Balancing rural budgets

[BuffaloMaine 4]

Hi there! I'm new to the game and the forum. I've managed to find most information that I've needed for upgrades, etc. on here but one thing I'm having trouble finding is how to maintain a balanced budget for a really nice rural city. I'm sure part of the problem is that I'm using a lot of NEXIS' farms (which cost upkeep), but I'm trying to get a truly authentic rural look going here. Since the majority of the money comes from residential and industrial (non-ag) taxes, I'm unsure precisely how to keep the budget balanced. Anyone have any experience and/or suggestions in this area? Many thanks!

For those who are interested: I'm running SC4 Deluxe on a MacBook Pro with OSX 10.6.8. Found a few bugs with NAM add-ons, but otherwise have had a relatively bug-free experience so far despite numerous plugins.

[Cob92 360]

Use the SPAM farms instead, and maybe some custom farms from SC4D. They produce tax revenue like normal farms but look more realistic.

[Simcitymaster13 27]

There's always good old fashion cheats.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Don't cheat, but don't rush. SPAM is great but skip its traffic controller which conflicts with NAM.

Start with a street cross, put a few low density housing along two sides and include a couple of low density commercial. One wind power tower.

Six farms, and run one branch of the road off the edge for exports.

Will go profitable pretty soon.

Add stuff as the treasury will bear it. Start with a fire station.

Water will improve buildings, but is not needed initially.

[EyeofMobius 27]

The taxable farms are the way to go for farming as already stated. For city beautification Mayor mode plopables, especially trees, are the best way to go in my experience since they help without having any upkeep cost. Water is negligible and maybe only have it in a little town core. The ratio of R to I-Ag if find to work is ensuring you have more than 75% I-Ag. I am currently working on a rural region with linked communities and the demand from one tile to the next varies that sometimes I build less than 10% Residential. I find education to also be not really important but health is reasonably important for reducing abandonment due to a low sim life expectancy.

[BuffaloMaine 4]

Cool! Thanks for the advice everyone!