Is there an easy way to make money outside randomly checking the safe or farming talismans?
Yes and I've detailed it in past quotes but with this new update you can make even more money doing it, but I haven't yet found the optimal path for doing so.
The main body of which is selling plants to Pricia. For one green gensing ($250), one red gensing ($600), and one maca plant ($1,000) she will give you $1,850. You can only have one of each in your inventory or else they will not regenerate.
These plants take less than five minutes to find all three. The maca plant will always be on maca island. The other two will randomly generate in the park the vast majority of the time. They will very rarely generate at the library, Janet's front lawn, or Estero Key.
I've filled up the trash can at Squallmart with as many Maca and Red Gensing as I can. I have figured out that you need to leave Squallmart and go to some other location to maximize your take-home of the potion. The only real variable I see left is whether to sell the plants to Pricia before or after going to the safe.
In a limited batch of runs made the $1850 from Pricia and 3 out of 4 times made $1560 from the safe. The 4th run I found both Gensing plants quickly and only took home $1,020 from the safe plus the standard $1850 from Pricia.