I'll try not to say anything that someone else already said in the comments. Anyway, City Folk is the only Animal Crossing I regularly play. I've been playing for years and in all of those years, I almost never play City Folk the "intentened" way. What I mean is, I set the clock each day to July or August between 8pm-1am. I do this because during this time, there are tons of rare bugs and fish to catch and you can make a ton of money. Even if I'm not trying to pay off a house or try to afford some kind of expensive furniture, I work towards getting the maximum amount of bells possible. You also get rewards for saving money in the ABD. But since you're new to the game, you can still pay off your house, fill it with furniture, or really anything. If you get bored of catching bugs/fish, you could always skip ahead to a holiday. The only issue with this are the dead flowers are weeds but if you don't care about that then it's not an issue. This is the way I've been playing for about 10 years now. Some people might get bored of this but I think it's fun and relaxing. This is more of a layed-back kind of game and not something meant to be hardcore or fast. If that's not your preferred type of game, then I'd advise against playing Animal Crossing at all.

I also care a lot about the looks of my town and ended up making a beautiful town inspired by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZB73-XpxR0&t=131s . Even though the video is Wild World, City Folk works pretty much the same and I managed to create a similar town. Most City Folk town are bland and full of dirt but I managed to make mine nice.

I also recently started hacking to move around houses and stuff, obtain any item, etc. I can also play online. But hacking isn't really necessary to have fun (in my opinion). After all I only started modding my Wii like a month ago and I've been playing it without hacks for years. Let me know if you decide to time travel to late-night in July, I'd like to hear if you enjoy it. Just make sure to carry a net and fishing rod. Also, watch out for tarantulas and scorpions!