitter trawls for randoms whose islands have prices over 500. Drug-deal vibes as you load up and fly to a stranger’s hood in the dark. Not sure if it’s a con or a sting. No option, though, if you’ve got four inventories of turnips worth a sweet 8 million.
Expanding that farm field soon got boring. And getting the turnips all neat takes time you could be spending scouring for a score. Now there are just heaps on the beach, in the road, around the pool…. Walker the dog can have his garden furniture back when you get the next couple of weeks done. He lives too near the airport, it's his problem.
5: Broker
Reddit’s full of tasty turnip prices if you’ve got a few spare “NMTs” – Nook Miles Tickets, which can only be earned, not bought with bells. Hand a couple to your host and they’ll wave you on to their high-rolling Nook’s Cranny. So how about if you leverage your next decent price? (And maybe see what you could do to get a decent price sooner…)
You could be the Good Citizen who welcomes all freely, but no, you’re the Entrepreneur, who takes a sales brokerage of NMTs or a cash cut. (And you could consider being the Actual Entrepreneur, willing to share a Dodo Code for a Venmo payment of $10 US.)
At this stage, turnips are for chumps. You wouldn’t touch the grubby things. A couple of thousand need cleaning up from corners of your island, sure – behind palm trees and houses here and there – but you’ll get to that when you rebuild the barren plains that used to be your warehouses. That elephant seems to like running around there, anyway. What was his name again?
6: Scammer
What if – and of course you wouldn’t – but what if you acted the Grifter, who collects a fee then boots from their island because they never had the advertised prices? You imagine being the Twitter Scammer, who demands likes, follows and retweets in exchange for a non-existent Dodo Code to a fictional island. Feeling rather more trollish, you contemplate being the Prankster, who tells the world their friend has prices of 672: just keep DMing them until you get the code.
The #turnips tag on Twitter is now 99% spam. Fans of the actual vegetable must be dismayed.
7: Pro
But enough of that. This isn’t a game anymore. Managing a queue of sellers and keeping track of fees is a slog, so you get a team together. A friend comes to work on your island as a bouncer. You wear uniforms. You have a makeshift gate system, exploiting the behaviour of seats in the game to restrict entry until payments are made.
Bells are basically infinite at this point. Your house is maxed out and stuffed with any exotic treasure you like. Missing something from the catalogue? If you have a price of 500+ then someone will bring it to you, whatever it is. Your island is a gleaming OCD city-state of pristine paths and sparkling street furniture.
Those animal things have all moved house, relocated for your personal aesthetic satisfaction. That sort of stoner dog one sits under one of your ripe money trees.
But really it’s all about the NMTs at this point. #Turnips at 567. 3xNMT. DM for code.
Where’s all this going? What’s the absolute top level? The unburdened sharp point of the pyramid? Where is this course taking you, propelled first by a lust for bell bags then by the endorphin rush of money making more money?
Who are the gods of it all, your heroes, whom you can join in just one more step? They are:
8: The People Trafficker
Having maxed the material possessions of the game, you just want the last gilt touches of the perfect island: the A-list islanders with the fanciest houses. There are ways to trade them, little hypnotist’s tricks that’ll make them think they’re leaving another island and joining yours by their own free will. We’re talking backroom reddit deals with their current owners, briefcases glowing with strapped blocks of blue NMTs.
That’s what those tickets were for! Tom, you sly old raccoon-dog…
You disband your old clique in a heartbeat, ditch the mangey menagerie of has-been chumps and stock up with the it animals of New Horizons. And after all of it, in your retirement, you stroll round your sunny island, wearing your crown, and your elite cohabitants chat small talk with glazed eyes and sleepily pass you presents.
It’s the dearest friendship money can buy.
Comments (67)
Farmer or Pro, I guess.
There's nothing I need all these bells for, I just make money for the sake of it.
I am none of these things. I was never really interested in taking part in the stalk market. I mostly make bells from selling fruit that is not native to my island and fossils. I never quite understood the appeal of filling one's inventory with turnips, however, I am more than likely not the target audience for that feature in the game.
I did a few weeks of turnips. Mainly just to finish the house and get the 10 million bell Nook Miles stamp done. I still check my twice daily turnip prices to see if I can be a good (free entry) host for people, but I've more or less stopped buying them myself.
