Ripping People Off, or "Finding Really Great Deals That You'd Feel Bad About If You Weren't Profiting"

I essentially just ripped a guy off on my Alliance AH today.  I got a Hyacinth Macaw for 3,000g.

On Horde side, it sells for ~20,000g.

In fact, a friend of mine begged a seller once to take a 25,000g Hyacinth Macaw down and let her save the cash to buy it off him.  She couldn't because he'd already agreed to do that for someone else who wasn't going to be in game until the weekend but had the cash on hand.

And I have a macaw for both Bird and Dust, and all my friends have at least one by now, so I don't feel bad about using this one for profit.

:D  Silly seller -- putting a bid-only price of 3k and thinking anyone on the poor half of the server would start a bidding war.

WoW Financial, or "How WoW Economy Can Apply to Life"

I'm always amused by the irony that despite how much I hate math and how much my husband loves math, I'm the household financial guru.

I've been listening to financial guy Dave Ramsey, who offers strategies to "be a millionaire by retirement" in completely legal and tidy ways, and what he says about real world money can easily be applied to Warcraft money. (I'm less interested in riches and more interested in stability, but what the hell. I've always wanted to be rich so I can give to charities. Is that weird?)

The big super-secret financial tip? Work hard and don't do anything stupid.

He says it's not hard but you need to educate yourself on money just like anything else in life. Throwing your money around with no clue what you're doing is the easiest way to lose it.

Gathering for Cataclysm, or "Everyone Likes Gold"

New races means new rerolls means new characters leveling professions means high demand for profession-leveling materials.

So whether you're a miner, herbalist, or just willing to put in the time for grinding cloth, I suggest you stock up to help those power-levelers level their crafts -- and line your pockets.


This post brought to you by the "I don't have internet access on the road" post scheduling system.

Bank System, or "Setting Up Your Alts for Cross-Faction Sales"

You will need 1 trustworthy friend to do this with you (or a second account) and 3 character slots free for banks (most people already have one set up). If you don't have either, you may want to stick to more ordinary ways of using the Neutral AH.

Bank 1: Horde
Get a level 1 to a city. Orc or Troll are easiest, as you just exit the starting area and head north.

Bank 2: Alliance
Humans are easy to get to Stormwind. Just head out and go west until you hit the road going north.

Bank 3: Neutral
It is easier to set up a HORDE than an ALLIANCE in Booty Bay. A troll or orc can simply exit their level 1 starting area, head south to the ocean, and swim west to Ratchet with maybe 1 or 2 deaths. From Ratchet, you take the boat.

For Alliance, your best bet is if you have an unused Death Knight. If you don't, get ready for corpse-hopping. You can run south from Stormwind to Booty Bay but the mobs are very high level and aggro the moment you rez. A longer but less death-shrouded route is from Teldrassil to Ashenvale and then through The Barrens to Ratchet. And Ratchet has the right boat.

Bank 4: Friendly Neutral
Since you CANNOT buy your own auctions, you CANNOT set up a second neutral AH character on the same account and trade items to yourself. You must have a second account or a friend willing to help out. If you and a friend trade through the Neutral AH regularly for your money-making schemes, you can benefit each other by having a Neutral AH character on opposite sides.

So this bank character is a friend of yours (or a second account) on HORDE or ALLIANCE while yours is on the other faction. You trade back and forth with this person.

Bank Guild
Do this for both sides, but particularly the side you share with a friend, as guild banks are the fastest and cheapest way to trade items back and forth.

Get a charter in the city. (Ask a guard where the Guild Master is.)

Badger your main faction friends to make level 1's in the nearby starting zone. Go slap your charter on their faces to make them sign.

Stay in the starting zone and, to fill in the rest of the charter, whisper anyone without a guild tag "Would you like to make 50s by signing a guild charter? It's a bank guild, so there's no expectation for you to stay after creation."

If they say yes: group with them, find them, offer the charter to sign, , pay them, thank them, remind them that "Joining a guild or signing another charter will remove your signature from this charter, so please refrain from doing so until this guild forms," drop group.

Repeat until you have 9 signatures. Turn it in at the Guild Master. Thank everyone one last time, then kick them all.

Trade What?
I'm finding a sad lack of Argent Tournament pets on my Neutral AH. I plan to export them to the enemy auction houses, starting with a Sen'jin Fetish I farmed on Dusty, in order to buy up Alliance Argent Tourney pets for resale (and personal use).

My friend recommended comparing prices on high-end items like:

• Book of Glyph Master
• Titanium Ore
• Arctic Fur
• Epic Gems
• Frost Lotus

Make Money to Make Money
You have to be dedicated to making cash on both sides or you won't make any money. To buy the things you want from your non-main side, that auction character needs capital. To get capital, you must send that character valuable things and care about its auctioning process.

