Saturday Celebrations - Dysenigrate, Hyjal-US

So this week, we have a success story from Dysenigrate, one of my Clan mates in the Eviscerated Clan in Clash of Clans and I owe him an apology and to everyone for being so late! This post was due 1st March & I'm only just now remembering to do it! In my defence, I missed a few other things too as I've been super busy at work, preparing for our financial year end and also getting ready to fly out to see my fella! He's still asleep right now so I've pinched his PC to get this post out! lol

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!

I'm running low on submissions so if you'd like to see this weekly story continue, I'm going to need more stories!

I try to reply to each submission quickly so if I don't reply - poke me again as I may have missed it or leave a comment on a post - those I definitely see more easily. Now that AH Addict is getting more popular, the email address is busy with spammers coming out of the woodwork so I do sometimes miss things :(

******************

Milestone Amount:  

1 million liquid gold on my main server

What got you started? When? 

In the last couple months of Wrath I obtained the pattern for the cloth dps boots from ICC. After I made mine (scraped and saved lol!) I saw that they were listed for almost 5k on the AH. I ended up selling them at a slight loss after several weeks of constant undercutting and relisting. It was only a small loss but I learned a lot about the total cost of an item - materialss, posting fees, AH fees, and time. So much time invested in those boots! In any case I wanted more gold in my virtual wallet so I vowed to figure the Auction House out. 

Markets? 

I started out with vendor pets - the ones from Breanni, Rashaad, and the Winterspring Cub from Everlook. Now I'm mostly out of the pet market and focus on Cloth PvP gear, Enchanting, Glyphs, Shoulder Inscriptions, Cogwheels, and the Ironpaw Shuffle. Early in the expansion, I made and sold Living steel everyday but I probably stopped that in 5.2. Just maxed a Leatherworker and starting in the Leather/Mail PvP gear market. 

Biggest success or failure? 

Honestly, I'm too cautious to take any big risks, but my biggest failure was being unwilling to stockpile materials. There was a two week span where I couldn't post enchants at all when material prices rose above my thresholds and I had no stock. Lesson learned! Now I keep at least one guild-bank full of materials. 

Advice for new goldmakers? 

It's ok to start small, don't risk your whole nest egg on a high ticket item to flip. Smaller sales add up and eventually a miss or a slow sale on a big ticket item won't hurt so much.

New Goals? 

I haven't set a new number but I plan to stay above 1 million liquid gold. 

Bank alt(s)? 

I started my first bank alt just for convenience before I ever considered myself a goldmaker. I've had that one since BC and just recently started a 2nd one to handle glyphs. 

Farm (y/n)? 

Only in the course of normal play, or if I have to. For example, if I have to farm up a Bind on Pickup (BoP) material like Spirit of Harmony, I'll farm them in an area where I am also skinning or getting cloth or something of value. 

How much playtime devoted to goldmaking? 

At least 30 minutes daily on crafting / posting / relisting. Sometimes 3+ hours if I'm trying to learn something or chasing a rare pattern. 

Rewards? 

None yet since my goal is to stay over 1M liquid. The first target I have in mind though is the Grand Expedition Yak, probably followed by TCG mounts. 

Shoutouts? (streams, blogs, podcasts) 

Nev AH Addict (of course), Power Word: Gold, Call to Auction, Cold's Gold Factory, Zerohour's blog, and recently I've been following Stede, Wowprofitz, and phatlewts.

****************** 

Big congratulations to Dysenigrate! Hitting 1 million is still a huge achievement regardless of what anyone says about getting there being easier these days! It may not be uphill both ways in the snow type difficult now but it's still only a tiny percentage of players who get there and they all deserve congratulations!

I'm always curious to hear how people get sucked into the Auction House game - for some (like me), it"s a natural & comfortable place to be, or it starts as a way to pay for end game repairs & raid supplies & for others, it's a deal that looks too good to miss and so another trap is sprung and a new goldmaker is born. I have a guildie who is slowly getting sucked in, he likes these one off big sales like Dysenigrate did but he'll wake up soon and realise he's rich & he likes it and then I'll say 'told ya!' :)

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide
or this great TCG post
WoW Reign of Fire TCG Box

Image ©NigelHowe under Creative Commons licence

Saturday Celebrations - Lindrayn, Twisting Nether-US

This week, we have a tale of millions from Lindrayn on Twisting Nether-US server. I have to apologise here now, I missed this email a few weeks ago so it's a bit late being published! I'm so sorry, Lindrayn.

