Probably Stolen money and rent guide in one line: rent is charged on a recurring weekly cycle and it rises on schedule whether or not you had a good week, because there is no clause that rewards a profitable one. Pay it from stock you are certain you can sell, and the spiral never starts.
On this page
Probably Stolen money and rent guide: the weekly cycle
The opening dialogue usually frames the first invoice as six days out, and the HUD carries a day counter with the weekday and a countdown — for example DAY 9 TUESDAY / RENT IN 5 DAYS, then DAY 29 SUNDAY / RENT DUE TODAY.
A missed payment starts a spiral rather than a single penalty:
Attractiveness drops.
The shop looks unbankable.
Fewer customers walk in.
Because attractiveness acts as foot traffic.
Revenue falls.
Fewer walk-ins means fewer sales.
The hole gets wider.
A failed run can end in eviction or reduced recovery prospects.
One missed week can therefore cost you more than the rent itself. Hold guns, organs and underground lots back until the rent rhythm is routine.
Count the rent before you count the till
A weekly opening order that holds together:
Count rent first.
If the till cannot pay it from current stock, sell dependable goods before anything else.
Restock food and stage the case.
Do it for the traffic you actually want.
Inspect every claim.
Check every cigarette, seal and "genuine" claim before it costs you.
Run one overnight chain.
One you can feed, rather than three.
Scavenge only when it pays.
Only when the haul genuinely beats a missed morning customer.
Park the surplus.
Toward the buyout, insurance or a permit.
Safe staples and the trades that punish you
| Stock | Profile | Why |
|---|---|---|
Food, household goods, inspected cigarettes | Safe | They sell every week and carry no heat |
Wine and tested water | Safe-ish | Steady demand, small margin, no enforcement attached |
Weapons | Risky | Even licensed weapons attract inspections |
Contraband and underground lots | Opposite profile | The better the margin, the worse the consequences |
Contraband inverts the usual relationship: a failed inspection, a confiscation or a lot that simply does not sell leaves you short on exactly the week you needed the money.
Run one overnight chain, not three
Every overnight job competes for the same hours and the same power. Running one chain you can actually feed beats running three you cannot, and the production chains page shows what the furnace, the fermenter, the purifiers and hydroponics each turn into.
Water production needs an AquaScan or the starter kit to certify grades, and winemaking runs on grapes, bottles and time. The vacuum robot is a night worker that adds to the power drain rather than saving you anything.
Park the surplus toward the buyout
Rent is the cost of staying open, and paying it does not move you toward the buyout. The buyout is a separate mortgage goal, so surplus has to be saved on top of rent until the till meets the requirement on your HUD — the buying out the shop guide covers the funding order and when to stop expanding.
The same credits are also achievement milestones
Two public milestones watch the number you are protecting, not just the rent invoice: Comfortably Afloat needs over 10,000 credits of estimated total wealth and Swimming in Credits needs more than 100,000. Both are measured at the start of a day, so a sale on day N does not register until the morning of day N+1.
That timing is the whole trick: land the sale early enough that you are over the line before you sleep, and clear rent first, because a shop that has missed a week is worth less at midnight than it was at dawn. The buyout milestone table puts both credits milestones next to the deed and attractiveness ones, so you can budget against all of them at once.
The costs that are not rent
Trading permit
Has typically cost around 1,500 credits to unlock underground listings.
Nightly power bill
Drains quietly, and Wilds network upgrades that hook illegal grid power skip the bill but create a faction debt.
Black-market reputation at −40
A documented line where you have made things measurably worse.
Joe Wild's insurance
Can claw stolen items back, but it cannot restore the customers who did not walk in.
The sensible order of learning is money and rent before you take raids for fun, and authentication before you price heirlooms.