Let me start off by saying that this is not the guide that gives you the simple answer to make gold, because there really is no simple answer. This is the guide that tells you the hard truth on how to become rich, and at the end of the day, it's up to you to make it happen. At the end of the day, there is no SILVER BULLET flawless thing to buy and sell to get rich, or to craft and get rich, or to farm and get rich. If you REALLY want to get rich, it's all about attitude and consistency.
My Background
I'll make it short and sweet. I never tried getting rich in WOW until near the end of WOTLK olled around and I realized it sucked not being able to buy everything I wanted. I had been playing since vanilla. I struggled like everyone else to pay for epic riding and flying back in the day. That expensive Traveler's Tundra mount was far out of my grasp in WOTLK at 16000g and I think everyone wanted that beauty. Then, I had an awakening. And, in that awakening I started making money, a lot of it. And, it just kept coming. I hit my first million only 2 months after Cata's release, donated 700k to the guild bank, and started over, to which now I comfortably sit on several million (with my eyes set on 11 million cap!). It is AWESOME!. I'd probably have less if my server actually had decent stuff show up on BMAH but nothing has yet lol.
So, what was my awakening? What did I realize? What is the big secret?
ANSWER: CONSISTENCY!!!!!!!!!!
If you want to learn how to become rich you are going to need to learn this one spiel that I am about to give you.
CONSISTENCY IN ROUTINE!!!
The trick to making money is consistency.
Let's say all you have in your bags is 1500g and you are thinking to yourself, "Oh this guy is only getting rich because he already is rich, and we all know that it's easier to make gold once you have gold, but it's HARD to make gold if you don't have any to start." You are right, these are valid points. HOWEVER!!! You need to open up a little and listen to what I am telling you.
So, let's say you have 1500g right now, nothing else, except maybe a farmer (herb or ore) and that's your main way to make gold, even though the botters have tanked prices to 30g a stack on your server. Let's say now that you FARM for 1 hr p/day, 6 or 7 days a week. In 1 hr, let's say you get 30 stacks, that's about 1000g right there. Or, maybe you check the AH and notice there is no Fel Iron Ore, and since so many are lvling BS right now with patch 5.2 notes, you can farm for an hour in outlands and get Adamantite ore and Fel iron ore and sell for 150g - 200g a stack or more!
This may not seem like very much for that hour you put in, but if you are CONSISTENT and you commit to 1 hr of farming a day for 7 days, all of a sudden you are now selling 7000g of herbs/ore a week minimum, or 28-30k a month, and that's BEFORE even looking at other professions, or other areas, or reselling greens that drop from dungeons or questing, etc... Imagine if you just committed to farming 1000g worth of materials 1 hr each day a week!!! All of a sudden in 2 weeks you are sitting on nearly 15k if you did NOTHING else for a mere 1hr a day. This doesn't include dailies, other drops you might've had in dungeons and sold, or any other rewards.
Now don't limit yourself in thought now and say "YAY, only a year of farming and I can get my spectral tiger mount!" You need to realize that this is just the start of big things to come, but you have to start small, and in starting small, you MUST BE CONSISTENT, you MUST HAVE A ROUTINE, you MUST DO IT DAILY!
STOP SPENDING GOLD NOW!!!
There's a saying, "You don't get rich by spending." (Not referring to INVESTMENT spending in which you do, but referring to buying things that don't have a return). If you want to make a fortune, you need to first gain a small pile of gold. The more gold you have, the easier it will be to make gold. With only 1.5k gold, you would never consider the possibility of buying an item off the AH for 8k gold and reselling for 12k, a 50% profit gain, or let's say, even 10k, just a 25% profit margin. However, when you have 40k gold, that might be a worthwhile risk, if you think it will sell quick. Now, Imagine if you had 250k gold and you could now do that same flipping with 20 items instead of just 1, and all of a sudden, you are now making 50k+ in profit.