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! 

I'm running low on submissions so if you'd like to see this weekly story continue, I'm going to need more stories!

I try to reply to each submission quickly so if I don't reply - poke me again as I may have missed it or leave a comment on a post - those I definitely see more easily. Now that AH Addict is getting more popular, the email address is busy with spammers coming out of the woodwork so I do sometimes miss things :(

******************

What is your milestone amount?
My first million

When did you start?
I started getting serious on a whim during Firelands in July 2011. I had heard about the “obsidium shuffle” on making gold and I had a max level Jewelcrafter, a max level Enchanter and a max level Alchemist so I thought “why not?” I bought my first load of ore for 30g a stack and I probably bought 50 stacks. After processing it and cutting gems I doubled my investment by the next day. It all went downhill from there. 

Did you set a goal?
My goal was 1 million gold in one year. I barely made the goal. I started with 70k in July 2011 and by the end of June 2012 I was sitting at 960k. I had a friend loan me the last 40k just so I could screenshot it and celebrate (took me 4 days to pay him back)

First tips & tricks?
For me, its frequent undercutting. Be bold about it. If the market dips too low, don’t be afraid to be aggressive and buy someone out and reset the market. The gem market has been ruthless at times on my server. Also, the phone app is a must. It allows me to check auctions every hour or two while I’m out and about. 

When did you start a banker alt?
I don’t really have one. I moved my main toon, Edrisa, to Proudmoore late last summer and this toon was originally intended as a bank alt. As you can see I’ve made it a full fledged alt that I raid on too.

Best market over the years?
Jewelcrafting by far. I would say 80% of my wealth has come from gems.

Favorite niche market?
I dabble in inscription. I picked it up at the beginning of MoP just for the 476 caster staff. I make a fairly decent amount of gold off shoulder enchants and occasionally dabble in glyphs. I just don’t have the patience to do it full time.

Do you farm materials?
Never. Early on I had some supply problems with herbs to transmute gems, but near the end of my first year I got rid of all my gathering professions. I buy 100% of my materials from the AH or private farmers.

How much playtime devoted to gold making?
I devote probably an hour a day to managing my auctions. 2-3 times a week I spend a couple hours processing ore to make gems, rings, and enchants. When patches first drops its not unusual for me to spend twice that managing things.

Professions
Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Alchemy, Inscription.

Flipping
I make a moderate amount of gold flipping transmog gear, mounts, and pets. Recently I’ve found its profitable to buy cheap pets on Proudmoore and sell then for 2-3 times as much on Twisting Nether.

Reward yourself for reaching goal?
Therein lies my weak point! I tend to spend WAY too much gold on things I want. When MoP launched, I think I spent nearly 200k gold just buying myself gear off the BMAH and from players. 

I’ve bought many mounts for 70-90k off the BMAH and I can’t resist buying mini-pets. I would likely already have my new goal of 2 million gold if I would stop spending it on big ticket items. But hey, what good is the gold if you can’t get what you want!

What's your new goal, if any?
With me moving my druid to Proudmoore, my new goal is to cap on both servers. When I transferred my druid, I had just over 1 million gold. I transferred 920k to Proudmoore and that left me a nest egg of 100k on Twisting Nether to bounce back from. 

Since August, I have turned that 100k back in to 350k. I have lost gold on Proudmoore but I’ve also bought easily 150k in gear over there to raid with. I’m sitting at 870k there. So right now I’m sitting at just over 1.2 million and I am shooting to make it 2 million by the launch of the next expansion.

******************

A perfect example of one of my newbie tips - a copper saved is a copper earned! If you want to build your gold stash more quickly, then you have to stop buying yourself luxuries! I'm a fine one talking though - I hit my million as Lindrayn was getting started and I still haven't hit my 2nd Million! I do have a fine collection of mounts and pets though so I don't care!

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide
or this great TCG post
WoW Reign of Fire TCG Box

Image © Chris Phutully under Creative Commons licence

Saturday Celebrations - Darkstar, Darksorrow-EU

This week we have a tale of multiple millions from Finland. Darkstar isn't your typical gold maker or WoW player by the sounds of his story - but he's still managed to amass quite a fortune.

