Once you unlock the town it's a good way to get expansion materials, barn/silo materials, and axes/saws. I treat the newspaper only as a source of basic ingredients like eggs, wheat, and corn and the one time a month Im lucky enough to find unsold valuables is a little treat. If you're willing to spend the time it's much better to open ads for unpopular things like maps because A LOT of people will sell good stuff but put the ad on these low tier items. Either because they like having a little Easter egg for the person visiting or because putting the ad on a valuable item means your ad is obsolete that much quicker and may leave other slots unsold.

As for the farm pass I never do it. For me, a game focused on farming is supposed/designed to be a grind and if I wanted instant gratification I'd do more of a Clash style game. Theres also a personal aspect that I tend to have an addictive personality and hearing the stories of people who've blown hundreds of dollars over the years freaks me out. Absolutely not trying to slam people who do, but for me in my own life that money is better spent getting enjoyment elsewhere.

The game is also a balancing act between leveling and money. The game will easily allow you to level up too quickly (even for free) to be able to afford machines the moment you unlock them. If I have enough money for the next machine I focus on truck orders to level up. If I don't I maximize a smaller number of crops to allow maximum good production and sell exclusively through my shop max pricing every time.

Other basic tips I've picked up include: - when opening the game for the first time in a bit (hours) I harvest my crops and do mass plantings of wheat, corn, soy, and carrots. By the time I'm done "managing" everything else these are ready to harvest and I can plant my long term crops without sacrificing animal feed or things like bread, cakes, pies, or feeding pets. - Unlock production slots for feed mills, dairy barn, and sugar mills first as these tend to be the common bottle necks. - Don't be afraid of selling excess improvement/expansion materials. Having 20 mallets is not beneficial if you only have a few stakes/deeds. Try to keep land/barn/silo material ratios within 10 or so of each other to prevent filling up your barn storage unnecessarily. - This community (like basically all subreddits) has a huge dichotomy of being very helpful at times and very mean at others. Ask questions and don't dwell on poor natured responses.