BUT, until then, SAVE YOUR GOLD!!! Don't buy toys, don't buy gear off the BMAH, or reg AH. Stop spending gold on pets you don't need yet... I can't believe how many people are like "YES, finally have 15000g, never had this much before!" and then they buy mechano-hog and are back to 500g." The true rich gold makers in the game understand one thing about making money - PATIENCE. Hold out on the fun toys for now, until you can buy them without it hurting your opportunity to use the gold to help you make more.
So, my advice to you is find something you can do consistently but won't burn you out. Farming is not a bad way to start. Set a goal to farm 1000g worth of materials a day and just SELL SELL SELL, no buying. Do that for a week, then 2 weeks.
Eventually, you might be able to buy a few toys here or there and spend it, since it's no fun if you NEVER spend it, but patience and CONSISTENCY. I am telling you right now, the only reason I STILL continue to make money is because I still have a successful money making routine. I have seen guys make 50k, or 100k, or 200k gold and then all of a sudden they hit a wall and stop gaining and wonder what is up, and EVERY time it is because they got complacent, stopped their routine.
NO SILVER BULLET
I will tell you how I made a lot of gold so far in MoP though it may be a little late for you to jump in on this with 5.2 around the corner in DMF trinket sales probably going down a little. Well, I learned that in the BETA, to make DMF cards, they were on a 1 day Cooldown. So, knowing that these trinkets were going to be BiS (regardless of ilvl), I made myself 10 scribes, since inscription is so easy to level. That way I was making 10 cards a day. YES I had to invest a lot of startup gold for the herbs, but it paid off BIG TIME. When the first DMF rolled around I had 18 trinkets, most people were lucky to have 1 or 2. I sold all of them from 50k to 125k gold. Then, I got hungry... I started buying other people's scrolls, realizing the profit margins were high since herbs were so plentiful, and I got it to the point where my costs to make my own cards were 250g, and off of others about 500-550g, easily profitable. This last DMF I managed to craft over 70 trinkets. Now, the supply depresses the value a little, but since the quantity I am selling, it's easily another 300-400k in profit, depending on how the market goes. While it won't sustain like this til the end of MoP, it has been about 50% of my business so far.
However, I know guys that make more money than me by selling glyphs and flipping rares and epics on the AH. I know guys that make TONS of gold on a consistent ORE shuffle. I know people who just buy TCG stuff and flip em successfully at 20k - 50k profit a pop, selling maybe 1 or 2 a week. There is no set way to make your fortune. What you need to find is one thing that makes a small amount of profit, and then just repeat it daily. Before you know it you will have tons of gold. Once you start making LOTS of gold or get yourself a nice pile of it to start investing in more expensive things, you can start finding other ways to make gold.
Originally I spent all the time farming stuff myself. Now I just hire farmers. You ALL need to start somewhere. But I am telling you right now, FIND one area that you can make a small profit in, whether it's just crafting DMF cards once a day consistently with your scribe, or it's transmuting with your alch and working your farm for golden lotus, and just start doing it CONSISTENTLY. Never miss it!
It may seem small at first, but that is how you get rich. CONSISTENT attitude, CONSISTENT behavior, and STOP SPENDING on things you don't need until you actually are rich.
Here are some other things that will help you make gold and manage the activities of your CONSISTENT behavior that I am not including in this guide, since this is more about attitude than actual method. I should also note the best money makers are the ones that are well read on various avenues of money making. I'll give you some places to start:
- ADDONS (Auctionator, Auctioneer, TSM, etc)
- theunderminejournal.com (Read the blogs that are RSS fed there too)
- stormspire.net (a great WOW millionaire hangout for gold making tips)
- Check our very own Ownedcore Guides on ways to make you gold. There's tons of them. Choose one and make it a CONSISTENT daily routine
At the end of the day, there are TONS of ways to make gold, no one person can do them all. The trick is for you to just choose the one you want to do and do it CONSISTENTLY!!! Eventually, as you make more gold, you will find other ways to make gold. Just choose one, and start from there. GOOD LUCK!!!