How to manage your gold

Gold is the premium currency in Big Farm and I treat it completely differently from the dollars I make selling my harvest. Years of playing have taught me that the biggest payoff comes from not rushing to spend it and saving gold for the buildings and expansions that come back to you as higher production. I've written down where I get gold without paying a cent and where I put it so I don't waste it on a quick temptation in the shop.

Gold works differently from the dollars you handle every day

The game runs two separate currencies and each one is there for something else. You need dollars for the everyday running of the farm, you pay with them for almost everything in the Build and Farm management menus as well as for production costs, and you earn them mainly by selling your own products and as quest rewards.

Gold, on the other hand, is the premium currency. You use it to buy special buildings and decorations, to instantly finish production in progress or quests on the farm, and for other special features you simply can't buy with dollars. Precisely because you only ever have a limited amount of it, it pays to know in advance what you're going to spend it on.

You can earn gold without paying if you visit your farm regularly

The easiest source is the daily login bonus. The longer you keep coming back day after day, the more valuable the reward waiting for you, and in the reward calendar you'll find days that hand you gold directly, not just dollars or resources.

• Login day 4 - 30 gold
• Login day 5 - 50 gold
• Login days 25, 55, 90 and 115 - 80 gold each time

Another source is simply playing. You also get gold for reaching a higher player level and as a reward for completing certain quests on the farm, so it pays not to leave started quests hanging and to keep levelling up steadily. On top of that the game tracks long-term goals as well, such as the Quest Hunter achievement, which counts how many quests you've finished in total, and that shows just how much completing quests pays off in Big Farm.

The last route is the piggy bank. You collect gold into it by harvesting crops on your fields, so even the ordinary work around the farm gradually adds a little something extra.

Efficient buildings pay the investment back the fastest

The best use of gold I've found is buying the efficient versions of the basic buildings. The efficient chicken coop, efficient pigsty and efficient cowshed produce the same goods as the regular buildings, eggs, pigs or milk, always along with manure, but with a higher yield, and they're a fairly cheap investment right from a low level.

• Efficient chicken coop - 150 gold, available from the start, upgradeable all the way to level 10
• Efficient pigsty - 200 gold, unlocks at level 7, max. level 10
• Efficient cowshed - 300 gold, unlocks at level 13, max. level 10
• Efficient apple orchard - 400 gold, unlocks at level 5, max. level 9
• Fertile field - 350 gold, available from the start, max. level 11, it grows plenty of crops for further processing too
• Spacious barn - 450 gold, available from the start, max. level 12, storage capacity grows with every upgrade
• Fancy house - 250 gold, available from level 1, it houses more workers and they aren't as unhappy either

Every one of these buildings can be upgraded further once you've bought it, so a higher level means an even bigger yield. That's why I steer my gold here rather than into one-off decorations, because the investment comes back to me as more goods every single day.

Farm expansions deserve your gold when you want to progress faster

Expansions are the neighboring plots you use to make your farm bigger. Normally you unlock them with dollars once you reach the matching level, but gold lets you open a plot up before your level would allow it. That comes in handy when you're running out of room for more efficient buildings and don't feel like waiting several levels.

On a newly acquired plot you still have to clear the undergrowth, and every now and then an interesting little surprise is hiding in it.

Expansions have a secondary effect too. Once you buy 25 expansions on the main farm, the gourmet farm opens up for you, the same number of expansions on the gourmet farm then opens the flower farm, and buying every expansion on the flower farm finally unlocks the Decoration Valley. Buying expansions with gold can therefore be used as a shortcut to new farms before you'd reach them by player level alone.

Finishing production instantly saves time but deserves a second thought

You can also use gold to instantly finish production in progress or a quest on the farm without waiting for the timer to run out. It's convenient, but it's also the quickest way to burn through gold without anything lasting to show for it.

That's why I save this option for the moments when it genuinely makes sense, for example right before the end of a time-limited event when I need to squeeze in one last production run, or when I know I won't get back to the farm for a long while and production would otherwise sit idle for nothing. I wouldn't spend gold on shaving off ordinary short production times, because that same gold could show up as a new efficient building or an expansion instead.

Steer clear of expensive decorations and pointless spending

In the shop you'll also run into decorations whose price in gold is an order of magnitude higher than the efficient buildings, for example Evening fun at 79,000 gold or Sunrise at 49,000 gold. These pieces look great and raise happiness, but they don't have as direct an effect on production as efficient buildings, so I put them at the bottom of my priority list rather than the top.

Before you reach for the first tempting offer in the shop, check whether you can even build that building at your level, and save your gold up first for an efficient building or an expansion that brings you measurable benefit every day. The gold you spend on impulse for little things is exactly the gold you'll be missing when a building turns up that really moves your farm forward.

Buildings and products mentioned in the text

ShopFlower farm · from level 34 · 15 × 12Efficient chicken coopMain farm · 5 × 5Efficient cowshedMain farm · from level 13 · 8 × 5Efficient pigstyMain farm · from level 7 · 7 × 6Chicken coopMain farm · 5 × 5CowshedMain farm · from level 13 · 8 × 5PigstyMain farm · from level 7 · 7 × 6FieldMain farm · 8 × 6

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