As a longtime player of Fallout 76, I’ve come to appreciate that managing your caps isn’t just a side activity—it’s a core part of the survival experience. While everyone knows about selling weapons to robot vendors or setting up a CAMP vendor, there are several underused strategies that can significantly boost your wallet without grinding your soul away.

If you’re tired of feeling strapped for currency, here are five often-overlooked methods to maintain a healthy stash of Fallout 76 caps.

1. Become a Water Baron

It sounds simple because it is. Industrial Water Purifiers are your best passive income friends. Place as many as your CAMP budget allows in a body of water. Every time you return to your CAMP, you’ll find purified water waiting. Collect it, and either sell it directly to vendor bots or, even better, sell it to other players via your vending machine for a cap or two each. It’s a steady, reliable trickle of income that requires almost zero effort after the initial setup.

2. Master the Art of “Junk Flipping”

Many players sell bulk junk to vendor bots, but the real profit lies in knowing what not to sell. Items like gold and silver scrap, fiber optics, or nuclear waste have a much higher value to other players than to robots. Instead of offloading these for a handful of caps, sell them in your player vendor for a premium. Players who are tired of farming will gladly pay for convenience. This simple shift in what you define as “vendor trash” can dramatically increase your earnings.

3. Hunt for Treasure Maps

It’s easy to accumulate treasure maps and forget about them. Don’t. These maps lead to buried stashes that contain not just plans and weapons, but also a ton of easily overlooked junk, aid items, and pre-war money. Pre-war money itself scraps into cloth, which can be bulked and sold, but the real value is in the haul of items you can immediately turn around and sell to vendor bots. It’s a fantastic way to clear a vendor’s 1400 daily caps limit quickly.

4. Cook and Sell Excess Meat

After a hunting spree, you’re often left with piles of raw meat. Instead of letting it spoil or dropping it, cook it. Grilled Radstag, for example, not only sells for a decent amount but also gives a carry weight boost—making it a hot commodity. Cooked meals generally have a higher value-to-weight ratio than their raw components, making them efficient to carry and sell. This turns a common byproduct of exploration into a solid revenue stream.

5. Capitalize on Event Rewards

Public Events are great for loot, but be strategic. Events like "Radiation Rumble" or "Uranium Fever" shower you with gear from defeated enemies. Instead of scrapping everything, be selective. Pick up the higher-value weapons (assault rifles, shotguns, laser rifles) from legendary enemies, and after the event, fast travel to the nearest station. Use the nearby workbench to scrap all the common gear for mods and materials, but sell the more valuable intact weapons directly to the vendor bot. This maximizes your scrap gains while also converting your heavy loot into a quick caps injection.

A final word of caution: in your quest for Fallout 76 caps, you’ll inevitably see offers for Fallout 76 caps for sale on third-party websites. I strongly advise against this. Not only does it violate Bethesda’s Terms of Service, risking a ban, but it also undermines the in-game economy and the sense of accomplishment that comes from building your wealth legitimately.

By integrating these methods into your routine, you’ll find your caps reserves growing steadily. It’s all about working smarter, not just harder.