Remember, both sides must make money to continue making money. If one side runs out, the trading and thus cash flow stops.

Aggressive Money-Making, or "After You Max Out Quests, Try This"

Once you hit the level cap, doing old quests and dailies are great ways to make money but old quests do run out and dailies are limited.

I've already told you how I make money and how penniless lowbies can make money, so now I'll let you know how my friend MK got 40,000g on his old server with super-aggressive AH techniques. These are hardcore and require both time and attention, but the rewards are hefty.

Fact: AH prices vary widely between both server and faction.

What does that mean? MK explained how he examined different AH price trends and concluded that there is no correlation between prices anywhere. Each faction on each server has its own unique economy and it does not match anyone else's -- even between Alliance and Horde on the same server.

What MK learned is that if you can get an alliance and horde bank with a reasonable amount of base gold, you can make massive profit buying items that go cheap on one side, transfer them through the AH, and resell them on the other.

1. Spend a few weeks trolling both alliance and horde auction houses to find out what items have the biggest price discrepancy.
2. Figure out if they'll sell, and how quickly. (Listed for a lot of gold does not mean it sells for that much.)

You want to find an item that one side has in large supply for cheap that the other has in short supply and will pay through the nose to get.

Then you need to buy it low and sell it high.

Fact: Most people list items between 10AM and 5PM.

Another super-aggressive technique of MK's is to list his items before 10AM and go back after 5PM to remove and relist anything that got undercut. Most people, he says, list something at a normal time of day and leave it alone until it times out. This is a time-intensive method, but you don't argue with a man in possession of 40,000g.

Fact: Making money, like everything else in this game, is a matter of time spent immersing yourself. The more you work at making money, the more money you'll make.

Tales of Begging, or "Give Me Gold or I'll Make Fun of Your Arena Rating"

I post these things because I'm always surprised they happen. I know by now that such people exist, but it's always a little bit of a shock.

Anyway, basic story is I'm gaining TB rep in Mulgore and a level 3 wants 1g to learn his "moves" (which confused the crap out of me at first -- who calls training "moves"?). You need maybe a few copper, maybe a handful of silver to learn skills that low. You get the cash for it while doing the quests.

He said he had a high level character that could pay me back. Obviously, if his alt has that much money he doesn't need any from me.

So, to avoid getting screwed over by a complete stranger, and because I'm a huge believer in Do It Yourself, I said no and recommended he run to the next town and have his alt send him cash. That is what I do. It is not an unreasonable suggestion.

Then he starts making fun of my arena ratings.

Which makes me really regret not giving him the money. Obviously.

The funny thing is, he made fun of my ratings when Dusty isn't on an arena team. Plum is. And Plum goes to WG more than she does arenas, so her rating sucks. And . . . I don't really care. XD In fact, Dusty has more accomplishments than Plum but he stuck to PVP achievements, not PVE.

Anyway. I thought it was weird and psychotic and thus worth sharing.

Starter Business, or "Making Money for Lowbies"

While I outlined how I made my gold by focusing on market opportunities, I wanted to dedicate an entire post to acquiring starter capital on very low level characters entering a new server.

Again, this is for low levels with no friends, no alts, and no money.

This method is not fast. If you are on a low-population server with a bad economy, it will not be easy, either. The keys are patience and prudence.

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Level

The truth of the matter is that money gets easier to make the higher you are. Dailies, quests, drops, all make it easier to make lots of money for those expensive high-end goods.

At low levels (ie, 10-20 range), your options are much more limited, but you still have them.

Profession

You do not need blacksmithing or leatherworking while you level. I know you think "But it's necessary for great gear!" No. No, it's not. It might be necessary at endgame, but for now, it's not. It's a massive gold sink. If you insist upon a crafting profession at level 10, then I can't reach through the screen and slap sense into you, so just go read another blog.*

For the rest of you, get gathering professions: Skinning, herbalism, and/or mining.

• Skinning - Necessary for leatherworkers and useful in various other crafting professions.
• Herbalism - The best current gathering profession. Due to alchemy and inscription both being completely herb-reliant, stacks of herbs sell for several gold even on poor economies. ALSO, the lowest level herbs are used for minor inscription training, which even maxed inscriptionists still use, so they're in high demand.
• Mining - The former king of gathering, mining is used heavily by blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, and engineering.

Herbalism and mining both use tracking, and you can only have one tracker on at a time. Skinning does not have any tracking, you just skin the stuff you kill. So my current recommendation would be herbalism and skinning, for ease of use.

Resale

I'm particularly thinking of pets, because that's what I'm most versed in, and everybody wants them.

Example

The cat lady is a short run from Stormwind proper and the snake vendor wanders around Orgrimmar.

You buy a 40s/50s pet and sell it on your AH for 5g.

