Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!

Goodnight 2013

Last year, I called 2012 a humdinger of a year, well this year I'm calling 2013 a rollercoaster - periods of intense activity and an awful lot of waiting around, faffing and generally not doing much at all!

I started the year on a high - Stateside for New Year's Eve and my birthday was an amazing experience, made all the better by being in the company of someone very special to me. It was his encouragement that gave me the idea for my 20 Days of Gold Making meme which turned out to be one of the best ideas I've had for a long time! Over 25 other bloggers joined in and for most of January, the gold blogging community was regaled with stories of how we got to where we were in gold making and some of the pitfalls and successes we'd had along the way.

Late in January, I also started my email newsletter - a simple way to get my posts delivered directly to your email inbox and a great way to get around workplace internet restrictions! I wrote a few extra posts to send out just for subscribers and I have more planned so if you haven't signed up yet, why not? Did I mention subscriber only giveaways too? lol

Dance 21

In April, I finally managed to get a proper job - yup - I'm back in an office, driving my boss crazy and ploughing through a backlog that had built up. It's a charity that works with disabled people to raise awareness of disabilities in the workplace and helps all kinds of disabled people to get work. We also run a payroll and accounting service for disabled people to get the help they need without the headache of invoices and payroll requirements. I love it and in December, I volunteered to photograph an event taking place in our local shopping centre. What a buzz that was! I'd forgotten how much I love taking photographs and the kids involved were amazing too!

In July, after a guest spot on the Journal of Marcus Ty podcast, I joined Marcus as his regular co-host and what a blast that has been! With his awful, corny jokes, gold making tips and even me singing publicly for the first time, it has been and hopefully will continue to be, one of the best things I've done in a long time. I also guested on Eviscerated Gaming Podcast a couple of times this year and I've been invited to guest on another podcast or two in the next couple of weeks.

You may have guessed by now that I love to chat with people - podcasting and talking about WoW for fun is something I never thought I'd be doing when I started playing WoW back in 2009 but then, I never thought I'd be blogging on two blogs about it either! WoW is so much more than just a game - the community around it may not be the most gentle or civilised group of people I've met but by golly, they are a passionate, talented bunch and it's that passion that brings the drama.

In the spirit of community, I started my Saturday Celebrations - Milestone Interviews in September. It's a weekly post dedicated to YOUR stories and milestones in gold making. We're up to 14 guest posts there now and I still have a few lined up. It's your chance to have a little bit of internet space to tell the world how you got to a milestone - and that's any milestone, from 10,000 gold to 5 million gold - all your achievements are worthy of a few minutes of fame and with so many different ways to get there, they are all different too. Not everyone wants to write a regular blog about WoW but this way, everyone can have a little space to tell their tales of their goblin careers!

And that brings us to December and my current mini-project, 30 Minutes a Day - I've enjoyed it but it has been way more frustrating than I expected. I have a few ideas for the new year and of course, I'll still be chatting with Marcus every two weeks, blogging here and there and playing WoW too.

My personal life has had it's ups and downs too - if you've been around a while, you may remember I struck out on my own last year. Well, the house finally sold and that plus the job has given me a little financial stability at last. I've been fighting depression for years too but with everything that's been happening, I just haven't had time to even think about it this year. I still have a few bad days here & there but Cold has been holding my hand along the way and with his humour and good heart, I've kept myself positive and moving/looking forward.

© Helen Shorey

My plans for 2014 are still in a state of flux - my job is a fixed term contract that ends in June and my divorce should be final around then too. After that, who knows what I'll be doing or where I'll end up, I sure don't although of course, I have my hopes and dreams to keep me going. As for blogging and the future of AH Addict - that's a given, I love this blog and my other one too (She Rides Dragons) so although my posting frequency may drop off a bit, I'll still be here.

I really want to get my photography blog going again and that is one thing I wanted to do in 2013 that didn't happen. To give myself a bit of a push about that though, I've bought a domain name and I'm looking at self-hosting for it although for now, I'll stay with Blogger. If you want to have a peek at some of my photography, you can find it at helenshorey.com but it is a bit neglected for now.

And then there's my joint venture blog with Cold - we started Gifts for Gamers and Geeks back in September with a few Amazon based gift guides. They were just fillers until we got the meatier posts done but blogger/google decided they didn't like us and made us rethink how we were going to move forward. It took them over a month to tell us though so we lost a bit of drive & enthusiasm there but it's still a live project that hopefully will take off a bit more in 2014 too.

Oh my gosh, this post got big! I told you at the start it had been a rollercoaster year though! I have high hopes for 2014 being my year - I feel as though I've been under a huge cloud for years and am finally breaking through to some sunshine. I probably won't see much sunshine with all this blogging I'm planning on doing but at least I'll know it's there, right?

One last paragraph then I'll stop writing, I promise! A HUGE THANK YOU to all my readers, my Twitter friends and podcast listeners - without you, I'm not sure I'd have kept going so long. I love getting your emails - whether they be questions, suggestions or just hello's. I love reading your comments here and on Twitter too. It's those little bits of conversations that help keep me going in so many ways and I hope you enjoy my posts as much as I enjoy writing them. I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope your 2014 is looking bright, exciting and of course, prosperous too!

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What's Been Selling This Week?

I haven't done a weekly report for a few weeks now as I had almost stopped playing the Auction House on my main server whilst I focused on my 30 Minutes a Day Project. I've also started a baby Warlock for some strange reason - I say strange as I already have a Warlock sitting untouched for months at level 52 but hey, I'm enjoying it for now & I'm actually in game, playing an alt!

I did however get my crafting butt into gear a little bit last week and made some bits & pieces to sell - not much though. I'm still kind of in the doldrums right now and being off work for three weeks due to recuperation and Xmas hasn't really helped. But both are just temporary setbacks so I've been planning the start of the New Year whilst laying in bed and letting my body heal itself.

One thing I did do this week was to look again at some old, tried and tested markets, just to see if they were still viable or had returned to their former lucrative glory. The Mysterious Fortune Card's have been taken over by idiots in my absence from the Auction House and when they aren't sitting there at 25g each, they are flying off the shelf at 7g each! I got into a bit of an undercutting war last week with one player who messaged me and offered me his stock of cards for 12g each. I still managed to shift a fair few before he did though!

