so is there another way to make the money to get sweet armor

After every battle walk around picking things up with L1 and X to put them straight to your box. then sell everything you won't use

picking up shit laying around the yard is a waste of time. You get 1/10th of what it's worth and that stuff sucks anyway. There's no "easy" way to make money in this game. The most productive way is to have what I like to call "full fights". That is, don't just kill everyone as fast as you can. Learn to dodge and parry. Fighting defensively is THE KEY to big bonus money for EVERY FIGHT! Here's the easiest scenario I can think of.
You get into one of those fights where it's you against 15 or 20 guys. Kill everyone down to the very last guy...and take your time with him. When it's down to just 1 on 1, use this opportunity to dodge, dodge, dodge! If you can manage to string together 20+ dodges in a row, you can get bonuses that can double or sometimes TRIPLE the amount of the prize purse! That beats the shit out of picking up all those crappy weapons on the ground! I've personally managed to have a "Free Man" fighter in about 22 days of fighting! No Lie!!