Someone posted in a separate thread that they were struggling with enough coins for expansion. It reminded me that there are so many ways of playing and where I am in the game and what has worked for me is different than most of what I?ve read, so I thought I?d mention it unless someone is in a similar place. I played for years but I stopped for a while and had a coin shortage for the first time ever when I started playing again. I have a lot of open storylines for the first time and there are more frequent updates I want to participate in, so it?s harder to devote energy to items for coin collection. Event collections don?t yield nearly as many coins as my usual money making collections, but I enjoy them. What has helped me the most is to set aside the mermaid and gnomish goals as ?extra energy? collections since they are really expensive storylines. Right now I focus on one story at a time, along with the current event, and I?m starting to stock up coins again through regular gameplay. With mermaid and gnomish goals I focus more on collecting from chests, etc. instead of chopping expensive objects. I?ll eventually come back to chopping for these but in the meantime I can continue to slowly expand while actually playing. I still have many plots where I?ve paid the lanterns and expansion permits but can?t yet part with a million coins but this has helped me.