Now that was a bit rich for me so I said no but we did get chatting and as I'm not that bothered about ruling the market, I understood his frustrations and decided to let him have the market to himself. Today I got lucky and saw a bark in trade from a different guy wanting to buy MFC's. I messaged him and sold him 1000 cards at about 5g profit on the bunch I bought earlier in the summer! So now I have left the first guy to his market and made a profit on a bunch of cards that were just sitting around in my bank!

I do feel a bit bad though as I've not really honored the spirit of my promise to the first guy. Having said that, the 2nd guy was going to stay in the market anyway and by me pushing his buy price up, at least he will be keeping his AH prices fairly high too which should help both of them.

The other market which seems to have made a bit of a comeback is the level 83 & 84 green armor. I sort of stumbled back into it by just absent mindedly running the various shopping list scans I have set up. When I saw a bunch of ilevel 364 & 377 cloth items for 12-25g each, all sorts of bells went off in my head, so I snatched them up quick and ran through the other armor categories too.

My top buy price is 50g but I rarely pay that much and I resell it all for 189g for level 83 and 199g for level 84 stuff. As you can see from the screenshot of My Sales add-on, the market is still very much alive. All those sales are from this last 7 days alone and all were bought for between 12 - 40gold each - now that is a profit margin I like!

Other markets that seem to be moving again is the Crafted Malevolent pvp gear - mainly the leather and mail as I've been slacking on the cloth and plate stuff. A few gems here and there, epic shoulder inscriptions and bags seem to be about the last of my sales this week. The Mammoth Mining Bag market has also been invaded by an idiot who seems to think that 80g is more than enough. I did buy them up at first but that just seemed to encourage him so now I have a bank half full of cheap bags and the other half is full of cheap Borean Leather which I bought to try to dry up his supplies!

I have no doubt I will make a profit on all this stuff eventually - I have no need to rush after all - but in the meantime, it is frustrating to see such a nice little corner market going to waste.

So that was this last week. Looking forward, I'm likely to be super busy next week when I get back to work after a month off so I'm not sure how much gold making I'll have the energy for but I shall keep listing what I have and I may even try and clear out some of my banks and bags. That will be a trip down memory lane for sure! I hoard so much stuff I could probably power level a profession or two if I needed to!

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Saturday Celebrations - Oretrader, Kael'thas-US

Today we have an interesting story from across the pond by Oretrader. A big 3 million Milestone, he's aiming higher and I'm pretty sure he'll make it too!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

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What is your milestone amount?
My former milestone amount was 1 million. When it was reached (at the end of Cataclysm) it was a large weight off my shoulders. I figured that as long as I played WoW, I would never be wanting something. I had enough gold for endless raiding repairs, and enough to buy some fun things also. Then MoP was released... and with it the Black Market AH (the largest gold sink ever installed in WoW). After spending in excess of ~350k there, I went back to the AH.

What got you started making gold and when?
During Cataclysm, I leveled a toon strictly by mining. As a result I had 'Bountiful Bags' of Ore, which I quickly sold on the Auction House. People messaged me saying that they would buy all of my ore, and as much as I could farm. This had me puzzled, so I quickly went to Google to discover what these people knew that I did not. 

To my amazement there was something called the Elementium Shuffle, I already had all of the professions in place, so off I went! When starting I farmed a lot of the ore, so I figured 100% profit right? WRONG! So much time was invested that after reaching 100k, I could easily just buy all the ore, make a killing and spending so much less time online. Win-Win.

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
As mentioned I started in the Shuffle (Common Gems -> Jewlrey -> DE -> Enchants, and Sell cut rare gems) but quickly diversified into twink gear, transmog, high level blues, glyphs, tailoring, and blacksmithing. My biggest time investment and focus today is transmog gear, the profit margins are sick and the work is minimal, with little competition on my server.

Biggest successes or biggest failures:
Biggest success was starting an Alliance toon with 3k gold, and after roughly 45 days having 250k in liquid gold, and ~1 Million in active auctions, including a TCG mount and a Formula: Enchant Shield - Lesser Parry, both of which have standing offers, if I wished to sell them at a smaller gain. 

Biggest failure was getting sucked into the BMAH. Shortly after being introduced, I purchased 2 rare mounts, including Ashes for way more gold that I should have. I rarely ride it (not my favorite mount), and not like it is faster than the most basic drake.

Advice for new goldmakers:
You do not get rich by spending your gold foolishly. I may spend a lot of gold, however I know what I can make with my investment. Just because you have 10k in sales daily doesn't mean that after 30 days you will have 300k in your bank. You have to spend gold to make gold. So spend it smart.

Shout outs for any blogs, podcasts or streams that helped you along the way
TUJ, The Consortium Forums.

What's your new goal, if any?
My new goal is 10 million gold Horde side, and with the introduction of connected realms, a lot of gold will be out there for my greedy goblin pockets. As I write this I currently have 3 million liquid gold across 1 server, 250k of which is on Alliance, 2.75m Horde.

Do you keep the same banker alt?
Yes oh yes. Some people like switching up bankers, I am under the idea that it is not beneficial to do so. Your competition knows who you are, even if you change alts ever week, the first time that you post, the quantity that you are posting, or even what time of the day you are undercutting at, people know who you are. Some argue that people will stop buying your stuff if they see you running the AH, I do not believe this. 

My experience is that people know I buy and sell everything at all times. Every time I log in, I receive messages asking if I would like to buy stuff, or if I have certain items for sale. As long as you do not tarnish your image, being known as a buyer and seller can work in your advantage.

I hope reading my journey can help you with yours.

-Oretrader

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Big congratulations Oretrader - 3 million is no mean feat and 10 million target should keep you busy for a while yet!

I think the Shuffle was responsible for a fair few millionaires during Cataclysm, I know that I made extensive use of it alongside my glyph business and both were probably responsible for 90% of my first Million. I haven't been as proactive during Mists so I'm still poodling along on my way to my second Million but I did blow a load of gold on TCG mounts too.

So far though, I have avoided the BMAH - well, maybe avoided is the wrong word - I just keep forgetting about it and when I do remember, I make sure to only take a poor alt there!

