Once your Sims have accumulated a certain amount of money, it starts to seem a bit silly. It's just sitting there in an imaginary bucket, slowly accruing. (This is all assuming that you're playing without using any of the money-related cheats, of course!) You can plaster your walls with the most expensive paintings and buy a fighter jet for your lawn, but then what? 

 

There are two types of properties you can invest in: rabbit holes and develop-able locations. 

 

Rabbit holes are easy: you buy a share (or buy out the whole location). Every week at 9:30AM on Monday morning, your money is ready. Oh how I wish they had direct deposit in The Sims 3! Instead, you have to actually physically go to the location to pick up your money. And it takes a while to collect, too - at least a Sim-hour.

 

It's easy to fall into the trap of buying up all the properties, cheapest first. Then you get a snowball effect, as the income from the cheapest properties gives you enough money to buy more expensive ones each week. 

 

The problem with this strategy is that you can literally spend all day running around from property to property. And if you don't have the Mood Mobile, your Sim might end up bailing on you and falling asleep or hitting the diner before they have collected all of their money.

 

If you find yourself in this situation, the obvious answer is to send multiple Sims out to collect the money. I also recommend queuing up their actions from the town map, rather than using the "Check Real Estate" feature on the cell phone or computer. Using the map lets you route your Sims so that they aren't backtracking or crossing the map repeated times.

 

If your family's funds are low, you might be tempted to invest in a cheap upgrade-able property. But be aware that many of the cheapest locations will not pull in any funds until you improve them. This can mean doing as little as buying a lawn chair, or as much as building a bathroom. 

 

It's nice to buy at least one upgrade-able property, because you can use it to host off-lot resources. A secret bedroom for affairs, a fridge so that they can get better meals, a hot tub - go nuts!

 

As a general rule of thumb, buy the most expensive property you can afford. It cuts the amount of time you spend chasing those Simoleons, and offers the best return on your Sim's time.