I can answer this easily. I've recently passed the 4,000 hour mark- legitly too, no leaving it on while doing something else, or sleeping, I really do play it, and thought about what I did at the beginning. It's pretty much what I do when I began all my other games. Other than working off Nook (I don't miss that!), I started grinding out for bells. Back in June, 2013 when I started New Leaf and was playing 8 to 12 hours a day what I'd do is "test the waters" to see what all developers kept from past games. I'd talk and talk and talk and talk to my villagers- thankfully, they removed the "annoying" or "angry" action the villagers had when doing that, and now they seem to be like- sorry, I need some time to think about stuff, and go into "thought mode" where they talk about other stuff, unlike before where they'd yell at you for talking to them!
I cut it way down to about 4 to 5 hours a day now. What do I do? Well, I have 4 players, and each one of them gets a money rock, so I find them all with them. Sometimes, depending on the player I use I'll either be really nice to certain villagers, or in the case of one, she's meaner than the Devil being drunk! She'll bop them with the hammer, shove them, etc. My mayor character then is the final one to start, he's super nice to them all- why not he wants to stay being the mayor since they vote anonymously when he's not around! Then, I go to my shop, buy all the items whether or not I have them in the catalog. If I don't have enough money, and what I did especially early on was an old AC trick of grinding for bells.
If you're going to stay legit, and want money, but don't have a shovel or rod, then use seashells to sell over and over and over. You've got 2 options for this. Play, a crazy long time going to villager after villager after villager talking their ears off (mostly what I did), or sell them all, save, quit, restart, collect them, sell them, save, quit, repeat, over and over. You'll pass a LOT of time doing that, and you'll legitly play without time travel.
So, now I cut it way down, and make sure I do 2 things everyday. One, all villagers outside have to "ping" me- I make sure I never miss a move request now more than ever, and the second is to make sure I talk to all 10. I know I can afford to miss one day with at least one of those, but I don't want to take that trip down a slippery slope, so I continue to play until I find that 10th "hidden" one (often times they seem to teleport around!) and make sure all 5 outside give me notice by pinging me. If they don't, then I continue to run around until they do. A quick word of advice, once you've pass the 1 hour mark, and they're all like maybe you should take a break- I skip that by closing the 3DS, and opening it. Even though it was in sleep for just a second, it counts as your "break" as long as your gates aren't open, and no one is in your town. If either of those is true, you won't break even if it's in sleep mode!