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!

******************

When did you start?  

I started WoW maybe a week after it was released in Finland. I still remember how cool a game it was.. standing against Ragnaros and shooting with a wand! Hahaha! My gold making started late in The Burning Crusade. I started to fund the guild I was in and somehow I found it exciting when all the junk was sold out and we actually had good stuff in the guild bank. After our guild was dismissed due to inactivity, I started to collect some coppers for myself. 

What is your milestone amount?  

3 million 

Did you set a goal?/what's your new goal, if any?  

When I started saving gold, I dreamed of gold cap. Back then I knew no-one who had reached it but I remember checking a video from youtube about this guy looting the mailbox until gold limit. I think at that time I made a decision to do the same thing. It took quite a while to get my first million and when it finally came, I was so happy. It is kinda funny when 100g profit used to be so much, but now it's nothing. While writing this interview, I currently have 3,008,210g on my server. I think my next goals are 4th million and to get rest of the battle pets.  

When did you start a banker alt/ Do you keep the same banker alt? 

My banker alt is a lvl 35 rogue ( who uses staff :D ). I have two rogues because I also wanted a human female character so this male version was about to be deleted, but I thought I'd use it for a while as a banker. That "while" grew to be years. I practically run everything other than JC/alchemy items through my banker.  

Best market over the years? 

There is something in alchemy that I like. It was my first ever profession to pick up and has been my favourite ever since. I farmed earlier 100% recipes for it and I transmute gems to cut. Alchemy is also great since you can choose the specialization. I would say I have made 60% of my gold with Alchemy & Jewelcrafting combo.  

Do you farm materials? 

I used to farm quite a lot of herbs/ores, but nowadays I have no need since I can buy large amounts of stuff to shuffle. On rare occasions I might farm adamantite ore to make mercurial adamantites.  

How much playtime devoted to gold making? 

WoW has never been my #1 game since I played CoD in high level and now I play BF4 mainly, but when I'm logged in, I either farm pets or fool around with my banker. I try to visit WoW every day of course due to profession cooldowns.  

Flipping? 

Latest market where I have found myself is flipping Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria green armour. I buy pretty much everything that is under 60g and put them back for 255g. It's not high volume market in my server, but it gives me good profit. So it is like safe investment. 

Advice for a new gold maker? 

We live in the world of information and you might be overwhelmed with all the options for gold making. You have no hurry to master all professions. Get maybe a few addons (Postal and Auctioneer) to start with and get two professions which can be used together like Jewelcrafting/Mining. You don't have to sell new materials, because people need older stuff to level their professions. Also set yourself a goal :) 

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

I have been too busy with school this Autumn/Winter so unfortunately I haven't had time to follow much anything related to gold making. I used to watch Jim Younkin's live streams, Tarou's videos and Blogs which were linked to the Undermine Journal. Two best web sites must be theunderminejournal.com and wowuction.com. 

Keep reading AH Addict blog, guys and girls. Enjoy WoW!

******************

So I have to give a BIG GRATZ to Darkstar for reaching 3 million gold - that is quite a pile of gold for someone who doesn't call WoW his main game!

I find it curious how so many people find their favorite profession to be one of the first ones they pick up! I picked up Leatherworking on my first character and she is still a leatherworker and she is still my main alt too. She has almost every recipe/pattern from previous expansions and is working on the current PvP crafted items.

I guess it's the one I know best even though I left it alone for a while during Cataclysm. Is your favorite profession the one that makes you the most gold or the one your first picked up? I'd be interested to know so leave a comment if you feel like.

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide
or this great TCG post
WoW Reign of Fire TCG Box

Image © IcyAero under Creative Commons licence

Saturday Celebrations - Weale, Silver Hand-US

This week we have a story of a self-made millionaire, Weale from Silver Hand-US server. With a slightly different outlook on gold making, Weale avoids the traditional markets and has made reselling his own.

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!

******************

What is your milestone amount?
1 Million total Altoholic gold. 

What got you started making gold and when?
I've always had "some" gold but I never really focused on accumulating it. It was sometime around the end of the year in 2012 that I started taking "making gold" more seriously. I cleared a couple hundred thousand with a lot of effort put into crafting during the early weeks of MoP so I did have maybe 200-300k spread around on Silver Hand Horde characters when I decided I would try to "make a million." 

