20 Days of Gold Making - Day 7 Tips for Starting Fresh

So far, many of my 20 Days of Gold Making questions have been reminisce type questions but Day 7's question is "If you were starting over again (maybe on a new server perhaps), how would you start building some capital & what goal would you set yourself?" so this should be a useful post for anyone just starting their gold making career! Be sure to check out some of the answers from other blogs that have joined in with my 20 Days challenge which you can find in my Participants post.

The problem I have with answering this question, is that I actually do this regularly. I started this whole blog thing because of a new alt/new server experiment, I have Project Shoofly on hold on my US account & I'm sure I wrote about my lowbie glypher too! So what to write that I haven't already written & with the advent of Mists of Pandaria, would my old ways still work?

For me, the tried & tested way is to use the herb vendors in Stormwind as well as some really low level fishing - all that junk you fish to start with adds up to a few silvers to get your Auction House activities underway! I used to head straight for the recipe guy in Stormwind too but I haven't tried selling those since Mists of Pandaria arrived. I'd guess there is still a small market there even if you can level cooking to max in Halfhill - not all players have high level alts after all.

After I have a few gold to my name, I start looking for underpriced materials to flip - it used to be volatiles & cloth in Cataclysm, now I would head for herbs & cooking materials (but still looking at cloth, ores, enchanting mats etc too). Ideally I look for fairly fast moving, high volume markets to start with, just looking for deals. I don't care if it's a single or a small stack, if it's underpriced, I'll try to flip it.

Once I have say 500 gold to my name, I'll start looking at armor - ilevel 364-377 (for level 83 & 84 but MoP gear stats) can often be found for 50g or less & I've had quite some luck turning these over for 199g-299g. Always check the stats on each piece though - you don't want to be buying lemons with such a limited amount of capital behind you.

My goal previously has always been to see how much I can make in say 30 days but that's as a side project. If I was starting over properly, leaving my main server behind then I think my goal would be to just keep building my stash at a steady rate whilst keeping my leveling alts nicely geared & professions leveling up too. I think 100k gold would be a nice round target to aim for but I don't believe in rushing & stressing out so I wouldn't put a timescale on it!

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Improve Your WoW Gold Balance - Tips for New Goldmakers

Get Organised!

Do you have several high level alts with professions you don't use? Got a level 90 or two or maybe a bunch of 85's just sitting around not doing much whilst you concentrate on your Main toon? Are you always short of gold to buy the stuff you need to raid or pvp? Well, if you answered yes to any of those questions, keep reading - I hope I can give you some pointers that will get your gold flowing into your bags rather than out of them!

The first thing to do is get organised!

• Look at your alts - what professions do they have? Have you maxed them where possible & are you using them effectively? You can max professions on a level 85 so make sure you are doing the daily cooldowns wherever possible - Inscription, Alchemy & Tailoring spring to mind. 
• Do you have a lowbie toon to use as a banker? I always use a lowbie as I'm less tempted to take them out into the world & away from the Auction House.
• Here's a tough one - are you spending way more than you need to? Or perhaps just more than you are earning - making adjustments to your spending habit can have a huge effect on your gold balance.
• Have you tried using an Auction House addon of some kind? My favorites are Auctionator & Trade Skill master (TSM). TSM is fantastic but does have a huge amount of stuff to learn to make best use of it so if you are new to AH addons, just stick with Auctionator for now.
• Have you got a Tillers farm started on all your level 85+ alts? At 85-89 you can only have 4 plots but some crops sell for 10g or more each & you can get 5 vegetables per plot. Tilling & planting 4 plots should only take a few minutes at most. Once you hit level 90 you can max your farm to 16 plots & farm for Motes of Harmony or other useful profession materials. That 1.6 Spirit of Harmony a day can then be used for crafting gear to sell.
• Have a think about areas of the game you know well - you can sometimes utilise that knowledge to make gold - I'm thinking twink related stuff like enchants or gear, PvP stuff like crafted gear or speed potions/buffs etc or raiding - buff foods, flasks, high level gear etc.

OK, so you've sat down & had a think about this stuff - what next? Well, I hate to say it but patience! When you see gold bloggers talking about their millions or guildies flashing their half million - you have to remember that it does take time to accumulate wealth. Yes, there were some players who made their million very quickly when transmogrification first arrived but those guys were the exceptions, most of us take much longer to get there so when you feel yourself wanting to rush to get a sale, slow down - it's that rush that can cost you profits in the long run.

Not exactly the list I had in mind!

• Start with small-ish stuff - if you only have 5000g across your characters, don't jump in the deep end & buy a 4000g item to flip - that's just asking for trouble with using all your nest egg at once. 
• If you need to build some capital up & have a level 85 character with good professions but you were going to focus on your main, you may want to reconsider - have you ever wondered how much gold you can earn leveling from 85 to 90? I did & this time around, I actually managed to keep track of it too - almost 6000g just from quest rewards, vendor trash & looting while questing.
• If you are already at level 90 then I am going to say it, I'll apologise in advance - but Dailies! At about 20g per daily quest reward plus loot & drops, you could easily add 200-400g a day to your income on just one character, more if you can bear to do dailies on more than one character of course!
• I know it's a bit time consuming but if you're short of capital, you will need to farm herbs & ores yourself to level your professions. Obviously you don't have to but it is definitely the cheapest way unless your play time is severely limited then time becomes a cost to you. If you have limited time & don't want to spend it farming, just level your profession as cheaply as you can via the Auction House - take a few extra days & only buy the very cheapest materials.
• Do some reading - you're here so I guess you know about gold blogs - my blog roll has a whole load of them for you to skim through. You don't need to read everything - just skim until you find something you understand & think you can do easily. Look for Ghost Iron Shuffle topics, Ironpaw Token Shuffle, Enchanting Materials shuffle or if you like to run old instances - maybe transmogrification articles will interest you.
• Join a gold focused forum like The Consortium or join in one of the goldmaking Reddit sub-reddits like /r/woweconomy, /r/goblinism or /r/wowgoldmaking and read & ask questions. There's loads of advice out there & freely available.
• Make a list of things to do at the start of a gaming session. This could be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be - some items will be every day at least, others will be as & when your time permits.
• There are a huge number of options for making gold in game - the long term goal is to diversify across as many markets as possible but you need to know your markets & your Auction House - pick one or two markets to get into, spend a little time watching them then jump in. When you think you have them worked out, add another market or two. Try to think outside the box too - as a newbie gold maker, you may see something that more experienced goldmakers have forgotten about or overlooked.

So there you go - some basic tips & ideas for improving your gold making in WoW. I haven't gone into specifics today - many old favorite methods are already in old posts but you can find them under the 'Basics' tab at the top of the page. If you have a specific question, you can always leave a question in the comments section below or email me. I hope this helps but remember - have fun at it too - don't stress yourself when you see people talking about 10k+ a day - you're just starting out, you will get there eventually.

Edited to Add: I've made a downloadable To Do list, you can find the link in my post Nev's Daily To Do List

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