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 16 - 18

I'm A Tree!

It's a few days before Christmas and I've missed 4 days so far. I knew I'd be missing a few days due to my operation so that was kind of planned for but I did think it would only be 2 days! So day 16 is actually 20th December in case you were wondering.

Day 16

Today's mailbox held over 200 gold for me and a lucky Blingtron drop gave me another 25 gold. I went a bit crazy with the Spirit Dust but as there was a shedload available at well below usual prices, I thought it was worth a little gamble.

I did the Gaudy Winter veil Sweater to Strange Dust thing again too but I wasn't really in the mood to scour the Auction House for deals so I just relisted stuff that hadn't sold and called it a night.

Day 17
I logged in hoping to see lots of gold in the mailbox from last night's listing and I wasn't disappointed. With sales of almost 290 gold, it was a relief to see all the Spirit Dust sold and the Strange Dust too. I had a look at the herbs category again but it seems with the influx of players for the holiday week, herb prices are stabilising and although there were plenty of cheap herbs, there weren't any obvious gaps to take advantage of.

What do I mean by 'gaps' - well, when I see a few herbs, say Silverleaf, listed at 9 silvers and the next listing is for 20 silvers, I would normally buy the few cheap ones and just undercut the 20 silver listing - that way, I'm kind of moving the bottom of the market up and closing the gap. When there is a wall of herbs in the 9, 10, 11, 12 silvers range though, there often isn't much of a gap to close so for the purposes of this project, I leave those alone.

If I didn't have a time limit or an end date to this project, then I may very well buy them all up and just sell them at my leisure when the prices are better for profit making. That's something you can do as a newbie gold maker but apart from the fact that I haven't spent any gold on bigger bags or increasing my bank storage space, I just don't want to be left with a bunch of herbs to store at the end of this project.

One of the things about gold-making is having patience and time. Having the patience to buy and not be in a rush to sell can make a huge difference to your profits. It's about timing too - listing your cheap purchases when the market price has risen and not listing them when there's no profit to be made. I know that seems really obvious but you'd be surprised! Some people say that holding stock and waiting is a pain, they'd rather sell them again, even for a loss just to get the gold back in their pocket to re-invest. I've had in-game friends who wanted to learn but didn't have the patience to just wait it out.

Now don't forget, I am talking low price stuff here - if you've bought something expensive to try to flip, knowing when to cut your loss is another skill. It may sometimes be better to sell at a small loss if you can see that prices are dropping steadily and your loss is only going to get bigger. It is possible for markets to bounce back of course but often, they will never bounce back to their original levels to make you the profit you were hoping for.

Day 18
Not so many sales today but given that I didn't really list much extra stuff yesterday, that's understandable! I'm definitely a casual gold maker and with Christmas looming, my energy to play seems to be fading. Still, the Strange Dust is proving to be very lucrative for this baby banker so as long as the market stays steady, I'll keep disenchanting those horrible sweaters!

Having said that, I did an Auctioneer scan today and didn't end up with much time left so I just listed everything in my bags and gave up. This is definitely not the proper way to make gold you know!

I'm nudging ever closer to 1000 gold and although I'll be pleased to reach that, overall I'm really disappointed with my efforts so far! I don't remember it being this hard last time I did a challenge like this but then I haven't been playing so much at the top levels or even leveling alts much recently so my knowledge of markets is definitely rusty!

I can certainly find loads of cheap stuff to buy but without knowing my mid-level profession markets and what stuff is still useful, I feel kind of lost. I used to sell Globe of Water, Essence of Air, Spider's Silk etc, knowing that they were in high demand for various specific patterns or recipes. With the introduction of Pet Battles, the Globe of Water market is dead (used in the Engineering pet, Tranquil Mechanical Yeti) as the pet is not that desirable anymore. With the introduction of additional heirlooms and changes to PvP, Spider's Silk is also pretty dead - it was used for several Tailoring and Leatherworking low level patterns for the Twink markets.

This is where research comes in - I may not have the current knowledge but knowing where to find information is the next best thing! Looks like I may have to spend some time, racking my brains and checking stuff out on The Undermine Journal! I may have to leave that for the next project though as I do have family time commitments over the next few days. Arrgghh why is there never enough time?? lol

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Day 13 - 15

Time for another update on this project of mine! I'm torn between just getting everything up to date in one mega post or breaking it up but I think I'll stick to 3 days at a time, even if I get a little behind with posting! I hope you're enjoying these updates - I'd love to hear any more lowbie tips from you - I'll admit, I'm struggling a bit here!

Day 13

One thing I keep forgetting to do is to make a note of my opening & closing balances - there's no excuse really as I have Auditor addon installed which gives me the totals for the day really easily and in a simple layout too!

Not really much to talk about today - I did the Auctioneer scan again to see if there were any items for easy money from the vendor search but that just reminded me why I gave up on Auctioneer! The scan takes so long! I had just enough time to check the vendor search then to grab a few bargains from the trade Goods/Herbs category and to get them listed. Closing balance today was 301 gold - not very impressed with my lowbie gold making skills right now!

Day 14
Today was a better day overall with a mailbox opening of 65 gold and a Blingtron loot sale of 16 gold too. I received an email from Misha, reminding me that the Gaudy Winter Veil Sweater can be disenchanted into Strange Dust & Lesser Magic Essences. When I say 'reminding me', that's what Misha thought he was doing but actually, I didn't know in the first place so thank you Misha!

But here's the funny thing - I wasn't concentrating this evening so rather than waste time getting my bank alt to Ironforge, I took my baby Shaman there instead. She bought 15 sweaters and ran to the mailbox. Oops! I hadn't noticed they were Bind on Pickup so now my baby Shaman has Enchanting as a profession too! As for not wasting time - by the time I'd made this mistake and learned enchanting, I didn't have enough cash on the Shaman to send them or list them on the Auction House so I had to log my banker anyway!

The 15 Sweaters cost me a whole 3silver and 30 coppers but as you can see above, Strange Dust alone is selling currently for well over 2gold each so it's well worth the few minutes it takes to disenchant them! What a great tip for anyone trying to build their first bit of capital! Just don't flood the market!

