shake trees, gather fruit / flowers / bugs / fish / seashells and anything else you have that you don't want, take it to Re-Tail and sell it. you won't be able to get the tools until you have at least 1,000 bells. once you have enough go to nooklin junction on main street then he'll have usually the shovel or the fish rod / net, buy both of those and after you've talked to isabelle and cleared all her crap then talk to her: if you got the net say you want to catch fish and if you got the rod say you want to catch bugs, talk to her again and say you couldn't get the rod / net and she'll sell it to you for 500 bells. then ta-da! you have 3 of the tools and you can get the watering can from isabelle as the last thing she gives you or buy it from leif when you unlock the gardening store.
getting a house, make 10,000 bells and go talk to nook at nook's homes, give it to him as the down payment and the next day you'll have a house. you have upgrade the size and the look of your house but it'll cost a pretty penny so beware and save up.
tips: keep your letters, don't delete them. they can be used as another form of store, you can put pretty much anything in them except bugs and fish.
furniture: there's a lot of it so you'll need space to put everything. get a closet or dresser when you see one, even if you don't like the look of it, you can always buy a different one later. you can click and drag items into them by pressing Y to open the dresser / closet and then just dragging stuff into it. i didn't find this out until like . . . a day ago ( i'm so slow
sweatdrop ) but you'll see like A / B / C on the side of your thing when you're in the closet . . . click it and you get more slots to store stuff. it's really nice since you can use it to organize your items and it makes finding things so much easier.
i think i've told you pretty much everything i can think of the rest is basically stuff you'll find out for yourself the more you play the game. oh wait! ok, this REALLY helped me. so when you get the island unlocked ( i think you have to have been playing for a week? ) watch this and do what they say:
click to watch a youtube video and remember after 7pm is the best time and before you go up to a bug press A and HOLD it then let it go after you're close enough to catch it. this allows you to sneak up on it, which is really important because golden stags ARE TOUCHY B*TCHES and will fly off! and another tip sneak and watch the bugs movements. if it's moving a lot you can sneak up to it BUT IF IT'S NOT MOVING - DO. NOT. MOVE. some times EVEN IF YOU SNEAK you can scare them off. this drove me freaking nuts, the worst is the golden stag they fly off like that and bye bye bells. also when you're moving from tree to tree, look for fins sticking out of the water, that mean's sharks and they are worth a lot. and i'd say grab the axe from the gyriod and cut down the trees in the midde of that little grassy patch ( you might want to wait until you catch all the bugs you don't have yet for the musiuem, you can find them again when you play games on the island though so don't worry. it's just easier to leave to trees instead of doing the round about method if you need those ), but yeah cut them down and dig up the flowers bushes and tree stumps, pick the flowers too, they attract useless bug. then come at night, after 7pm ish and just keep going along the outside of the circle near the water and you'll see big fish / sharks and bugs. it's annoying going around and around i know but it's great for lots of bells. OH storage that's right, um take all your bugs / shark / anything else you want to get and put them into the storage box inside the little hut. DON'T SELL THEM TO THE LITTLE KAPPA GIRL, HER PRICES SUCK SO MUCH. fill your box all the way up and then go home and take everything to re-tail, sell it and then go back to the island and do it all over again until you don't want to anymore. you can deposit your bells into the bank, so do that every time you can.
if you need anymore help just send me a pm or comment. i'm no where near an expert on this game series, i just watch a lot of youtube videos and play like every day.
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