There is a simple version of this and a complete version, and both are below in that order.

Short answer

Slow and reliable first, fast second — the reverse order costs more time than it saves.

Advice written for launch conditions is the most common source of confusion here. There is a version of this that takes ten minutes and a version that takes an evening, and both are valid. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it.

Where to start

It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. The step people skip is the one that makes the rest work. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively.

The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. Where the game contradicts its own documentation, the game wins. Small habits compound faster than any single technique.

What to do next

If something feels harder than described, the difference is usually a missing prerequisite. Consensus and correctness overlap less than the upvote count suggests. A recommendation without a reason cannot be adapted when your situation differs.

  • Prefer the version with fewer moving parts.
  • Write down where you started, so you can describe the problem if you need help.
  • Give a method one honest attempt before deciding it does not work.
  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Prefer the official source wherever one exists.

When the usual advice fails

Doing something the slow way once teaches more than doing it the fast way ten times. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. Advice that worked for someone else may have depended on something they never mentioned.

Half of what gets described as a bug is a design decision people dislike. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have.

The order that matters

If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Trying the obvious thing first is underrated and costs almost nothing. The right approach depends on where you are, and most advice assumes a starting point it never states.

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. Knowing what to skip is worth as much as knowing what to do. The first attempt should be about understanding the shape of the problem.

The practical answer

Two sources disagreeing usually means one of them stopped being updated. Most guides optimise for efficiency, which is not always what you want from a game. Consensus forms early and updates slowly, which is why the top result can be years stale.

Where people go wrong

  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.
  • Assuming a page is current because it ranks first.
  • Testing on a modified install and reporting the result as normal behaviour.

GTA V FAQ

Is there a faster method?

Sometimes, at the cost of reliability. Where that trade exists it is described rather than recommended blindly.

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

Is this still accurate after the latest GTA 5 update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

Is this specific to one platform?

The reasoning is not. Anything that genuinely differs by platform is called out where it comes up.

That is the whole of it — if something here stops matching GTA 5, the game changed, not the method.