There's two main tactics in Simcity4 to help prevent mass money lossage
1) The game is truly designed for regional play....you should have a few surrounding cities to help support your main city
2) Things like power plants drain your money like mad at the start...just start off using a few wind powered plants. Or even better setup another city next to you with a power plant and then sell the electricity to your main city...then you have as much energy as you need but only spend what you use and no worries about facility maintanance.
I'm a little hooked on the game too =)
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