Cure the Cash Flow Blues

So many people seem to struggle to make enough money in warcraft. Here are some tips to make it a lot easier.

1: Buy the biggest bags you can afford and upgrade them when you can. Bigger bags means you can carry more stuff and spend more time in the field.

2: As soon as you can afford it after level 5, get trained in at least one gathering skill, preferably two. Gathering skills that work well for novices are probably skinning and one of mining or herbalism. Remember to buy the equipment needed as well. Enchanting is a good gathering skill for more experienced players, when used for its Disenchant ability. In a pinch, Jewelcrafting's Prospect ability can be considered a gathering skill, but requires a supply of ores.

3: Take the items you gather and sell them on the auction house. Ores can be sold, as can bars. Just check to see which has the higher going rate. Herbs and leathers sell fairly well, though unprocessed hides tend not to be so successful. Befriend a leatherworker and pay them to process them for you.

4: Never throw away loot. Take any of the grey equipment and sell to the vendors. Any cloth that you aren't using yourself should be kept and sold on the auction house. White and Green quality items can be used or sold on the auction house. Bind on pickup items can be disenchanted. Blue bind on equip items should be sold on the auction house or directly on /trade channel in cities.

5: Know the value of items. Websites like Thottbot often have average values for items but each server is different. Make sure you check the auction house or ask in /trade before selling or auctioning white or better items.

6: Install an auction house mod to assist in pricing. Auctioneer is one of the best: http://www.auctioneeraddon.com/ Auctioneer requires a daily 10 minute scan of the auction house to get full pricing details. You should do this for at least a week then keep it up to date by a complete scan every few days from then on.

7: Take some note of the deposit costs to list items on the auction house. Plate and Mail items are often quite expensive to list so be sure you set a price that will sell. Also be sure to put both a bid and a buyout price on items, since lazy people will hit buyout to get the item instantly rather than wait for the auction to expire. Items without buyouts often do not sell.

8: Take advantage of people's laziness. Many vendors around the world have recipes for sale. Some are limited run items on a timer. Nearly all of these can be bought and resold on the auction house for at least 300% profit. Be careful not to flood the market with any one item.

9: Resist the temptation to buy anything except bigger bags from the auction house. The gear you get from quest rewards and instance dungeons is more than adequate to level up in. Don't waste money on getting low level items enchanted either. You will soon outgrow the item.

10: Create a second character that is to act as your bank and salesperson. Give them a starting fund and mail all your saleable items to them. Run them up to the nearest capital city and let them log out next to the mailbox. This means your main character has less downtime between trips. Postage is very cheap, a handful of copper per transaction.

Using these tips it is easily possible to have the gold needed for your mounts at 30 and 60. The same strategies will serve you well all the way till level 80, where you can change your professions to do crafting if you wish.