Worst case scenario, it doesn't sell. You've put the price of buying and listing into the pet, but that's all.

Best case scenario, you make a few gold every time you list a pet.

The pets that sell best are the ones that are out of the way for high levels. The rabbits in Dun Morogh, the dragonhawks in Eversong Woods. It takes a while to run get them (and, remember, you can only get your own faction pets), but the gold you make is worth it, and you can always stock up while you're there.

Also, don't underestimate the potential of reselling pets on the neutral Auction House, or buying pets there and selling them on your AH. Details of that method expanded on in my other post, linked at the beginning.

Expenses

The point of making gold is to use it for necessities. Once you have enough for training, regular and epic land mounts, and maybe even a simple flying mount, consider investing in storage space.

The one thing you can never have too much of in this game is storage. It's a good investment for anyone, and I highly recommend taking advantage while you can. Let me explain how I set up my banks and you can see what you think.

Birdfall's Banking System

All of my bankers belong to a guild I formed for them. It cost a few silver per charter signature (a time-honored tradition of paying people to help you) and 10s to create. Once you get your signatures and turn in the charter, thank everyone for helping, and they should leave on their own. Feel free to tell them it's just a bank guild to hold your stuff if they ask. Anyone still in the guild the next day can be kicked while they're offline.

Naming suggestions: Merchant, Shop, Personal Shopper, Peddler, Store, Savings and Loan, Storage. Any variation thereof. This isn't a real guild, just something for you to store your extra non-soulbound stuff.

Banker 1 - [Stormwind] - Level 10
Purpose: Relay materials to and from the Alliance Auction House. Pick up Cat Carriers in Elwynn Forest, look for cheap White Kittens on the AH, send all to Banker 2. Resell horde pets from Banker 2 for a profit.

Banker 2 - [Booty Bay] - Level 2
Purpose: Relay materials to and from the Neutral Auction House. Check for Hyacinth Macaw, which can be mistakenly sold for a handful of gold and resold by Banker 1 for several thousand. Buy 5g and under horde pets to send to Banker 1.

Bank Slot Economy: It costs 111g to buy all 7 bank slots in your personal character bank. This does not include the cost of bags, which can run into 100g per 20-slot frostweave bag. That would be roughly 5g 79s for each individual new slot (at 20 a bag), if you bought all 7 and outfitted them with 20-slotters. (Yes, the first personal bank slot is just 10s but the 20-slot bag is still 100g, and that's 5g per individual slot.)**

If you have a bank guild, it costs 100g for the first tab, and each is 98 slots. That's 1g 2s per new slot. If you got the first and second tab, it would cost 1g 78s per slot overall. If you got up to the third tab, you'd be spending 2g 89s per individual slot. 4 tabs is 4g 72s a slot. 5 tabs is 8g 89s.***

So, you wouldn't go over 5g 79s per individual slot (if you find 20-slot bags at 100g apiece) until the fifth tab. Until then, it's economically wise to buy up the first four guild bank tabs before getting too far into your personal character bank.

Final Advice

You are poor. You do not have the luxury of relisting things because you tried to sell them for too much. Keep your prices modest, your listings short, undercut the competition, and don't waste money. Until you hit higher levels, these tips are your best bet.



* The kid I always talk about, who failed my guild's trial membership even though he was someone's brother, subtly hit me up for a promise to help him buy his first mount when he reached 40 (yes, that long ago). He then proceeded to tell me he was a leatherworker and planned to switch to blacksmithing at level 50. He told this to me AS IF IT WAS A SMART IDEA!! Like, he was proud he thought of it. OMG. *dies*

** 111g 10s + (100g x 7 bags) = 811g
(20 slots x 7 bags) = 140 individual slots
811g/140 individual slots = 5g 79s per individual slot

*** 98 Slots x Number of Tabs Total = A
Combined Cost of Tabs = B
B/A = Cost of Individual Slots

For the Love of Money, or "How I Became the Richest Person in My Guild"

I have a solid 8,000g between Dustfire and my druid. Both have their epic flying. At 60, I had to borrow gold from my brother to get my epic land rider, and at 70 I was able to lend him 3,000g for his epic flying and gave my husband 1,000g for his epic mount.

I espouse a "do it yourself" view of making gold: work hard, never ask for handouts. As evidenced by the replies of women to sexist "Don't do it, she'll take all your money, dude" comments in this WoW Insider post, a lot of other women do the same. It's bolstering to see.

Below, I'll tell you how I went from broke to over 1k on Moon Guard (huge server) and how I broke 10k just before Wrath's release on Zuluhed (small server).