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
I've made most of my gold this year by reselling. Not all but I would say maybe 60-80%. I started reselling items on a lark around the beginning of 2013, and was surprised what a decent business it was. Ultimately it became what I concentrated most on. 

Biggest successes or biggest failures
Well I sold the first bar of Living Steel ever put on our AH for 20k. That was ridiculous. But the biggest success was certainly figuring out a way to resell efficiently. I keep about 1,000 auctions up and I have my search and pricing pretty smoothly automated. 

In the world of failures, I avoid most "obvious" crafted items like gems, blue gear, flasks/potions etc, because they are just a lot of trouble for the amount of money they bring in. (On my server anyway.) Occasionally I will cut gems and scribe glyphs for alts and when I do, I often make a batch to sell. I also try to make desirable items from casually or cheaply collected materials -- the 553 pants, or Sky Golem/Pierre. Even if those sell at the supposed materials cost, my actual materials cost might be 1/2 that or less. 

The battle pet market is terrible on my fairly small economy server. I thought it might be a good thing at first, but eventually I just wound up with 1-1/2 guild tabs of pets that I will try to sell some day if/when we get connected to other servers. 

Advice for new goldmakers
If you want to resell, you need to be able to log in multiple times per day and have your mail -> AH process working smoothly. You need to be prepared to relist some/many items for months. 

If you are selling crafted items, get the materials as cheaply and quickly as you can. 

Don't buy ANYTHING for yourself unless it's really important. The only things I even remotely splurged on were enough battle pets to get me the collecting achievements.

If you have a bunch of level 90 alts, ALWAYS do your Lei Shen treasure runs. You can easily get 300-500 "free" gold and 2-3 spirits of harmony for your 10-15 minutes of work (go find a key, do a run). That is a lot of gold and spirits per hour. 

Shout outs for any blogs or podcasts that helped you along the way
Pretty much figured it out all on my own. 

What's your new goal, if any?
3-4 months ago I was sure I wouldn't make it to 1 Million by the end of the year, but I passed 1 Million in gold last week. I might make it to 1.1 Million by the end of the year. Meanwhile I have an inventory of stuff worth maybe 2 Million more, about half it listed regularly, the other half chilling out in a vault. 

I think I will continue to do what I'm doing but spend some of the money I make on luxuries. I feel like after being reasonably successful this year, I've earned it!

******************

So there we go - reselling is big business for Weale - Congratulations on your first Million gold and may it continue to pour into your bags!

The funny thing is that I don't usually resell stuff, especially transmog or high level armor - transmog just didn't seem to take off on my small server and I've lost touch with the high end stuff so I steer clear of it. However, for the last month, I've been doing my 30 minutes a day project and reselling is pretty much all I've been doing, albeit at the very bottom end of the markets!

Having read Weale's story, maybe I should look at it again - at the very least, it will give me something to write about and I can afford to take a risk here & there now too!

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide

Image © Nicole Abalde under Creative Commons licence

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!

******************

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

******************

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!

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide

Image © Romain Bihore under Creative Commons licence

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

******************

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.

******************

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!

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide

Image © Pulencio under Creative Commons licence

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

******************

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!

******************

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! 

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide

Image © AR under Creative Commons licence

Saturday Celebrations - Exalios, Netherlands-EU

This week we have a wonderful tale of goldmaking from Exalios. He didn't say which server he plays but he's from The Netherlands which is just a couple of hours across the sea from me. His story strikes fear in to me - the thought of re-starting everything makes my skin crawl but I'll let him tell you the story!

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 8 weeks so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

******************

When did you start?
Since WotLK I always enjoyed farming and back then I said to some of my best mates in game that I would become a WoW millionaire. That unfortunately did not happen back then. I stopped playing and restarted in Cataclysm - I deleted the characters I had from Wrath, just wanted to start over again and again started farming, but that didn't go well either. 

I stopped playing again because I had to do an internship in America (I'm from the Netherlands). When I came back this year (2013), I deleted all my characters again except my main, which I transferred to a new server, since my old server was deserted and all my old guildies/friends were gone. But this time I was dedicated. I leveled the professions I thought would make the most gold - jewelcrafting & mining. So I started with about +20k on March 26 2013. 

Did you set a goal?
My goal was to reach a million gold and buy myself the Swift Spectral Tiger! 

