there are tons of posts out there about getting more money. Many of them deal with techniques that either require you to be high level(ie to hit certain areas) or to have money to start (ie day trading the ah) I decided to give a BASIC guide for new People on how to make money. My first few characters were scraping by to just get enough money to do their training till almost level 30. Since then i've changed tactics a bit and still learn new things.
The money making guide for the NEWBIE:
1. So your level 1 and you just starting out your first character on WoW or you have a few but have never been good with cash. Don't worry about to much till you hit level 5. Just kill everything and get to level 5. On your way to level 5 SAVE the following items.
Every linen cloth
Every recipee you get
Every green item you get.
Now, you could save other white items such as meats and stuff that drops but you can use those in cooking to make yourself food that will eventually give you increased stats. Linen you can use to make yourself bandages as well, up to you to save them or not at this point.
2. At level 5 you can now train in TRADE skills. It is very tempting to get the "right" skills for your class. Warrior you say? sure take mining and smithing. BAHHH, that only leads to the poor house. IF you want money and GOOD gear then choose TWO collection trade skills. Collection trade skills are herbalism, mining, and skinning. Blacksmithing, engineering, alchemy, tailoring, enchanting, leatherworking are all PRODUCTION or CRAFTING type of trade skills. If you choose a crafting trade skill you will only use up everything that you have gathered using your collection skill and more than likely you will be tempted to buy more off the internet to support your nasty crafting habit.
3. But you say that you want to craft the items and you want to get the good stuff and have better items. THIS is a guide to MAKE money, by taking two COLLECTION skills and selling all the items you gather you will:
a.) make lots of money
b.) have really good gear for your level (that you buy with all your cash you got from collecting.)
c.) have large bags to collect more stuff.
d.) and still have $$ left over.
4. But you say you REALLY REALLY want to do the crafting skill, keep in mind, you can always SWITCH skills later. Especially after you buy your first mount at 40. Take two gathering skills now and make mad cash after 40 you can buy your mount then drop one of the collection skills that does not support your new crafting skill. By going this route instead of taking crafting at the start, you have tons more cash, your mount, your fully trained for your class, and NOW it will be tons easier to collect the items you need to level up that trade skill. People have done this route and maxxed out their trade skills in a few days and STILL have lots of money left over.
5. And if thats not enough to convince you consider this. I recently created a mage. At level 5 i took mining and skinning. By the time i reached level 10, i was fully trained i had all 12 slot bags, i had the gear i wanted off the AH and i had over 12 gold. And all of this came from selling only the ore, unfortunately at the time light leather wasnt selling for much.
6. All those green items you saved at the start that you couldnt use, sell them on the ah when you have a little cash to put them up. By selling them to the vendors your only robbing yourself. That lvl 5 wand may sell to a vendor for 1s, but by putting it up on the auction hall you could get 10s. Even if you dont think the item will sell you can almost always sell on the ah for MORE than a vendor will give you, especially early on.
7. What collection skills should I take you ask? Good question! This is really up to you, especially if you plan on doing a crafting skill later on. Here are some suggestions.
a.) FIRST rule, either take mining and skinning or take herbalism and skinning. do NOT take minging and herbalism. Mining and herbalism share the tracking skill for those nodes, you can only have one up at a time. So if your looking for mining nodes and have up your detect minerals ability you will NOT see any herbs, and vise versa.
b.) If you plan on doing a crafting skill later make sure you take the skill that will support your planned crafting skill. i. e. if you plan on doing blacksmithing or engineering later on take mining now. This way you won't have to level up two skills just the one.
c.) Mining tends to make more money early on, and herbalism tends to near high end. Copper bars can sell for 75s to 1g20s a stack on most servers, easily. and that is the first ore you can mine.
8. Fishing.
Early on fishing will not make you any real money, unless you know some ppl that are just starting to level up cooking skill. BUT, it can save you money by collecting your own food. ESPECIALLY if you are a hunter, after all you have to feed that blackhole of a pet you get at level 10. Its better to fish for free food than buy food. When you get to the low to mid 20's you can start to make money at fishing. Firefin and Oily blackmouths sell decend on the AH. There are more later on but lets keep this for new ppl.
9. The WAR EFFORT. Right now there is a world event going on to collect stuff. Ore from mining, Bandages, herbs, cooking, leather from skinning, etc. Check what these guys are asking for and do that. You can get magic items in the supply boxes they give you. Now, you can either trade your stuff for them, or you can take advantage of this and sell your stuff on the AH as prices have really gone up since this event started.
10 Pricing stuff on the auction hall (AH)
if you put up a recipee good chances are there will be a few others on there. If you put up copper ore, peacebloom, linen cloth etc there will probably be lots. Do a search on the ah for those type of items and put close to the going prices. If there are tons on there put for a little less than the AVERAGE person has it for. IF there are very few say, copper bars, then put for a little higher. As gathered items used in trades skills are usually in higher demand. For your magic items i usually do a search for similar type items(ie armor,leather, pants) and campare to items of similar level then price on the high side. If i don't think it will sell,ie its a really crappy item then i may sell for less. You will soon get a feel for what items sell better. For example, stuff that has "of the monkey" is usually a good seller as hunters and rogues go after it like candy. But also keep in mind, hunters and rogues wear leather early on so even though it may say "of the monkey" if its on cloth it likely won't sell.
Hopefully these few tips will help those starting out.
Cyanic, 60 Rogue