Darien, I kind of know how you feel. I'm truly trying to like it but I find I still enjoy my original Virtual Families far more. I know you must have patience and all but it really does seem to take far longer to get any type of "reward" from this version than it did from the original. And yes, the salaries are higher, and yes, some items are not more expensive, but many things are far more expensive than they were in the original. I've read that the items cost the same in the iOS version as the PC version but they only get half the salary in the iOS version as they do in the PC version. Glad I read that cause that means I definitely don't want to get it for my Android if they ever do come out with an Android version.