First tips & tricks?
A mate of mine was always very good at flipping items at the Auction House, when he told stories about it, I always thought that's way to much work, learning what is valuable and what is not. So I was just farming alot at first. But then he mentioned Jim Younkin, he said; he might seem a bit crazy but he knows what he is doing. So I started checking some things out about him. And he thought like me so much, just like the other great gold makers like Goblinraset, Erogroth, Phat Lewts or you Nev! 

When did you start a banker alt?
Had one since I started, but I only used him to store some items that would not sell or anything. So I never had like a bank alt that did all my selling/buying or anything. 

Do you keep the same banker alt?
Nope deleted, I now just used multiple characters to sell different things. Just to keep track of what is making profit and what is not.

Best market over the years?
Well it has not been a year yet, but my best market was definitely jewelcrafting hands down!

Starting over - how?
Hmmm dont know if I understand this right. But if you mean if I would start over, how would I go about this. Luckily for me I already did this three times! :P But no, if I would have to start over again, then I would first make a druid herbalist/miner. Then another character with Alchemy and Jewelcrafting. So first make some gold with farming and then farm mats to level my professions and use the gold to invest.

Did you reach your goal? Set a new one
Well my goal was to reach a million gold and then buy a Swift Spectral Tiger. So it took me about 5-6 months and there I was one million gold richer! And not that much later some guy was selling a Spectral Tiger so I bought that, and then I saw an X-51 Nether Rocket Extreme for 130k so bought that too and lastly a Corrupted Hippogryph for 120k. 

Also I leveled some other characters to level 90 and thought what the heck, I'll just buy all my gear... So was left with about 300k, and that was like a week ago. But I didn't have the Swift Spectral Tiger yet, and so started with farming some gold again, slowly (very slow because a LOT of people are selling gems now all of the sudden so most prices are below mat price now >.<) but steadily. 

For over a year, our server had not seen a Swift Spectral Tiger, so I thought I probably have some time to get to gold cap again, and BAM! there it was... 780k buy out... and I did not have it. So I start freaking out because that is the mount I wanted, the Spectral Tiger is cool but the Swift has always seem cooler to me (very silly to be true, only difference is some extra armor, but it more the rarity of the mount). So I did everything I could to start getting gold, got to 400k in a few days, with selling everything I saved up for a long time. 

Classic, BC, WotLK, Cata, MoP materials, everything... even my two recently obtained TCG mounts, the Nether Rocket Extreme and the Corrupted Hippogryph (did get a 30-50k profit on them). And so on 12 October 2013 I found myself with 680k again, and the bid on the mount was 660k with 30 minutes left. Those were some nerve wrecking minutes, because in my head it went like; I'm going to bid, but then someone who wants it is going to bid as well and then I'm screwed. And 30 minutes later.... I was a Swift Spectral Tiger richer! Goal completed!

Now my new goal is; making one million gold again and with it buy every possible TCG mount available (gonna need more than one million, but I'll get there). I'm a mount collector, first of all I want El Pollo Grande!

Favorite niche market?
Well strange enough I was just selling MoP rare gems. When I started I was one of the only gem sellers on my realm. There were a few people randomly putting on gems and some were dedicated like me, for hours we underbid each other with 1 copper. But gems were selling left and right for a minimum of 150g up to 375g each sometimes! And the materials cost me 50g for ghost iron or kyparite and 50g for a golden lotus. So I was making gold like a train. Most gold I made in one day was 124k I believe. Just from selling gems. But those days are gone, don't have a niche market anymore.

Do you farm materials?
I do some mining, not that much. I think for the greater part I just bought all mats I needed.

Lesser known gold making addons
I just use the big addons like TSM, auctioneer and auctionator

Biggest oops!
Was some time ago, I bought a Spectral Porcupette or something. I knew it was a new pet and (relatively) hard to obtain. Bought it for 5k or something, and thought 'oh im gonna flip that and sell it for 22k atleast!' And then I forgot a 0. Sold it for 2.200 gold >.<. So not a very big oops but then I was not that rich yet :P

Biggest yay!
My biggest gold making yay was probably starting in transmog and just being so amazed. Buying a Jade Plate chest for 15g and selling it for 5k the next day. That was just amazing to see. 

Funny yay was when I just started making gold and was leveling a hunter and obtained some small eggs - the things that drop from low lvl birds. I remembered that these things were used during a certain festival or something. So I thought I'll just post 3 small eggs for 300g and omg! next day they actually sold. Back then I was poor so 300g was nice to get from that but that was funny too in my opinion.

How much playtime devoted to gold making?
Pretty much all my time at first, just came online and started selling stuff right away until I logged out. Now not so much, maybe 1/3 of my time? So thats like 1/2 to 1 hour a day?

Professions?
Jewelcrafting / mining / alchemy / blacksmithing / tailor / enchanting

Flipping?
Green Cata, MoP leveling items, almost all transmog BoE gear, recipes and anything I can grab for a low price, even TCG mounts if I can

Vendor pets & pet battles?
No I started this once but did not see a big return of my invested gold so quit this pretty fast

Advice for a new gold maker?
First step, inform yourself, you need to listen to experienced gold makers. Listen podcasts and read blogs etc. After that the next step is usually getting some farming profs like mining and herbalism. Then find out what a good market is and start leveling a profession in that market. But you need to invest in research first of all and determine the time you can spend on gold making. If you have 30min a day or even one hour, a profession like jewelcrafting is not going to make you rich fast.

Reward yourself for reaching goal?
Yeah Swift Spectral Tiger, even though it was crazy expensive. That was what I wanted, would not know what to do with that gold besides that:)

Share the blog love - my 'must read' suggestions?
Love blogs, but I would recommend, Getrichwow, from Erogroth. He has some really nice info on that blog. And this one of course but I'm guessing if people get advice from you their already reading it:)

Well hope this is not to much info! I wish you good luck in your gold hunting quest! And keep up the good work, love the podcast and love the blog:)

Sorry for some bad spelling...

Greetings
Exalios

******************

Exalios - I think you're crazy deleting all your alts severals times but a huge Congratulations to you for hitting your million! It always surprises me how varied the road to one million gold is & I'm sure there are many folks out there with equally interesting stories!

I have a couple of the TCG mounts myself but I'm just sitting on my gold - maybe I should let go of the purse strings a little bit & get myself some shiny new mounts too - seems silly not to really!

Until next time - happy goldmaking peeps! mwah!

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide

Image © William Warby under Creative Commons licence

20 Days of Gold making - Day 8, Goals Revisted

I have to say, I have been totally surprised & am super pleased by how many bloggers are joining in with this 20 Days of Gold Making lark. I even feel a bit overwhelmed as I am already falling behind some of them but if you're a regular reader, you'll already know I go at my own pace on most things!

So today, I'm tackling question #8 "Thinking back to Day 2, did you ever reach your goal or are you still working towards it? If you reached it, have you set yourself a new one?"

My main goal was to reach 1 million gold which I did achieve back in July 2011, just 6 months after I really started working towards it. Everything fell a bit flat for me after that - it had been my in-game driving force for so long that I didn't quite know what to do with my self once I reached it!

I spent the rest of that summer leveling an alt or two with guildies, doing some pvp in battlegrounds & I even attempted a few arenas! That didn't go so well though as I'm not exactly a quick mover or thinker & we didn't have any voice chat in place either! Eventually I blew almost half of my liquid gold on a couple of mounts and some rare pets & set myself the target of Loremaster by Xmas. I missed that one by just one day but I was so glad to get it done, I didn't beat myself up on that 1 day delay!

Around this time I took a total break from the game, unplanned so when I did evetually crawl back, I'd lost the contents of various mailboxes! I still had about 350k gold though so it wasn't as bad as it could have been! Since then, I just mooched along, dabbling in various markets & eagerly awaiting the arrival of Mists of Pandaria. I told myself I'd get back on it when Mists hit but truth be told, there is so much new stuff in Mists that I've been very distracted again.

My new goal is to get back to that magical 1 million gold but I'm not going to rush - I have alts to level, pets to collect & achievements to chase too this time. I don't want to let my goldmaking be the only thing I do in game this time round so I'm hoping that reaching this goal won't have such a huge anti-climatic feel to it again.

****************

Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Horde Gift Guide | Alliance Gift Guide

Image © Mike Baird under Creative Commons licence

What's Been Selling This Week & Big News!