I regularly check the Linen Cloth & Strange Dust markets for just this reason - when linen is mega-cheap, I buy it and convert to Strange Dust. I almost always have some Strange Dust listed on the Auction House and can usually get 2g per Dust easily. In terms of percentage profits it's probably one of the best little corner markets out there. Sadly the quantities that sell don't make it the best income source but added to other small markets, it adds a nice little chunk to your weekly income, especially when you are still building up your capital.

Day 15
Another ok day at the mailbox - 73 gold picked up and another Blingtron dropped meant 4 gold from selling the vendor trash it gave me!

As you can see below, I dived into the Herb category again and grabbed some more bargains. It took me back into Wrath times when I saw Terocone so cheap and Talandra's Rose too - I remember farming Zul Drak for hours for Talandra's Rose although I can't remember why now!

The Strange Dust from yesterday all sold too so off I went to the Smokeywood Pastures vendor and bought 30 more Sweaters! I'm sure I could sell almost all of the Strange Dust even if I disenchanted 100 sweaters but with the time limit constraint, 30 is more than enough to keep the gold rolling in!

Summary
Closing balance for today is 364 gold. It seems I've forgotten how to really make gold fast at low levels. I did a Gold Rush thing a couple of years ago and came about 4th or 5th with a total sales figure over 50,000 gold. There's no way I'm getting near that this time but I don't think it's just me. Back then, during Cataclysm, we had the Volatiles markets and I remember flipping low price Volatiles of all sorts for way more than I'd paid! It helped that Volatiles stacked in 200's as well as the volume turnover meant that even profit of just a few silvers each could mean quite a nice chunk on a full stack. I also flipped glyphs for nice profits too - the market was pretty mobile so it was easy to pick up good glyphs for cheap & sell them a day or two later for 2, 3 or 4 times the purchase price.

I also didn't have the time constraint so I'm wondering just how much I could be making if I removed the 15 minutes limit. I'm not going to, of course! That would negate the whole idea of this little project but it has got me thinking of my next project! Once we hit 31st December, I may just send all this gold to my leveling alt and restart the same idea but without the time constraint. I'm not sure I'd report it in such detail either but perhaps a weekly update of time spent and a screenshot of what's been selling.

I've had quite a few comments and messages about this project so I hope you're enjoying my misadventures in lowbie gold making! I know it's probably not that interesting to experienced gold makers but I think it does illustrate quite well which markets to look at when looking for stuff to flip when starting out. I'd hoped to have a lot more gold by now so you could see the mid-range price markets start coming within my pockets reach but there's still time for that!

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Saturday Celebrations - Fallongnomes, Shadowmoon-US

It's Saturday again so that must mean it's time for another story from a reader. This week we have a tale of big money from Fallongnomes, Shadowmoon-US, showing us that smallish amounts of time spent regularly is a great way to keep those golds rolling in!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last couple of months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it! Don't make me persuade you too! lol

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What is your milestone amount?
Gold Cap - 1,000,000 gold

What got you started making gold and when?
At the end of The Burning Crusade, I wanted to have enough gold to quickly level professions for Wrath, so I started grinding dailies and doing a bit of AH work. I did the same in Wrath preparing for Cataclysm, but in Cataclysm, I discovered that I could make more with belt buckles and PvP gear. This June, I decided to try to finally put the effort in and make it to the gold cap.

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
I work in any market that has high volume and reasonable margins. Gems, enchants, inscription shoulder enchants, crafted PvP gear have been my biggest winners.

What were your biggest successes or biggest failures?
I don't do a lot of speculation, so I don't have a huge-win story. The decision to level alchemy and jewelcrafting to expand my markets paid off the most for me. I don’t have any big failure stories either, I usually move slowly into new markets and quit quickly if they don’t work out. 

Do you farm materials?
No, except for my Tiller's farm. While I don't do dailies, I consider my farms and daily cooldowns (living steel, etc) to be my dailies. It really adds up, I estimate that I net about 2500g a day on just doing cooldowns and farm.

Professions?
Blacksmith/Engineer, Enchanting/Inscription, Alchemy/Herbalism & Alchemy/Jewelcrafting  

When did you start a banker alt / Do you keep the same banker alt?
My bank alt's name is Fallongnomes (buy my stuff!). I made the original Fallongnomes on Dark Iron when I ran out of space to hold stuff. He is a tauren with one horn, the joke being he is unbalanced and will fall... on... gnomes. Through a few character transfers I have always named my bank alt that.

In terms of utility, unless I'm just selling a couple of things a day, I like to keep my bank separate so that I don't fill up my main's bag space. 

Best market over the years?
Without a doubt, gems. They always sell and there are always decent margins.

Starting over - how?
Professions are super important to my strategy, so if I had to start from scratch with no level 90s, it would be super difficult. If I had my current set of professions, I would just use the Tillers and a bit of farming to pick up the first couple thousand gold, and then work from there.

Favorite niche market?
I don't do a lot of this, but I've seen a bit of success in flipping crafted BoE epics. Being aware of what you can get for something and snapping them up can make you a bit of money.

How much playtime devoted to gold making?
Day-to-day, about 20 minutes. I usually spend about an hour extra one day every weekend setting stuff up for the next week. When I expand markets, or add more alchemists, it takes a bit of extra time up front, of course. 

What's your new goal, if any?
No big number anymore, going to cool down the grind and just try to stay positive cash flow. I've been mentoring a couple of others on my server, so I want to see them succeed.

Any advice for new goldmakers?
Don't try to go too deep too fast. Learn how you can make money. Have a routine. Making sure you hit every Living Steel cooldown, and post auctions daily is important. You can't make the big bucks in 2 hours every Saturday. Its 10 minutes every day with a plan that works.

Shout outs for any blogs, podcasts or streams that helped you along the way
I'm on reddit (/r/woweconomy) all the time, and discovered The Undermine Journal to be a bit useful. I figured out my strategy all on my own.

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Big congratulations on reaching that massive 1 million gold milestone, Fallongnomes. I love the explanation of your name too especially as I'm rather partial to gnomes and was wondering of its' origins. I notice you don't list Tailoring or Leatherworking in your professions - is there any particular reason for that or you just haven't got around to it yet?

I'd love to know how you're getting on now - it's been a couple of months since you submitted this interview. Did you slow down or has the habit of making gold become too ingrained for you to stop? Let us know in the comments if you have a moment - I can't be the only nosey parker around here!

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 10 - 12

This project is one of those that seem like a good idea at the time but that get out of hand very quickly! I keep wanting to log in to see if my auctions have sold or if I can find any more cheap stuff to buy! The knack of flipping cheap stuff in the early stages of making gold is definitely frequency. The more often you can log in to start with, the less time profits are just sitting unused in your mailbox and the better chance you have of nabbing the bargains.

Day 10

Having said that, Day 10, I wasn't able to log in more than once and that was in the evening. I did pull 22g 60s out of the mailbox from selling all the Mageweave Cloth & the Exotic Leather. That gave me about 80g to play with as I started looking for bargains. I spent almost all of it this time - between bids, relisting lots of stuff & buying a stack of Rugged Leather to take a gamble on the Winter Veil boom, I didn't leave much of a safety net! Just 6 gold left in the coffers as I closed out the day.

I also fell back into one of my old getting started tricks. I learned Tailoring and Enchanting on my Banker. I've been picking up so much cheap Linen Cloth that I just don't have the bag space for it now. I know it will sell and almost double my money but there is an even better way. I converted all of it to Bolts of Linen Cloth which gave me 46 skill points & then I learnt and made 10 sets of Brown Linen Pants. The Brown Linen Pants take 2 bolts of linen and a coarse thread - that's just 4 pieces of Linen Cloth so the overall cost is less than 20silvers usually.

Next I picked up Enchanting, made my enchanted copper rod and disenchanted all the Brown Linen Pants - that gave me 14 Strange Dust and with the two extras I picked up from the Enchanting Supplies vendor, I listed the Strange Dust at 19g 84s. By spending a few minutes crafting and disenchanting, I potentially turned 2 gold into almost 20 gold. You have to watch the Strange Dust market prices and judge for yourself but as long as you don't swamp the market and crash the price, it will sell.

Day 11

The first day of Winter Veil and I had high hopes for selling my cheap wool for good prices. I logged in just before 10.30am to find that the wool prices were still stupid low so I just emptied the mailbox of 24g and promptly logged out again!

Late afternoon, early evening, I logged back in and lo and behold, the wool prices were semi-reasonable. Not as high as I had hoped they would go but still, very nice profits there if I could sell mine at those prices too. I did make a mistake somewhere though - I bid 8g20 per stack for 3 stacks of Wool Cloth - way above what I had been spending - not really sure what happened but I figure I'll be lucky not to make a loss on those.

Day 12

Well, the first day of Winter Veil seemed a bit hopeless but I guess most of my customers waited until the evening to buy stuff! I logged in this morning to find 166 gold in the mailbox! All the Wool Cloth, the Rugged Leather and the Strange Dust had sold overnight so that was a huge relief!

I made some more Brown Linen Pants and disenchanted them. This time 25 Pants gave me 27 Strange Dust & 6 Lesser Magic Essences - at a cost of about 7gold. I listed the dust & essences to give a potential sale price of 26g as the Strange Dust price has slipped a little.

I listed some more wool & a stack of Rugged Leather that I snatched up quickly then logged off. This 15 minutes a day is very restrictive as I could easily spend much more time scanning the AH and looking for deals but that's the habit I'm trying to break! To get my enjoyment of the rest of the game back, I have to wean myself off scanning the Auction House for hours on end!

Last thing last night, I logged in just in case I'd made more sales - woop woop! another 170 gold in the mailbox - all the Strange Dust, Magic Essences had sold and best of all, the slight gamble on the Rugged Leather had paid off too - 35g turned to 100g in just a few hours! Now I have over 300 gold to play with tomorrow so it's time to start looking at slightly more expensive items.

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 7 - 9

As I mentioned last time, I downloaded and installed Auctioneer for the first time in ages! When I first started my gold making journey, Auctioneer was the one that was recommended to me but I switched off the percentage based display as I didn't like it much. After talking to Gimp last weekend, I reinstalled it as I haven't worked out how to do the vendor search for bid prices in TSM (don't even know if TSM looks at bid prices to be honest) and buying out the very low bid auctions is a great way to get started.

Day 7
I did have to spend a little longer than 15 minutes on my banker today - the Auctioneer scan is super slow but is needed to get the prices into the system. I had hoped it would use the same database as TSM but I don't think it does! Anyway, starting the session with about 10 gold I managed to place bids on a whole bunch of stuff and ran around to get the cheap herbs from the vendors around Stormwind too. I also managed to snatch some cheap stacks of linen & mageweave cloth so before I logged off, I listed everything I had.

Day 8
Today is a bit of a cheat as I missed a couple of days due to being in hospital! Was nice to see almost 30 gold waiting for me in the mailbox though as you can see from the screenshot above. The linen & mageweave cloth I'd managed to grab really cheaply (about 4silvers a piece) flew off the shelves so today, after I'd run my scan again, I snatched some more linen cloth. I did my herb vendor run & placed a whole bunch of bids.

I've managed to confuse myself with my notes though so the 30 gold received in shown in Day 7 screenie! The screenshot below is as I left the Auction House tonight - everything I have listed and all the bids I have waiting. I also have almost 28 gold in my bags which I should try to use but I'm still pretty tired so I've had to call time on WoW this evening.

I'm going to try to write up each day as it happens so I hope the variation in tenses doesn't confuse things! If I leave it a few days to write up my notes, I can't read my own shorthand! lol

Day 9
Going to change tactics a little bit today. I've been logging on in the evening for the full 15 minutes and up until now, that was fine but as my inventory grows and I have bids on some items, I feel like I should pop in at least briefly in the morning to see what has sold, what bids I have won & list those and to see if I can quickly find any deals from overnight.

Having so much of my gold sitting in my bags isn't a good idea at this stage either - I need to have it working for me - again either on bids or on items for my growing stock. I'm not going to go crazy and spend it all on one item though even if I'm 99% certain I can double my money on it. It's just not worth the risk to me to bet everything on a single item. I'm risk averse like that and at this stage too, I just don't have the patience to start all over again! I know it sounds strange but being risk-averse and kind of miserly with my spending actually helps me make gold! The quickest way to lose gold is to invest unwisely or to spend too freely after all!

