How to Neohome Without Breaking the Bank

So, neohoming can be an expensive hobby. But I don't think it has to be prohibitively expensive. There are ways to neohome without going broke, and I'm going to try to cover most of them here.

First of all, I'd suggest that if you're trying to cut costs, the first thing you should consider is having a few nice rooms and gardens rather than a huge mansion. I only had nine rooms when I won spotlight, so I lived this one.

Other than the size of the neohome, it really seems to me that the biggest problem most beginning neohomers have is that they don't know what items are out there. I remember it was a huge pain for me, at least.

Learning What's Out There:

The Neohome & Gardens Guide. This guide has pretty much everything you'd ever need to know about neohomes, including lists of every furniture and garden item out there. These are the Furniture Catalog and Garden Catalog. It also lists Problem Items such as items that won't go in rooms, won't load, keep a garden from loading, or just display wrong. (You'll probably want to avoid buying those, unless you want to stockpile a few while they're cheap in the hopes that they load later.)

Secret's Neohome and Garden Guides. This is where you see the items in their natural setting. Please note that each half of the button is a seperate link. Also, the images of rooms are clickable links to the rooms that have the items in it. Both of these are great for brainstorming or figuring out the name of an item.

Pricing:

I guess the next step is getting to know in general how much things cost... what stuff is expensive and what is surprisingly affordable. For a start, you can check out:

It's a little out of date, but you can get a rough estimate of inexpensive items there. There's a similar page being started here. Keep in mind, though, that neohome item prices fluctuate frequently.

Buying:

From there you need to figure out where to buy items. The Shop Wizard should almost always be your first stop, if for no other reason that you might snipe something that's horribly underpriced.

In addition to the shop wiz, don't forget that there's also the Trading Post and Auction House. One of the little-known benefits of the Trading Post is that sometimes (but not always) you can get away with offering a percentage of the asking price, expecially if you pay in pure neopoints. Also, a word to the wise where unbuyables (that's items that sell for over 100,000np) are concerned: I always try to bargain them down - the way I see it, it takes a long time to sell these items and many people are willing to accept reseller offers from traders. There's no reason neohomers shouldn't try for a similar discount. You can always ask for a price check from the boards, either the neohome board or trades chat.

If you're using something common enough to restock in bulk or you think you're quick enough, you might try restocking your own furniture from the neopets shops. Here's a list: