Ignore rares - store them in your house/garage until you get the 2nd level scanner (saves 30g per scan and travel time)
- If you get a unique, go get those scanned as they'll almost always payout 200-300 profit
Unlock chests when you get them, they almost always break even at the least

Once you reach 1000g, do the following:
- upgrade repair tool to level 1 for the quest
- get a 2000g loan at 20 payments
- upgrade repair tool to level 2 immediately

This effectively doubles the value of any broken item you find and around 50% increase in any 'bad' item.

Now, run auctions until you earn up 2000g, then buy the level 2 scanner:
- This allows you to scan all those rares you've been saving up in your house and also repair them for huge money

Time to save up another 2500g, this time for the pawn shop.
- The 500g is so you can win another auction to feed the shop with

Pawn Shop Mechanics:
- Turn on auto-selling with the laptop on the desk before the store NPC. This will have the NPC automatically place items from the store warehouse into empty display spots for sale, saving you time and selling for up to 150% the items' listed value.
- The sale price/rarity of the item determines how the timer is until a customer buys that item (look at the store size page on the laptop to see the countdowns on each items in the shop) (UNIQUE items could take a day or so to sell but can earn up to 1000g)
- It's never worth haggling with a customer if you see the +/- over their heads. They'll just buy for the listed price after a few seconds anyways.
- After an item sells, you have to interact with the laptop on the front desk and click the money button in the top right to collect the money. There's no reason to keep money in the store.

NOTE: if you ever get a 'hidden' item, where a display is empty but the card shows a sale value, manually save the game and reload from that save. I had half my store blocked because of that and had to clear it.

Shop Upgrades:
- The game wants you to choose a shop specialization first, but the best upgrade to start out with is the display size upgrade, which doubles the spots you can put items up for sale. Remember, each item has its own timer that starts when its put up on sale, so the more spots you have to sell items, the faster your inventory rotates.

From here, you're set to follow the main quest or do whatever.

I'd highly recommend buying the pickup truck for 5000g once you unlock it. It goes 133mph and has a bigger bed than the beginner truck, which saves a lot of time.

And remember, time is money.

Have fun and good luck hitting the motherloads!