This was pretty fun to read. I have mostly min-max everything I can for my turnips, but with 24 million in the bank I'm not too concerned right now. Then again, I should have a high turnip tomorrow...
I am such a pro that I buy for 500k and earn 200k. #stonks
I am "Missed The Seller On Sunday Morning... Again"
I feel like by the time you get into some of this ridiculous stuff you are obsessing over the game too much and losing out on the simple enjoyment it has to offer.
I don’t even understand why they’d allow nips to get that high in value. It seems counterintuitive to disrupt the natural slowness of the games progress. What’s the fun in paying off all house upgrades ina week’!?
Love the article tho!!
I've never had turnips prices of more than 105 in my land so far. Pointless buying for 91-95 to make just a few bells on each.
@zitpig - Kind of how real sock markets work, you purchase in bulk, and sell in bulk. Major profits.
To be on topic; I never found the drive to farm currency in video games outside the MMO fare. AC is meant to be played all year, and likely my house improvements will come along with it.
@Paraka D'oh! Really? :/
Once I got the 10.000.000 bells for the turnip achievement, I was done. I can finally go back to sleep in until 2pm on Sundays. That's worth more than bells can buy.
@Static_Fanatic
The appeal isn't in carrying 40 stacks of turnips, it's in making 2-4 million bells per transaction.
Great read, well done guys! I needed a laugh and this more than delivered!
With an article like this, I feel the need to point out that this is a real ad appearing on Nintendo Life right now.
It says a lot about the game, doesn't it?
(Is this sort of ad even allowed?)
@Kasma88 Glad you liked it! Thanks for the comment
@RupeeClock It’s a heck of a rabbit-hole to go down! This one made me laugh. Hopefully satirical:
Turnip price are 547 Bells on my island!
REPLY WITH NUDES FOR THE DODO CODE!
RTs also appreciated!
#turnips #ACNH
The most I've seen turnip prices sell for is 140 bells per turnip...that was once.Every other time I check its about 45 bells..pathetic.
@Wazeddie22 it’s all about hooking up with randoms online for dodgy deals – like so much in life! (Right?) Twitter has descended into pure spam but Japanese Twitter remains pretty reliable on the #カブ価 tag. Lots of fun to visit others and see their islands
I was a dabbler in the market... until one day my nooks was buying at 632...... it all changed.... made over 7 million and 12 NMT in 3 hours off tips
Dabbler or Amateur. Usually miss them being sold... not too worried about it.
I'm just a farmer. I only sell them to my Nook's Cranny and once I save up 10 million Bells then I will be done.
oh great now people have a problem with turnips? it never ends lol
Lol I’m a pro/trafficker (it’s kinda embarrassing actually)
Had one good week with turnips playing with friends. Felt good, so I tried doing it a second week with twice as much cash. Aaaand come Saturday night the Nook kids were offering me 35 a turnip and Nintendo’s online services were down. Lost a tidy heap of bells.
Back to fish and bugs for this simple man 👨🌾
Is it bad that I am 90 hours into this game (at the time of typing this) and I still haven't seen the Turnip "dealer". I had no issues with finding him/her in New Leaf but not once with Horizon. Whats the deal?!
I've mostly resolved that I won't be using turnip exchange anymore. My first time, I got enough to pay off my last loan and had a pretty good experience overall. All of the other loans I just caught heaploads of fish (nearly 3000 of them) and sold them.
The second time, I kept getting to near the front of an island queue and then they'd close the island. I finally unloaded my stuff at a good price, but from now on I'm purchasing smaller quantities and selling in my own town...
There are money-making tactics like these where people can make MILLIONS per week, yet they nerf ABD interest. -.-
The interest rate was already pathetically low, and now it's so laughably bad that they may as well remove it altogether.
@pixel_jones : She roams around the island until midday on Sundays only.
This is a hilarious cute little article, loved it! "People Trafficker" caught me off guard hahaha
Please, I'm a people (animal) trafficker even without turnip investments. I just buy the cards on ebay to get my faves and boot the ugos. Can't have Chops ruining your town.
