Overview
In this guide, we’ll take a look at the top five things you can do to help you succeed in Little Lives v0.88! These tips will include ways to increase your income and reduce spending, how to manage your time more efficiently, how to pick the best job for you, and more!**NOTE: I’m not entirely sure if I’ll create a new guide as the game is updated, or if I’ll just update this guide. I’ll be sure to make it clear as soon as I know for sure.**
1. Picking a place to live
Picking a place to live is incredibly important, especially during the early stages of the game. Every location has a different cost of living, and reducing the money you spend on living space can give you the money you need to go to college and get that promotion! The cost of each living location is listed below.
Housing Options
(Note: Square feet were calculated by spaces where objects can be placed, not overall size. For example, the low-income apartment actually has 42 squares, but only seven can have an object placed on them. For this reason, the low-income apartment only has 35 square feet.)
An important thing to consider when selecting a place to live is the distance between your home and your place of work. While the low-income apartment is very cheap, it’s also far away from places like the Bank of Westlake, the factory, and Tech-4-Cheap, all of which are important job locations in the early game. Another factor to consider is the size of each apartment. Hotel Magnifique is very close to good job locations and it’s very cheap, but the inability to add furniture makes it a difficult spot to live in.
So which apartment should you choose? Ultimately, that decision should be determined after considering the apartment cost, location, and size. For example, you might start your game working at Dave’s Donut Emporium for $11 an hour. This would leave you with around $440 of income per week, so you’d be more than capable of renting the low-income apartment. Then, you might become an assistant manager at the Bank of Westlake. Since this job pays $1,200 per week, you could move into the middle-class apartment, which would give you more free time since you would save about an hour by not having to drive as far to work every day. Just remember: you should always have enough money to pay for your apartment with just 75% of your weekly income because you never know when you’ll get sick or when a friend will need to talk to you.
Interior layout of each apartment:
2. Choosing a job
Choosing your place of work is yet another important decision to make in Little Lives. Your job will likely be your main source of income, unless you’re lucky enough to have friends who give you $100 bills frequently. There are three things to consider when choosing a job:
- Feasibility
Can you actually get this job? Make sure you take into account clothing requirements, experience requirements, education level, and job performance. While this may seem obvious, it’s easy to forget, and you could waste hours at the job office applying for jobs that you don’t even have a chance of getting! - Mobility
Does this job give you room to get promoted? If not, then it’s probably not a job you want to keep for long. Working at a place like the Bank of Westlake, the Downtown Hospital, or the factory will give you room to get promoted and make more money! It will also ensure your education is worthwhile since all of these jobs require one of the three available degrees to get promoted. - Location
Is this job close to your home? Remember that time is money, and time passes quickly in Little Lives! Being as close to your job as possible could make you hundreds in additional income, or it could give you more free time to go to the beach! Driving from the low-income apartment to Tech-4-Cheap takes over an hour, so do the math: is it worth it to move into the middle-class apartment? As a store manager, you make $26 per hour. This is equal to an additional $182 per week, which means moving to the middle-class apartment isn’t quite worth it. As a manager at the Bank of Westlake, however, that same one-hour difference would add up to $350 a week, which means moving apartments is probably a smart decision.
The perfect job would meet all of the requirements listed above. Financial freedom starts with a good career, so make sure you choose your job wisely!
3. Spending responsibly
SHOPPING!!! It’s fun! In Little Lives, however, spending more money than you should could be disastrous. Medical bills could cost you hundreds per week, and loans can be a struggle to pay back if you don’t pay them off quickly. Here are three tips to help you spend responsibly:
- Have an emergency fund
You can get sick at any time. You could get sick two days in a row. Aside from not being able to work as much while you’re sick, going to the hospital can also be pricey. Make sure you have at least $100 of spending money in your account at all times, unless you absolutely need to spend it. - Be a smart consumer
Balance how much use an object will give you compared to its cost. While you could get a bed for a few hundred dollars, it only gives you a 2X sleep multiplier. The mattress is just fifty dollars, and it gives you a 1.5X sleep multiplier. For that 0.5X difference, it probably isn’t worth it to spend hundreds of dollars on a bed when the mattress would do just fine. - Stay on top of loans
Loan payments increase by 1% every day. While this may not seem like much at first, a two-week $1,500 loan could have you spending an additional $225 if you don’t pay it back quickly. For that reason, you should only take loans when you desperately need money. After you take out a loan, try to pay it back as quickly as you can. This will ensure you don’t spend money on that pesky compound interest.
