I've several times played hoods where Sims started with just a 1x3 or 2x2 vacant lot and had to build a house from scratch as the money came in, but this time my Sims are living in apartments (because, realistically, you can't buy a plot of land for the price of a single rent payment).

It's Saturday, so the rent will be coming due after a couple more rotations. At least four, possibly five, of my seven families will not have enough money to pay, so I'm just curious as to how people deal with this. Do you just give them money? Do you let them borrow from the Loan Jar or Monique's computer? Do you move them to a smaller apartment, if they have enough to pay the lower rent? Do you make them sell furniture, or just wait for the landlord to come in and take whatever he likes? (And what happens if he takes Monique's computer when the Sim has an outstanding debt on there?)

have often used money cheats to increase sim money.

Money cheat or sell something.

(hypothetically If that were to happen) Stuff things in the inventory after the bill warning so landlord won't have anything to take.

Start digging in the yard for treasure. Throw away whatever you find..or go to a community lot that has land to dig in and do it there. Don't forget to cover up whatever holes you make!

Well, I don't have Apartment Life, so that particular situation never arises.
However, in my game richer Sims can lend (or occasionally give) money to poorer Sims. This is especially relevant for business finance. In general the Sim advancing the money will expect interest payments or a share of the profits. No one has foreclosed yet, but Consort Capp is beginning to lose patience over the lack of repayments from Scott Moore, who runs the little grocer's shop in Poet Place.

Of course for the really poor in and around Veronaville there is the Capp Charitable Institution for the Assistance of the Deserving Poor of Veronaville and its Environs. This venerable body is established to make low-interest and interest-free loans, and indeed on occasion grants, to those deemed by the Committee worthy of its support. The Committee consists of Consort Capp (Chairman) and his grandson Tybalt (Treasurer).

In my game, If a family isn't able to pay their bills to the point the repo man comes multiple times a week, I move them out. If they are too poor to afford another home, I'll move them on a homeless lot or move them in with family/friends. Using money cheats is a no-no for me. Also, digging in the ground isn't realistic to me, so my sims don't do it. Taking out a loan will just add more to the debt (If you can't pay $200, how can you pay $2,000 + interest?).

I'll just have my Sims sell their stuff until they can pay, but I try not to let that happen.

If the repo guy or landlord take something it's time to move them out. My cheapest rental is my hostel where all you pay is for a bedroom since bathrooms and eatery are public areas. If you can't afford that it's the homeless lot for you. Which also means you lose your job. However I do allow them to go do side jobs like working as a barista or DJ, some might go and try to earn money is dance or cooking contests ($600 for winning) if the rent is way expensive, I would say, what are they doing in such an expensive place? $5K will buy a family a council house so hostel living and saving can get you that, especially if you work side jobs. Only well-off families in my game live on 2 by 2 lots. My game is full of 1 by1 and 1 by 2 lots.

Loan jar and such is only for sims getting loans for businesses, not for rent.

How much is this rent and how many sims in the family?

I never cheat money unless it's on startup for setting up certain families due to story. For example, when I made my major he was given extra cash. Cheating money is boring-having sims be poor I find is way more interesting. keeping one step ahead of the debt collectors I find rather fun.
On my very poor farming family whose stock died I had them dig for treasure and sell whatever they found as a home business. They also knitted clothes and sold paintings all winter and now have managed to buy back a bull and 2 cows, so I am hopeful they will get back on their feet. I don't allow all sims to dig for treasure, what sideline I let sims have depends on where they live, what they do for a living and what their hobby is.
My sims who owned a restaurant were allowed to use the perk and write restaurant guides, my mayor could give financial counselling. That man is so in debt he is doing it feverishly to make the payroll of my teachers while paying off other debt. I did take pity on him since Monique's computer is brutal in its interest rates and switched his loan over to the loan jar. I just said he switched loans and took some better financial advice.
Sometimes I will move a family to another lot and use a loan shrub. They do need to either be close to the cash needed or it needs to be a business. The fire chief needed a better fire station lot, they used a few loan shrubs.