So morning of Day 9, I logged in to find about 13g in the mailbox just from selling the 67 pieces of linen cloth overnight. There was also some gold returned as I didn't win the Iron Bar or the Adamantite Bar auctions. I'd done a bit of leveling on the Shaman the evening before and sent through some bits & pieces of wolf meat, boar meat & ribs as well as 23 pieces of Linen cloth.

A very quick search on the AH netted me a whole bunch of stuff to sell and 8 more bids placed on linen, wool, silk & mageweave cloth. I listed everything as quick as possible and logged off at 8 minutes into my time allowance!



With only 7 minutes left of my time allowance I didn't do very much when I popped into game in the evening. I did squeal a little though when I collected almost 80 gold from the mailbox. Most of the linen & leather had sold as well as a few of the herbs that were still listed from Day 8. I'd also won the Exotic Leather bid from day 8 too. I'd spoken to Marcus Ty briefly earlier in the day & he had mentioned Winter Veil. Now if you don't know, Wool Cloth, Rugged Leather and Small Eggs are traditionally very expensive during this festival so with my remaining few minutes, I snatched up almost 8 stacks of wool cloth ready for the 'boom' of the market next week!

I've added my sales, bid wins and new purchases to the screenshot so you can see where I left my banker at the end of Day 9. I think I'm going to have to find another way to show you what I'm doing though. This post is getting long even by my standards and as I get more gold, the lists of buys and sales will only increase. I also forgot to note down how much gold I had left after buying all this stuff!

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Christmas is Coming! My Top 10 Most Wanted WoW Christmas Gifts

Christmas is coming,

the goose is getting fat,

Nev's a little skint

so she's putting out the hat!

I thought I'd do a post to give you some ideas for Christmas gifts for the gamer in your life. If that's you, you could leave my list around & hope someone takes the hint! I'm hoping some of my loved ones might take note too but I'm not sure they even know how to find my blog! They glaze over every time I mention WoW! lol

So without further ado, here's my Top 10 items I'd love to find in my Christmas stocking or under the Christmas tree.

Horde Wrapping Paper!  How cool is this? Imagine the look on the face of your Horde gamer when they see all their presents wrapped in this! There's also an Alliance version of course!

Monopoly - World of Warcraft Collectors Edition - I really like playing board games, has always been a family tradition to play during Christmas holidays so this would be a really cool gift for me!

I'd Rather Be Playing WoW T-shirt - says exactly how I feel most of the time when I'm not at home!

World of Warcraft 2014 Calendar - I love the art of World of Warcraft so this way, I'd get a new poster for my wall every month! Oh! and I like calendars too.

Frostmourne Sword Keyring - just broke my old favorite keyring and as an added bonus, this one looks fairly pointy for late night self-defence for me too! lol

The Epic Purple T-shirt from Jinx - well purple is my favorite color anyway but to have a shirt declaring myself Epic! That would be super sweet!

Deathwing Bi-Fold Leather Wallet - ok, this is kind of bloke-ish maybe but I have so many plastic cards of various descriptions, my girlie coin purse just isn't big enough! A man wallet is great for keeping all that plastic under control!






Eat Sleep WoW car window decal - just a funny & clever saying for a small gift for someone - would be fun to try to spot these on long journeys.

Timewalkers - Reign of Fire Sealed Booster Box - I've talked about these before and I still think they could be good for making some real cash on. With the end of the WoW TCG, the rare mounts and pets from these booster sets will only go up in value.

Throw Pillow for Warlocks who miss their Voidwalkers! - so cuddly! I think it's a Voidwalker but whatever it is, it's gorgeous!

Cute Murloc Plushie in Green & Red - my favorite plushie of all the various Murlocs I've seen. If I can only have one present this year, I think this would be my choice!

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Saturday Celebrations - Bonesai, Ghostlands-EU

Yup, it's Saturday again and you know what that means by now - a new milestone interview and time to celebrate with Bonesai of Ghostlands-EU, a pet addict who became a gold addict to pay for them all!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last couple of months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it! Don't make me persuade you too! lol

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What is your milestone amount?

I hit the big reset button at the start of October and hit 100k in available gold just over 25 days later. That's on top of spending 120k on battle pets and some gear on the AH. I've been averaging 9.5k a day since the start of the month.

What got you started making gold and when?  

I got bitten by the pet bug - way before Mists of Pandaria and Pet Battles. I'd completed my Azure Whelpling grind, and was working on grinds for all world drop pets and noticed they were on the AH at prices I could never imagine affording. I'd been making Netherweave Bags, 50 a day, and making a massive 2.5-3k a month and was happy - but I needed to step it up. So I paid for a gold guide, which while not the miracle cure it promised (and I never thought it would be) got me using the right add-ons (but not TSM that was tooo hard then), and thinking in the right way and it did get me set up for success.

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any? 

Jewel Crafting at the end of Cataclysm was massive for me. I'd gone from 3k a month to 3k a day in about six weeks. Then Mists came out and JC died on my server (medium population). I read up, studied the changes and moved into Inscription - shoulder enchants and Darkmoon Cards - cause everyone said glyphs made no money.

Biggest successes or biggest failures? 

Biggest success was finally learning TSM. I'd started reading Jim's, Stone's and Phat's web sites and things got clearer. I spent an afternoon just working out TSM and decided to try glyph making. So I made sure I did every research cooldown every day, bought the books that teach glyphs from the AH and farmed my own too. As my list of craftable glyphs grew, so did my profit. 120k a month, 150k a month.

I got back into JC, using TSM for the first time, and though not as good as in Cataclysm, I turned a profit. Then patch 5.4 hit. I thought I was ready. I'd seen JC picking up through 5.3 and started to stockpile ore. I had a full Guild bank tab. In a weekend it was gone. I peaked at 240k in a month and I hit the big 1 million.

Along the way I'd bought a pet from the AH every time I was over 100k profit in a month - sometimes 2,3 4 - more. It slowed me down, but I knew 1million was possible and I really wanted the pets too.

