Astronomically Expensive Bills

Are the household members' inventories full? Items in their personal inventory and family inventory are added into their bills.

"Andiratyme;c-16249142" wrote:
Are the household members' inventories full? Items in their personal inventory and family inventory are added into their bills.

I did not know this. They are not full, but that's good information to know. Thanks.

One of the first reward traits I give mine is frugal, which reduces the bills. They're still high, but not as much. Also set all the lights on auto-lights, so they automatically turn off when a sim leaves the room. That helps.

Do you have any Masterpieces used in your decoration? Those will definitely add to your bills very quickly. The Frugal trait mentioned above does stack if you have more than one Sim who has it and along with the auto lights make sure you shut off any radios when a Sim is not using them.

One of my households has bills that are about 45,000 simoleons. They live in a mansion though so it makes sense.

My current game the bills are 8,500 but the older mum is lvl 10 scientist and clears over 3k per work day pluss has a couple books in literary digest then her younger wife is just starting out as a young adult and is a writer. Bills jumped when the twins were born and they decided to buy and renovate the old salt house. Still they are very manageable but I have to empty my scientist pockets quite often since she gets tons of harvestables. (This new year / new legacy I'm making myself play ways I haven't before and use aspects of the game I've ignored like the city)

"3KNPen;c-16249371" wrote:
Do you have any Masterpieces used in your decoration? Those will definitely add to your bills very quickly. The Frugal trait mentioned above does stack if you have more than one Sim who has it and along with the auto lights make sure you shut off any radios when a Sim is not using them.

I do. I never thought that would make a difference. They do live in a mansion, and I expect bills to be high; I've just never seen them that high. I usually get the frugal reward trait pretty early on, and that has decreased the bills by a considerable amount.

"LiaRose1435;c-16249399" wrote:
One of my households has bills that are about 45,000 simoleons. They live in a mansion though so it makes sense.

They do live in a mansion, and that must be what caused the bills to be so high. Usually by the time my sims get to that point they've got the frugal trait, which this family didn't have. I've never seen what it actually costs to have a house of that size and with nice furnishings without the frugal reward trait before. That's intense. I do like the way TS4 has quelled the getting rich too easy aspect of TS3. I had to put in effort just to keep certain families from all becoming millionaires in that game.

The size of the house also gets put into the mix. I refuse to live in cramped quarters, myself. I like being able to move the camera and see what's going on and not have to worry because the house walls are such, that even on walls partially down (or however it's worded) the view is blocked.

This happened to me once, I had a 3 bedroom house over two floors, but it wasn't particularly fancy. There were four people living there, and I have all lights on Auto-Light to save electricity (although I don't know if that actually has an effect on bills) and I got a bill for 12,000 Simoleons. I moved the household to another lot sharpish because they couldn't afford it by a long shot, and I've never had anything that high since.