In The Sims 2, I make-believe that freshly created Sims receive a $20,000+ loan from The SimCity Homestead Loan Service or something, which would explain why they get "free" money at the start of the game. That's for some families. Other families receive money by selling their belongings from their hometowns. I do this in order to deepen the characters' lives a bit and make them more realistic than they are. The loans are stored in one of the captions of the family photo album story, usually under the first or second picture. After some time has passed, and the family has accumulated enough dough, they will pay back all the money with a 5% or 10% interest rate. To be honest, I've never reached the paying back part. I only say that, because that's part of the making-a-loan intention.
