This is the money route I put together for anyone starting Cheap Car Repair and feeling flat broke — a fast, repeatable way to stack cash on the very first in-game day and pick up an achievement while you are at it. It works from the moment the story lets you ride into town, so you do not need an upgraded car or any late-game gear to pull it off.
The reason I sat down and wrote this is simple: hauling logs around the sawmill for pocket change drove me up the wall, and mushroom money turned out to be so much faster that I wanted other players to skip the slow grind entirely. The one thing you absolutely need is a mushroom basket — grab at least one early and the whole loop clicks.
Where the Money Is
The route is basically a triangle: leave the yard, find the right old lady, then farm a mushroom patch until your baskets are stuffed. Do it once and you will know the loop by heart. Here is the flow from the very start.
- As soon as the story lets you ride into town, jump on your bike, leave the yard and turn left, then follow the main asphalt road north to the intersection with the other asphalt road.
- On the way, duck into the various courtyards looking for a mushroom basket — you want at least one before you go any further.
- At the crossroads, turn right (east). You can take the turn as sharply or as gently as you like, and if you overshoot, just loop back around — it really is not that strict.
- Keep rolling along the asphalt until, on your left, you spot a granny with an exclamation mark by the roadside. That is the side mission — she is the one selling pickled vegetables with mushrooms.
- Talk to her, accept the mission, and complete it quickly. Doing this also teaches you the mushroom-collecting mechanic, which is about as complicated as it sounds (not very).
- Then take every basket you can find right out from under her nose — I recall there being about two of them.
- Hop back on the bike and ride the opposite way, back to the crossroads, and head straight through it (west).
- On your right you will find a field — not a pretty one, but it is the one you want. Steer straight into it. The bike handles the plowed ground fine, chain holds, and it chugs along like a tractor.
- Head for the marked spot below.
As you get close to the tree line you will see wooden posts — follow those and they will lead you right into the resource-rich spot you are after.
Farming the Mushroom Patch
The patch respawns mushrooms over time, and when it does you get a full thirteen at once. Gather them into your basket. Watch the colors, because they are not all orange — the brown caps blend into the muddy ground and are genuinely easy to miss, so take a slow pass before you leave.
Once your basket is full, save your game manually. Then load that save, and the mushrooms are back in the ground while your basket still reads 13/50. Yes, that basket holds fifty mushrooms. Repeat the loop until every basket you have is completely full:
- 1 basket if you are still getting around by bus
- up to 3 baskets if you had enough money for a bike
- up to 9 baskets if you have saved up for a car
Then ride back to the granny (east again) and sell her your haul. One full basket comes out to 150 zloty, which works out to 3 zloty per mushroom. Compare that to hauling logs from the sawmill, cutting them, stuffing crates, and driving them off for pennies — the mushrooms are faster, simpler, and far more profitable.
Skip the Logging Completely
My honest advice: do not touch the logging business at all. Do not spend any of your time in-game on cutting down trees — not for the first neighbor who offers to buy your firewood at 1 zloty per piece (about 30 per crate), and not for the second buyer later on at 2 zloty per piece (about 60 per crate). It is not worth the detour when the mushroom loop pays out this well, and you get to keep the forest standing while you are at it.
Two small things worth knowing. Occasionally — I would guess it is a bug — you can get two mushrooms spawning at once from a single mushroom spot. And while you are farming, you are also ticking off the Mushroom King achievement for collecting 200 mushrooms, so the grind pays you twice.
That is the whole route. Grab a basket, find the patch, save and reload until your baskets overflow, and sell it all to the granny — easy money from day one, plus an achievement on the side. Wishing you good luck with the rest of your collection.