GTA 5: 12 Ways to Make Easy Money (list)

Christen da Costa Avatar

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Updated 10:57 pm

Since Rockstar’s dropping a massive $500,000 stimulus package on the Online City of Los Santos, a post on making money in GTA Online has fallen on my need to publish priorities list. It did, however, come to my attention that I’ve yet to put together a piece stating how to make mullah in the offline version of the game along with a list of GTA 5 cheats. Admittedly, I should have done this weeks ago, as I was actually trying to figure these things out myself. Alas, I did not, but am doing so now, so please excuse the omission of the past and take note that today, I make up for my oversight.

1. Save

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Yeah. That’s right. I listed it. It’s true. You want to make some money in GTA, the very first thing you’re going to have to do is prevent yourself from spending your hard earned/stolen money needlessly. Sure, you’re going to need weapons to be able to succeed in the game, but you won’t need half of the weapons available to you at Ammu-nation . Stick to one of each type and move on. Same thing goes for clothing and hair styles. Agreed, customizing the characters to fit your internal stereotype of them is great fun, but thus far, I see no benefit to having several unused outfits sitting in a closet. If you’re reading this guide for the purpose of being able to afford more clothing for your characters, I think you may be missing the overall point of this game.

2. Invest

Just like the real world, those worth the most, have a large portion of their funds diversely invested in the market. If you hope to attain any acclaimed level of control over the city of Los Santos, you’ve got to entrust your funds into those that make it run. If you’re looking to make some dough fast, you can always try your hand at day-trading, just remember that short term investments are far more risky. There’s also the option of making money with the Time Traveler method, which is done by taking note of the stock prices (by either taking a photo of the screen with your phone or using a pen and paper), saving your game and then letting between 4 to 8 hours of game time go by. Check the stock prices again and write down the companies whose stock prices have risen. Go back in time by reloading your save game and invest as much as you can into the companies that you know will earn in the next 4 to 8 hours. Voila! Fast and easy money!

3. Assassinations

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Disclaimer: To make the most money possible from Assassinations, execute the first and ignore the rest until after you’ve completed story mode.
As part of the storyline, Lester Crest offers Franklin the opportunity to perform assassinations for a moderately hefty compensation. Making money this way is rather straight forward. Take job, kill target, make money. Not much explanation needed, however there is a way to further maximize your hit man moonlighting profits. Each target’s death will drastically affect the market and buying and selling at the right times has the potential to make your characters overnight billionaires if accomplished properly.

4. Stop Dying

Dying costs money. Every time you die in GTA 5, the hospital has to re-clone your body, dress it in new versions of the clothes you were wearing at the time of death and transfer all memories from the corpse to your new body. This stuff, while far less expensive than it would be in the real world, isn’t cheap. Thusly, if you want to make more money, stop dying.

5. Rob Stores

Common criminality at its best. If you find yourself just a few hundred short of being able to make a purchase, easily solve your shortage by heading to the local convenience store with a weapon drawn. Point your crosshair at the clerk and wait for them to empty the register. If there are multiple registers, shoot the others open once the clerk has finished emptying theirs and run. Small type robberies like this will still result with the police being called, so be prepared to run and lose the cops once you’ve got the cash in hand.

6. Walk with Chop

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Chop, Lamar and then Franklin’s dog is one loyal, horny and sadistic pooch. Not only is he good for attacking anyone you point your cross hair at and sending you annoying notifications about his hunger in the iFruit app, but Chop is also useful for sniffing out treasure and other collectibles. When not on a mission, head to Franklin’s backyard and take a stroll around town. If you do this for 10 minutes without him finding anything I’ll… keep living my life as though I never said this.


7. Heists

Heists are part of the storyline, but also provide a big payout depending on how well they’ve been executed. There are varying opinions on how to best choose your team during heists. Some say that it’s best to pay for the best as using them tends to bring in the largest purse. Others say it’s wiser to pay for the least experienced criminals because they take a smaller cut and their skills improve with each heist. I select each criminal almost at random so I’ve got nothing for you. Take a chance, try them all. Remember, you can always reload if you fail.

8. Rob People at ATM’s

More common criminality. Although, is this really common? The only firsthand knowledge I have of someone being robbed at an ATM was the Fresh Prince. Either way, NPC’s are suckers and exist solely to be taken advantage of. Does Los Santos have an FDIC? Who cares, stand near an ATM and wait for a sucker. Take the soon to be broke individual out with a bare handed pummeling and flee as quickly as possible. Repeat as necessary.

9. Buy Property

Potentially more profitable than the stock market (minus the Assassination trading) due to the fact that properties earn a weekly income. Most properties won’t be available to you until later in the game as they cost a pretty penny, the cheapest of which is The Hen House ($80,000). Certainly, investing in property takes a while to see any ROI, but one of the best ways to clean stolen money is through small businesses so take advantage of what’s available to you. Also, if the idea of buying property somehow makes you feel like some sort of sell-out businessman, remember the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Property is organized robbery”.

10. Rob Armored Trucks

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I’m almost ashamed to admit it how big of a smile I had on my face after successfully robbing one of Gruppe 6’s armored trucks for the first time. Each one carries about $5,000 and only require a dead driver and some exploded doors. Nabbing the funds from these guys prompt a serious response from the fuzz, so be prepared. The most successful robbery are the ones with no witnesses.

11. Force Market Shifts

Taking after the real world, there are certain… loopholes available to you in the Los Santos stock market that will help inflate your portfolio. Much like the method of investing in companies most affected by your assassination missions, you can influence the market through other violent actions. Say you’ve put some money into a particular car manufacturer, help boost their stock prices by rampaging against every model of the competition you see on the streets. The citizens will notice that certain vehicles are being targeted and will begin to purchase the save vehicles, raising their stock. Once the stock’s up, sell what you have and switch your support. It’s almost sad how easy this is.


12. Cheat

If any of the 11 methods above just seem like too much to handle, there’s always the sooper-dooper-imalazyass-whybother method of making cash fast. Cheat! No, I have not found a new sequence of button pressing that rewards you with $50,000, but between spawning cars, lowering wanted levels, invincibility and any of the many bug exploits available to you, I’m sure you can figure out something.

Have you got any methods of making money in Los Santos? Are they more fun, more challenging or (please) easier to accomplish than anything I’ve listed above? If so, don’t me like me and keep them to yourself for almost a month, post them below and let the world take advantage of your knowledge. Here’s some encouragement, I thank you in advance. Trust that my last comment means a lot coming from me. I don’t thank anyone. Not unless they, you know, do something helpful like open a door, or say bless you… Hand me a pencil or a pen… actually, it means nothing, just be a nice person and post what you’ve found.

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