Or else this-(cheaty, but whatever-desperation will do the trick): the money tree that a pixel acquires in aspiration points. Make sure to water it, because you want it to survive on until the funds come rolling in.
But generally now I have them move into their house, and put whatever funds not needed into the bank (aka Monique's bank) and it does grow interest over time. You can take funds out to cover the rent.

My sims always have enough money to pay by Tuesday. I think one time I had to have one sell something, but usually they are okay. Their bigger problem occurs on Sunday which is tax season in all my hoods. Taxes run from 10 to 90% of income after deductions, so there are often problems in reaching the required amount. One hood mandates a room mate be provided for the first offense. The room mate comes with money, so, hopefully, that solves the problem. If not, the family is sentenced for life to the prison province.

In another hood, taxes are extremely high so people usually seek room mates or borders on their own. Repeated offenses will also result in the penal colony for them.

The final hood has a temporary welfare system. People who occasionally have trouble with taxes are given a one-time grant from the government.

Cyjon's loan jar is actually very useful for this. You can borrow money, the sims go into debt until they can pay it off, and they accumulate interest in the meantime.

I play with halves wages, and because of that I actually have a hack that halves apartment rent, though. Apartments should not wind up being much more expensive than houses.

Depends on my mood.

Sometimes, I cheat. Sometimes, I have them sell all but the necessities except an easel, and paint paint paint. One or two Sims have become prostitutes or paid escorts. (The rent payment mod is useful here.) Sometimes, other Sims hire the poorer Sims in their businesses. Sometimes, the poorer Sims take in a roommate. There are quite a few ways to go about this.

I'll use Monique's computer for loans or I'll have some sort of story-related purpose for one Sim to give money to another. For example, Mila Fairchild had a kid with the founding family's heir (who was married and had several children) and proceeded to blackmail him into sending her $10,000 as hush money. Other Sims may ask their parents for some cash, and if those parents are kind, they'll lend a hand.

If a Sim is consistently unable to pay rent, they get moved to the 'hood homeless shelter and save money until they can afford a cheap place. Like several others in this thread, I find that cheating money doesn't suit me, and I'd rather see what kinds of stories I can pull from my Sims' lack of money. Are they poor because they'd rather party than work? Do they keep producing children? What can they do to fix it? Do they want to fix it? How will their kids grow up: will they follow in their parents' footsteps, or are they more ambitious? Will they decide not to have children because they learned that kids are a lot of money, and they don't feel parenting is worth the financial strain? Will they instead wait until later in life to have kids and teach their children the importance of money and budgeting? I could go on, because a lot can come from a situation like this.

I played with apartments in my last 'hood but I want to mod them before I try with my BACC hood, so this is all based on house lots.

However, I will say that if the repo-man shows up in my game, it's almost guaranteed that it's because I forgot to pay the bills.

Thanks for the ideas, everyone! I'm really just trying to find a balance between making it too easy and making it impossible. Sims should be able to get ahead eventually, but I want it to be hard for them, maybe even take a generation or two. Home ownership is what they dream of, but until they can buy a Maxis house outright they have to stick to renting, even if buying would be cheaper.

The families: one family has one child and another on the way, the rest have between two and five children. They're all fresh out of CAS, except the aged-down Goodies, so nobody is yet related to anybody in another household. Rents are between $1900 and $2500 (Maxis two- and three-bedroom apartments). They were given only very limited start-up funds, so some of them already have loans from Monique's computer for furnishings. Most Sims don't have proper jobs, because most career tracks aren't open yet, and those who do have stopinators until the higher levels are open. Welfare is $600 per adult per week (Social Security Recipient career track). The Goodies are okay because they're in a one-bedroom with a rent of $900, so they have $300 left after paying the rent. There's one other family that might be able to scrape their rent together by Tuesday.

I should probably give them more community lots, since those come with not-too-easy ways of earning tiny amounts of money. I'd forgotten about contests; so far, nobody has a hobby lot card, so they'd be limited to gaming contests at Interactive, but the teens could try that. A couple of them have rolled a want to get a roommate, so I think I'll allow it - getting a lodger is a realistic way to cut the rent. And I should maybe let the teens sign up for Social Security, which gives them $450 a week, since it doesn't really make sense that a family of seven should get the same as a couple with no children. Between a lodger and 'Child Benefit', plus what they could earn on a community lot, they should be able to scrape together most of what they need. Then I can put caps on how much they can borrow from Cyjon's Loan Jar at each interest level - the interest rate gets higher as they get increasingly desperate and turn to loan sharks, with the Repo Man and debtors' prison always a possibility on the horizon for those who are too careless with their expenditure.