4. Continuing education
Education is crucial if you want to get a promotion and move up in the Little Lives world. Currently, there are three different college majors you can study at the University of Westlake: engineering, finance, and medicine. There are also three adult education classes you can take at the high school: painting, mechanical, and finance. Each of these tracks of study will open up new opportunities for you, so take a look at how each topic can help you below.
- Engineering/mechanical
The engineering major is the cheapest of the three majors offered at the Univerisity of Westlake, with the first year costing just $250. At the same time, the highest paying job you can get with an engineering degree is as a manager at the factory, which pays $60/hr compared to the $80/hr that finance and medicine majors could make. The “mechanical” skill is a necessity for anyone who wants to become a surgeon, which makes this major a good segway for those who aspire to eventually major in medicine. - Finance
Thanks to high pay in the early game, becoming a finance major just might be the best choice for most players. A first-year finance degree costs $300, which can be used to become an assistant manager at the Bank of Westlake. This position pays $30/hr, compared to the $20/hr that nurses make. Along with this, the highest position in the finance career path is a stockbroker, which pays a hefty $80/hr and requires a year four finance degree. - Medicine
Pursuing a career in medicine may not provide the same early payoff as the finance degree does, but the top-paying job still pays $80/hr, which is equal to the salary of a stockbroker. At the same time, a job in medicine does provide one fantastic benefit in the late game: location. The downtown hospital is very close to the high-end apartment, which gives you plenty of additional time that you might have otherwise spent driving.
Ultimately, the education path you take is a personal choice, but determining what job you aspire to have in the late game can make this decision much easier. When it comes to picking a major, there really is no wrong answer.
5. Collecting achievements
This section is mainly for the players who enjoy collecting all possible achievements in a game. As of 4/29/21, there are ten possible achievements to be collected in Little Lives. They are:
- “Stay at the hotel”
- “Travel 500 metres”
- “Travel 2000 metres”
- “Travel 10 kilometres”
- “Travel 50 kilometres”
- “Get a job”
- “Rent an apartment”
- “Buy a new vehicle”
- “Make a new friend”
- “Get promoted”
Almost all of these achievements occur naturally in the course of gameplay. The two achievements that may leave some players puzzled are “make a new friend” and “get promoted,” so I’ll explain how to obtain both of these achievements here.
“Make a new friend”
Friends are made randomly by going to work every day. As of now, there is no progression to relationships, meaning you are unable to date or marry any of the friends you meet. The developer stated that relationships will likely be improved upon in future updates.
“Get promoted”
Many players have been confused by the in-game promotion system, so luckily the game developer has provided us with an explanation of how the promotion system works:
Originally posted by mip-mat:Getting promoted will eventually happen if your Job Performance is above 60%, you’ve had the job for at least 3 days, and you meet the hiring requirements for the promotion job. After you have all of that, there’s a 10% chance each time you work that you’ll get promoted to the new job.
Support the developer
That’s all for this guide! I have no affiliation with Houndstooth Games or with the Little Lives game itself, but if you’d like to support the creators of Little Lives I’ve listed a few of the ways you can help below 🙂
Buy the game
[link]
Join the Discord server
[link]
Follow Little Lives on Twitter
Tweets by littlelivesgame
The end
Thank you so much for reading my guide! This is the first guide I’ve ever created, so hopefully it’s good. Follow me on Steam I guess? Is that a thing? I mean I have a group where I review games so join that I suppose. The link is here for those who want it. Thanks again! 🙂