© Nev 2003, King of the Jungle

Well, it's been a good week for me - lots of sales & very little spending as I shifted many of the bits & pieces that I stockpiled in the week or two before patch 4.2 hit last week. Sales income of 67.2k & liquid gold increase of 68.7k meant that my spending was a negative 1000g! That surprised me a lot as I sat down to write this post but halfway through, I finally remembered that I sold some low level Darkmoon decks for 1000g via trade chat & I vendored about 10 stacks of Zephyrite, neither of which would show up in the MySales data!

This was the first full week of post patch sales & I find it interesting that none of my glyphs have made it to the top page. I guess the sheer volume & variety of cut gem sales has moved them down to the second page this week. Even my infamous Chocolate Cookies didn't make the first page, mainly due to my husband pinching my market! lol

So what did sell? Well, Ebonsteel Belt Buckles from my lowly lvl 75 warrior Blacksmith were a nice surprise when I finally got around to listing them - they kinda got lost in the mail & then the competition was really fierce so I played the waiting game & made a mini-killing when I managed to be the only one listing for a couple of hours one evening!

The scrolls for cloak enchants have continued to be good sellers although competition has increased towards the end of the week. Greater celestial essence prices have rocketed to 150g whilst the downward pressure on the final scrolls has also increased so I've backed off for now.

A new-ish item for me to sell is the two epic spellthreads from my tailor. As I mentioned last week, I'd let my dreamcloth cooldown pass me by so I didn't have very much dreamcloth available at all. Four spellthreads sold this week & that pretty much finished my supplies so I really must make sure to make my dreamcloth each week - it's easy money & really doesn't take long to do, especially as I have a fair few volatiles in stock.

On patch day, I checked the new JC pvp recipes & there was already major competition on the AH by the time I logged in so I made the 3 pvp inscription relics - finally managed to sell 2 of them this week although the prices are dropping rapidly so I probably won't make anymore for a while at least.

I think that pretty much covers this week & this will be the last 'what's been selling' post for the foreseeable future. Yup, the big news today is that I finally made the 1 million gold cap!

It feels like it's been a very long journey to this final goal but in reality, I started Cataclysm with 50k so 95% on my journey has taken place in almost exactly 7 months. The last 200k or so has really felt like a grind but I just couldn't stop when I was soooo close! I'm going to take a break from the compulsive, must relist auctions type of gold making that I've been doing but don't worry, I'm not going to stop blogging.

It's time to take my girlies through some Cata heroics & try to actually 'get good' on a least one character rather than ok-ish on four. I've said before that I'm nibbling at my Loremaster achievement as well as the Exalted one so I think now is the time to get those projects moving again. Yes, I'm swapping one compulsion for another but hey, isn't that what WoW is about?

Why a photo of a pensive lion, you may be wondering. Well, he's called the King of the Jungle & that's kind of how I felt when I hit the cap. Hugs & kisses from hubby & a few tears of joy & relief from me (yeah, I'm soppy) but at the same time a huge sort of 'what now?' feeling.

I don't usually talk about my photos here but before anyone asks, yes, I really was that close - no telephoto lens & the only crop was the sides to make it square. No, he's not tame but there is a glass wall between us, in case you were curious :D

What Will I Do When I Reach The Gold Cap?

This is my entry for the blogging carnival over at JMTC & it's really made me think. My first reaction was 'Spend it, of course!' but then I realised that nothing in game actually costs that much so what would I be buying?

Well, I would really like the 100 mount achievement so I guess I'll buy mounts to make up that total & also the pet achieves. I still haven't bought a chopper or the traveler's tundra mammoth so I guess I'd have to allow myself those luxuries but whether I splash out for all my level 85's or just for 1 or 2, I don't know yet. I suppose I should treat my ever suffering husband to something special & probably a few of my closest guildies too but I don't quite know what yet!

I have a feeling that 1 million won't be enough though. I'm fairly competitive in some ways & knowing that other bloggers are out there with more than me or getting there faster than me, kind of makes me want to go full steam ahead & try for the 2 or 5 million mark. Hopefully by then I should have my systems streamlined so I can actually sit back a little and watch the snowball gain momentum as it races down the hill but I also think that I'm not very good at sitting on the sidelines so I'll be tempted to fine tune & fiddle all the way.

Hitting the half way mark last week has already changed how I've been working this week but that's for my weekly update post. I definitely won't be glyphing all the way to 5 million though, that is for sure!