I think that should work. Thank you!

Can you give me the download link? Those high rents were one of the main reasons I don't like apartments at all.

For dept, I use Cyjon's loan jar. If (hypothetical situation, hasn't happened yet) there's no way a family can pay back the loan, I sell everything which isn't directly necessery, until I just have to delete the jar to let them live on their own property. I don't want them to be slaves.

Well that's why then, that is far too much room and rent goes by room, the 'square meters' of a place. Anything above 1K is luxury in my book.

I have my council houses for upload on here if you want them, only 10K each. http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=504400 Hostel http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=501683

If you get the 'welfare table' you can have a source of steady income (depending on the skills) for anyone who is not employed-and teens can apply for them as well.

I use it for those who lose their jobs and don't have an immediate interest in getting a job-but it ends the second they do get one. (as it should be).

welfare table?

Mootilda linked to it-it's a table that spawns a teen worker, and a pixel can "apply for benefits"-if they're unemployed, they can get them based on their skills, and update when they improve them. They can also claim children in their benefits. I'll see if I can find the link for it..but despite all my searching, I cannot.

I do have the mod, and I'm about to post it on my mediafire file. It should be up in an hour or so. I'll be posting that link when it's up. To save time and trouble.

EDIT: Here's the link to that mod. For the life of me, I could not find the original file in my downloads-and I know I have it. What I've uploaded is a text-edited version that I edited to sound more in line with what the usual welfare application and process is-I only edited the text lines, nothing else, and the mod is intact for all other interactions:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/4h8wb...-edited.7z/file

@FranH Was it this one?
http://www.modthesims.info/showthre...are#post3891484

Ninja'd by Simsample, and thank you! I did put one up on my link as well. People can choose what they want.

Huggles to you, Sim!

(and I'm re-downloading the original, just in case...)

Send them to a community lot to work at an espresso cart or bar, or play music for tips. I have one sim who is unemployed and he makes all his money off playing music and firedancing down at the boardwalk, and occasional bar tending.

The real issue is the Maxis apartments, which are inexplicably ridiculously expensive. I usually build my own and even though I use inexpensive furnishings, it's still a fraction of what Maxis apartments are for the same size space.

I don't have this problem often, not even since adding No 20K Handout to my mod folder. The first time I played the Newsons they had plenty of money but they had a visit from the RepoMan because Gavin and I were too stressed to remember about bills. And that's the only time I've seen him, apart from when I needed a RepoMan memory for a kid in Bigg City, and they just ignored bills until he showed up.

I've had a couple of close calls, but I always manage somehow. Sometimes I just let the debt hang until it's coverable. This isn't normally very long. Candy Hart almost couldn't pay her rent come Monday because Junior Mann kept forgetting her child support, but she finished a book just in time and then got on Junior's case about it. Also, she befriended the landlord, if you know what I mean and I think you do, so her rent isn't very high. The Strangetown Newsons don't have much in the way of margin, but when Gavin visits the Smiths he'd be influenced to do yardwork and given a piece of artwork in payment. This is also how Junior pays child support. Now Gavin and Ginger are in college and the twins are grown up, Gallagher has a job cashiering at Johnny Smith's nursery. Bad News Bev once spent so much money on clothes that the sorority couldn't pay bills, but the girls all hang onto their date flowers and once every bouquet in the house had been sold they were all right till they got their grant money. Most of my sims accumulate a fair amount of creativity without any effort on my part, so busking and novel writing are also important sources of income.

Well, there is also the automatic rent payer by Simwardrobe under the SFS listing that Bulbasaur put up last year:
http://simfileshare.net/folder/15687/

But I've never had problem with paying either the rent or the bills, as the pixels make way too much money, even when they're not employed. That apartment lot must be one heck of an expensive one!

The most expensive one I've made so far is only about $600 a week, and that's comparable to apartments big cities now in real life (at least in smaller cities. Don't think NYC on this one..)