Any advice for new goldmakers? 

You need motivation.

Mine was pets which grew into the need to get gold capped too. Then came the realisation that I could afford to get the TCG pets with in-game gold - the pet battle system of MoP made buying these easy but to get them all, even on a high population server where they were plentiful, would take more than 1 million.

The night I moved moved my bank alt to another server and spent over 900,000gold on the AH in five minutes was an adrenalin rush I never thought a game could give me. I was shaking. Partly because I'd done it and got all the TCG pets - most in one night (I'd got some as I closed in on 1 million from own server), but also from spending all that gold so fast after taking over a year to make it all!

Tips to get started? 

Read - copy what other people have written on their blogs, but make sure you spend time understanding what their technique does & how it works. Then you are learning, you can adapt it to your own server and situation, spot when a market is collapsing and adapt it to markets of your own.

Shout outs for any blogs, podcasts or streams that helped you along the way? 

Colds site was the first blog I found, then Jim's then Phat's. I was late to the party, so it was the old material of Cold and Jim I used - Phat was more current at the time and I was following his site as I made my last 500k in three months. Now I read nearly every site as they work as a community, sharing opinions and reflections on each others ideas and it helps to stimulate my own gold making creativity.

What's your new goal, if any? 

To get back to 1 million as fast as I can. I got some materials to keep me going, put everything I had left into a Guild Bank (not more than 30k) and started at zero on 1 October. My first goal of hitting 100k again has been reached - and in reality that was over 220k, as I've found I'm not a hoarder of gold anymore and if I want some gear from the AH then I can just buy it!

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Thank you so much for sending in your story, Bonesai & congratulations again on not only reaching your 1 million but spending it so fast too!. It's fascinating to me to read how everyone does things so differently & I think my readers will identify strongly with your pet battle addiction! I remember spending 500k in about 2 minutes a while ago & yeah, that really is a buzz! 

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 4 - 6

I have hit a small problem & I'm going to have to change my own rules already! That's the trouble with sitting down & writing - sometimes you need to actually do a thing before the pitfalls show themselves!

So, I haven't been able to stick to just the 15 minutes a day then log off idea - I didn't take into account my lovely friends who are so pleased to see me back in game, they all want to talk to me - at the same time! I also didn't take into account how long it takes for me to write down everything I'm buying or listing either so I have found a way around this but you guys are going to have to trust me on my playtime. 

Within WoW there is a timer/stopwatch function so rather than doing /played to see how long I have left in a session, I have the timer on my screen. That way, when I stop to chat or write stuff down, I can stop the timer & restart it when I'm actually doing WoW stuff. It does mean that a /played screenshot is meaningless though - I tried it last night - I actually only played for 15 minutes but I was online on that character for about 40 minutes! 

Day 4
Day 4 for my banker went much more smoothly than the previous few days, that's for sure! I logged in to find 1g 13s in the mailbox waiting for me but sadly the 3 Peaceblooms were returned. So now that I had a little gold to play with, I ran back to the Alchemist supplies lady in the Mage Quarter & she had a load of herbs for sale. I spent a whole 9s 12c on them, ran to the Florist on the outer edge of the Trade District and he had a bunch of herbs for me too so I spent another 4s56c there.

Off I ran to the Auction House to see what the prices were like. Now that I had some cheap herbs to sell, I felt much better & I was very happy to see the high prices from yesterday were still in force.

I just had enough time to list them before logging off. Here's hoping they sell at those prices!

Day 5

What a disappointing result - logged in to find only 1 sale and that was the Peacebloom so I'm now 22s24c better off at least. Ran to both the herb supplies places and nabbed some more cheap limited supply herbs but as I had 1 gold already, I ran to the Cooking Recipe guy in Stormwind Old Town too. In the past, I would have bought one of each of all the recipes available but with the changes to leveling cooking in Mists of Pandaria, I just bought 3 of the recipes - Seasoned Wolf Kebab, Crocolisk Gumbo and Crocolisk Steak to test the market.

Did a vendor scan of the Auction House too - only 5 items turned up at 99% of vendor price and all beyond my available cash right now. I'm beginning to think this server has some intelligent AH players on it but I'm holding judgement on that for now!

So this is where I left it at the end of Day 5 - you can see how expensive everything is, even this low level herb stuff. I wanted to try a high pop server so I guess I'm learning that huh? lol

Day 6

So I had a few sales today when I logged in - not as many as I had hoped but at least it's a start! This is beginning to feel very embarrassing too - I'm supposed to be a gold maker & 5 days in I barely have 10 gold! So the mailbox gave me 3g74s and a lucky Blingtron drop gave me a further 6g20s. I was a bit fed up today so I just fished for 10 minutes to see what kind of return that would give me. I got my fishing skill up to 50 which netted me a whopping 11s70c! Guess who won't be doing that anymore!

The tips have been coming in on Twitter and via email too although some for now are beyond my cash limit. One conversation with Gimp of Gimp's Gold blog did remind me why I used to like Auctioneer so tonight I'm going to re-install that & give it a try! I'll let you know how that goes in the next update!

As for leveling my Shaman, she's poodling along slowly but I think I'm going to take her out of the 15 minute time restriction. I don't think I'll be playing her for hours on end but 15 minutes questing really is too short to get any kind of visible progress. She's only just got to Kharanos so I think what I'll do is limit her to 2 hours per week. That way it's still a limited time thing but if I feel like it, it's in bigger chunks. I may actually get something done then! Also because she's moving so slowly, I haven't actually had anything to send to my banker from her adventures so that has to change too!

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Saturday Celebrations - Drayper, Dalaran-US

This week we have a great story of success from Drayper - it's been a few weeks since I received this submission so I'm betting he's gone beyond his latest target by now!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last couple of months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it! Don't make me persuade you too! lol

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About me
Hello, I go by Drayper in-game on US-Dalaran. I have been playing since July of 2013. I played a few years back pretty seriously on Alexstrasza, but quit right before WotLK released. I have since started out brand new with no help from friends or guilds. My wife and myself play together in our own personal guild just bankin' that gold! 