I usually miss the window to buy on Sunday. The one time I made a purchase, I ended up losing everything. I kept waiting for a better sell price that never came with the intentions of selling for whatever the price was on Saturday.... then I couldn't get on before the Cranny closed....all I had left was bad turnips.
This past Sunday I had a chance to buy at a lower price and try it again. So far my selling price has been terrible.
I never bought any Turnips from Joan ACNL as i found another way to get rich in legal way. 😅
I might purchase 10 Turnips just for curiosity.
Sold higher or lower, doesn't really matter for me as i just loss a little amount of Bell that can be covered by selling expensive things such as Tarantula or Rare fishes. 😉
I usually buy about 3-4max inventory's full and put them in my 'nip farm until myself or a friend has a decent price. I don't particularly need the money for anything anymore, but it's nice not to worry about bells.
Been buying them and selling them on my island, no online. I've been buying 500 for 50,000 bells b/c that's what fits on the rug.

Strange how the sell price fluctuates so much but the buy price is always between 100-108. Last week was the first time I had anything over 140 and I had 600, 164, 169 in a row. So far this week I've had 4 numbers under 80.
I'm about 700,000 bells short of paying off the basement. I'll have that the next time CJ shows up. Sold about 380,000 worth of insects to Flick today but I fish more. My best money making in the game so far was selling 20 shell beds for 400,000 bells. Ever since then most of my hot items have been under 2,000 bells so I haven't even been doing more than 1 or 2.
Honestly, after reading this article I feel like becoming the "scammer" type. This is my first AC game and the market thing didn't seem like my thing, but I want to pay my stuff off and people literally paying real money and waiting all day on places like Turnip Exchange is ridiculous. My friend made about 2mil in bells doing nothing while I'm grinding away about 100-200k a day fishing and bug catching.
I did the stalk market this week for 90k and dumped my nips today for 150k so I made some money, but doing all this tracking of prices **** is just way too much, but at the same time I'd like to get money doing ***** all.
Thinking of just charging 100k prices on different sites and doing what it listed here. Easy af and I can be lazy too
Please pardon this silly question, but why do hosts ask for so many NMTs? Once my island reached the 10-villager cap (and that I became a Bell millionnaire as a Farmer type) I stopped feeling the urge to scour mystery islands.
@DisplacedTomato That's not the scammer type but broker type! I tried once. I doubt I'll ever do it again because of the unbearable online multiplayer mode, waiting through the animations when people arrive/leave etc.
@echoplex yea, but I'm not gonna be guranteeing those prices. I'll just be "saying" my price is high enough and charge a fee and boot em out.
I just gotta make another 4mil to pay my ***** off and after that I'm done. Simple unless someone here who's rolling in it wants to donate 4mil to me so I don't have to go this route?
I buy 4000 turnips then wait a couple of days and go on Reddit to get sweet, sweet prices
I have reached number 4. I spend between 1-2 million bells every Sunday then go online to find the best or good prices to sell them. I maybe make 5 million but now that my home is all paid off there is little need to have so many bells.
@Arcade_Tokyo yeah I've never actually even tried out the multiplayer yet(mainly cuz id be too ashamed to let anyone see my island lol).I think I'll be more into this turnip business once I'm actually all out of debt for upgrading house to max and buying bridges etc.
Another lovely read! It had me grinning and tearing all the way down. I had to hold my laughter since I'm in public
@echoplex Because those people want specific villagers. So they do hundreds of trips to the island in the hopes of encountering the villager they are looking for. If you get 3+ NMTs for every visitor, it's going to add up quickly.
Nothing says greed like the turnip market.
I'm none, homie. I'm a solitary gamer and playing the stalk market pretty much necessitates multiplayer. Not gonna happen. I'm content with earning bells slowly.
@echoplex the point of NMTs is a fascinating study in itself and a good economics lesson. (Probably. Not an economist so maybe it’s just me!)
NMTs have become the go-to metacurrency of ACNH because they’re scarce (unlike bells). In short, people want NMTs because They don’t have them and because other people want them too.
(Practically speaking, you can also carry a large value of NMTs in a small space. An inventory of bells is about 4m – max 1 hour’s work for a trader. An inventory of 400 NMTs? How long would it take you to earn 800,000 Nook Miles?)
It’s the uselessness of NMTs that make them perfect as a currency. Gold nuggets are also scarce but it’s inconvenient to invest them with abstract value because then any gold crafting becomes ridiculously expensive. (Like if biscuits were money, you wouldn’t eat them.)
Any economist reading that will see I’m definitely not an economist! But makes you think…
@DisplacedTomato I’ll give you 4m bells. That would be funny.
@Wazeddie22 what’s impressive about ACNH is that although having loss of bells changes the game significantly, it absolutely does not spoil it. You can still only build one bridge a day, buy 5 things a day, move one house a day, etc…
Takes some of the grind out of it and let’s you enjoy the fun stuff. I guess that must be what it’s like to be rich in real life…
@Arcade_Tokyo you serious?
@DisplacedTomato anything to keep you on the straight and narrow!
Message me on Twitter or Instagram
@Arcade_Tokyo you available now?
@DisplacedTomato sorry, it’ll have to be later. Say 11pm UK time? About 3.5 hours from now. Any good?
@Arcade_Tokyo Sadly I work in a few hours so I won't be able to get on at that time. Tomorrow perhaps?
@DisplacedTomato send a dodo code now and I’ll see if I can pop over
@DisplacedTomato still have 4m bells with your name on
@arcade_tokyo I'm at work I'll pm you a code when I get off in 7 hours!
@arcade_tokyo you avaiable now?
@DisplacedTomato I’d suggest we try and coordinate this via a private channel – but at this stage I think comment readers will be desperate to know if you ever get your bells.
How about you tell me the times you would able to meet and then I’ll let you know which ones I can be available for?
@Arcade_Tokyo do you have discord? We could communicate there? As far as availability I'm free all day today (Tuesday), Wednesday/Thrusday I work in the day time so I won't be free until after 930PM PST. Friday I'm off.
@DisplacedTomato I have discord – but if you share a dodo code in the next hour then I can head over
@arcade_Tokyo gates open
tysm @arcade_Tokyo!
@DisplacedTomato Thank you! I went home with full pockets
Love this article and it hits home with how I was playing the game.
I used to trade villagers and quite often would shift 10-15 of the most desirable in a day resulting in ridiculous stock piles of NMT and bells (Julian and Marshall were going for 50 - 100 BMT each in the first few weeks and I just used to swap them out with the Amiibo).
I fully paid off a few mortgages for people on Reddit as I just couldn't spend the amount of bells I had accumulated. Unfortunately that bubble burst once most people had filled their island with their wanted villagers and I stopped playing as I got bored and had nothing to grind for.
I've recently just come back to the game and I'm having fun just goofing around with the Mrs and helping her grow her island (ive refused to pay off everything for her but do keep her in a good stock of NMT)
Really fun article. Loved it:) more funny animal crossing articles.
I made my fortune by creating seven additional profiles, because each profile generates its own money tree spot per day, meaning an overall profit of 168,000 on money trees per day (by burying 10,000 per spot). I was also collecting recipes, but I have hit a point where I was finding more duplicates than unique ones, so it was no longer worth taking the time finding the messages in a bottle.
And while there are better and faster ways to make easy coin, this seemed the least stressful (as I do not have to rely on others or be driven by a sense of urgency to sell all of my turnips by Sunday).
Once I cracked the 10 million mark, I deleted four of the profiles, but I still hang on to the three extra profiles for buying all of Redd's artworks (as I collect the counterfeits too), and I still make use of the money spots when I can be bothered playing, but Animal Crossing has become too much of a chore due to the absence of a lot of content from past games, and I find myself playing the game a few times a month at most these days (after playing the game every day for the first 2-3 months after release).
I stopped bothering with the stalk market after I invested several hundred thousand Bells in turnips at 96 Bells apiece (below 100 is supposedly a pretty safe bet) only to see the return price drop every single day over the next week. I got maybe a third of what I put in back. So the supposed pattern of at least one day each week where the market's supposed to spike and allow you some interest on your investment is not guaranteed.
I don't like wasting my time, and that wasted a LOT of time and effort. Hence my disinterest in ever messing with it again.
none
i have stopped the stalk market, since i earn more cash from the fossils
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