What is your milestone amount?
My first milestone was 10k, I worked hard and it came easily within my first few weeks of playing. So I would'nt be tempted to spend, I set my next milestone for 50k which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be looking back now. I set my next milestone for 100k, which came really fast to my surprise due to the fact that I had a good couple of weeks in sales. I just reached 200k the first week of October and I think for the amount of time I put into strictly making gold versus playing the game and taking into consideration the short time I've been playing, that impresses me and I am proud of my gold stash. 

What got you started making gold and when?
Honestly, a few days after I started playing I told myself I wanted to have enough gold to buy whatever I want. Although that isn't a definable amount, I proceeded to do my homework to get started on my goal. After nearly 4 years of not playing and 3 expansions later, I had some catching up to do. I did some research on new gold making tactics, weeded out ones I didn't want to work with or couldn't yet and set myself up with some helpful addons. 

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
You can call me a flipper... I'll flip anything I believe I can profit on. In my early levels I started my bank by farming and selling resources, mainly ore. Once I had money to spend I started to invest. Invest in what...?

I started out in transmog gear. Being a noob to MoP, I barely knew what it was or why these pieces were considered so valuable. After further research I understood, and that was almost my main source of income to my 10k milestone. I started to delve a little deeper into more and more pieces with less luck than I'd hoped for. I then came across transmuting Saronite Ore into Titanium Bars and made a good profit that way. I just farmed the Saronite in Icecrown which with no competition is very fast. After a few more weeks of trying to sell off my stash of transmog greens, I finally had gotten rid of most of them and stumbled upon MoP blues for levels 80 - 85. 

Once I found this "hidden" niche, I pretty much cast out all attempts to stay in the transmog market (except the more rare and valuable items).I invested completely into these MoP blues that many players toss in the auction house for 50 - 250g not knowing their full potential. I time and time again, sell level 81-84 items for 1500 - 3000g depending on the slot and item. Belts, bracers, feet, rings, and back don't tend to sell for as much as other slots from my experience. 

Level 80 ilvl 409 rares are outrageously overpowered to any level 80 and some players decide to "Twink" there. Ilvl 409 weapons generally range from 5-10k depending on the item and buyer, other 409 pieces will bring 2500g+. Level 85 ilvl 450 items will also bring a bit more than the lvl 81-84's but not quite as much as the ilvl 409 weapons for any slot in the 450 category. 

Long, most likely confusing, but it works for me and I know this market very well on my server and I generally don't have competition besides the players who get a drop and see what I have mine priced at in AH then undercut me by 1g... I have weeks where I'll make 10k and some I make 50k, like my last week! 

Biggest successes or biggest failures
Strictly talking flipping, my biggest successes would be a few things I'll list here:
Sealed Tome of the Lost Legion x 2 - Paid 50g ea - Sold 6k ea
A few ilvl 409 MoP rare weapons - Paid < 500g ea - Sold 7.5k ea 

A couple pending sales I have:
Plans: Dirge - Paid 25g - Worth 15-25k
Skullflame Shield - Paid 200g - Worth 20k+
Heaving plates of Protection - Paid 250g - Worth 15k 

Biggest Failure would be these two [The Night Blade]'s that I have. Paid 500g for one posted it up for 10k, soon after someone posted one for 2k and I had been doing well so far so I gambled and bought it. Had them both for like two and a half months and dropped the price to 5k ea and still no buyers lol. Mainly a transmog item nowadays so I still have them for sale needless to say. Anyone want to buy them...? 

Advice for new goldmakers
Don't get all excited about some new gold making strategy you just read about and dump all of your funds into it right away. Do your research, test the market (competitor's, demand, realm population and trends), and then once you are more comfortable with the market you can decide whether it's worth the investment/effort. Every realm is slightly different than the other so your results will differ slightly. 

Just looking at all the glyphs and inscription items in AH, I told myself right away I would not touch that market based on the amount of effort it would take with competitors etc. I feel I can make better gold, faster and easier in other ways. Choose whats right for you. There is money to be made everywhere. 

I feel your gold making strategies and decisions are heavily based on your play style and time available. I myself wanted to find a market where I could post an item, let it sit, go back to playing and not care about it anymore until it expired or sold. I like to spend my time productively progressing in the game rather than solely making gold. I think I've learned my markets well enough to be able to do both very well. 

Addons!
I use a few great addons for helping me specifically in my gold making endeavors. After using them, I would hate to play without them, but they are not necessary, mainly preference.

I would recommend these addons:
Auctioneer - A must have for me! Makes posting auctions a breeze and very easy to use. Also has a separate "Search" tab with many different search filters (the "resale" filter is a great way to find these great deals).
Accountant - Keeps track of gold flow. In/out and what categories it went to or came from.
TSM Accounting - A nice addon to keep track of sales. Has detailed info about every item you buy/sell. Great addon! 

I know a ton of big time gold makers say TSM Auctioning is an essential addon. I personally do not use it because I feel that my market isn't one where I'm mass posting gems, ores, glyphs, herbs etc. I am posting mostly one of a certain item due to its rarity and Auctioneer works perfectly in that manner. 

What's your new goal, if any?
My new goal is to hit 500k in the near future. I have a long run goal to break 1 million. 

Reward yourself for reaching goal?
I have yet to reward myself with a "big" purchase. I plan to reward myself by making a Ruby Panther with my Jewelcrafter here soon, maybe once I pass 250k!

I'm just glad I set myself in a gold making mindset right off the bat this go around. I know my market has risk but I dont get scared and just bail out on a certain item to break even. I stick it out and I think thats where a lot of people go wrong, they just get scared to easily too soon. Obviously it takes gold to make gold, and Im not afraid to make those investments.

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What a great interview CJ, thank you! Full of useful & interesting bits to keep us thinking. And that's what gold making is about, isn't it? I've often said that the best add-on a goldmaker can use is his/her brain - you can look at numbers, screens full of information, websites etc but unless your brain is switched on, it won't make a blind bit of difference.

I know when I'm coasting, my sales figures drop and that jolts me awake again, especially as I post my results weekly and you guys can all see me being lazy too!  I'll warn you now though - I've had a hellish busy week so Monday's report isn't looking very pretty either! Oh and I'm still addicted to Hearthstone too!

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