Crazy Opportunities

• The Herb Craze: I made hundreds of gold on Zuluhed selling my herb stock just after Inscription released. I had my own Inscription to train, but to be honest, I could re-herb all of that. It wasn't a big deal if my Inscription didn't max right away, but if I didn't take advantage of the prices, I was a fool. On Moon Guard, I had enough herbs in stock to make 76g out of a handful of silver.
• The Cooking Craze: You wouldn't think that a simple Winter's Veil would push an entire server (Moon Guard) to spend upwards of 30g for a 5-stack of Darkclaw Lobster (one of only a few fish that will push you to 300 cooking). But, in fact, one holiday achievement relied on 325 cooking, and the race to level it made my fishing skill into a landslide of cash.
• The Clothing Craze: I had a plan in place for this Winter's Veil. There's a red winter clothes pattern for alliance and green for horde, both sold on neutral vendors. As soon as the holiday began, I ran into enemy territory to get the opposite faction pattern and began to manufacture. I sold out in a day at 30-35g each and had to buy cloth to continue making them. I don't believe it would have been quite so profitable on a Normal server, but Moon Guard is RP, where clothes matter.
  
• The Pre-Sale Sale: I sold all of my excess materials on the Zuluhed AH a few months before Wrath, shortly before prices really started to plummet. I wanted to liquidate everything and be ready to restock with Wrath materials, and I knew I had to be early about it before everyone started slashing their prices.
  

How can you predict when a craze will happen?

First, know what's going on. The herb craze was easy to predict -- every news source said "Stock up on herbs to sell if you're not doing Inscription." They were more than right and I wish I'd done more stocking. Inscription required a lot more Goldthorn than anyone could have imagined, and even Peacebloom is hopped up on auction steroids to this day -- 1g a stack on Zuluhed from what used to be maybe 5s.

The cooking craze could have been predicted, if I'd known my cooking better. I knew that one of the achievements required 325 cooking skill, but I didn't realize how hard it was to reach 325, or that several points relied heavily on something I could supply through my fishing. I fished Darkclaw Lobster on a fluke to cover the cooking mats I'd bought the night before. Lucky mistake, but a mistake I wouldn't have made if I hadn't been willing to go fish to make my money back. As it was, I only got in on the tail end of the holiday craze and missed a lot of opportunity to rake in gold.

Always investigate your upcoming holiday achievements, especially this first year, and see if there's anything you can sell that people will need, then make an effort before the holiday begins to stock up. (Though not as flagrantly expensive as the Lobster, everyone doing Winter Veil needed 5 Small Eggs. These are farmable for people under level 10 and made a solid chunk of silver per egg.) People will be frantic to accomplish achievements this first year, creating a craze and thus market opportunities.

The Bag Trade

I didn't expect herbalism to take such a huge leap with Inscription, but I did know that one of our most precious commodities was bag space. Everyone and their sister can make regular bags, so I focused on the rarest type of bag -- herb bags.

Herb bags are rare because you have to be honored and/or revered with certain factions to get the patterns. Then you have to grind out (or buy) expensive materials to make them.

So I set to be an herb bag supplier. I had a list of hard-to-farm items to troll the AH for, looking to buy them cheap. I spent a few hours farming spiders for the proper silk.

And I spent days grinding rep.

But, in the end, when Dustfire produced bags at 130g a pop, she sold at least one a week on top of her 1000g a day "getting rid of all my junk" sales.

The Pet Trade

I've made a solid amount of gold on Moon Guard by checking the neutral auction house for 5g horde pets and reselling them on the alliance auction house for a modest profit. Anyone over 70 does not need this method of money-making, but it's a good starter business.

You want to be careful not to buy pets that look like horde- or alliance-only pets but aren't. I'm specifically talking about the pets available on neutral vendor Dealer Rashaad, who sells cockroaches and Siamese cats and different colors of some faction-only pets.

There are a few pets that you might want to think about farming or look for in particular on the Neutral AH. Farming these may take a few days, but (if you find the right buyer) they'll pay for at least half of your epic flying skill. That's more than the old island dailies could do. The most popular farmed pets are, of course, whelplings, so I don't recommend farming those unless your server is just pet-starved. These are the pets I see least often and for the highest amounts of cash:

• Black Tabby - 1 in 1000 droprate, only able to be farmed by horde. If on a normal (non-PVP) server, consider using a horde (I rolled a DK) to farm this from level 31 mobs and trade it to your alliance bank. (My husband and I have a system where I post it and he immediately buys it for 1 copper. No down time.)
• Hyacinth Macaw - 1 in 5000 droprate, probably better yanked off the AH from someone who doesn't know what they're selling. I don't recommend listing this on the AH if your server is small, but if it's very large, you're more likely to find an appreciative group of collectors willing to pay top dollar. The easiest thing might be just listing it in trade chat as the rarest pet in the game. Because it is. Very few people know about it, but if they go to check your facts, they'll be astonished. I wouldn't let it go for less than 3,000g. Someone on your server ought to be a collector, and collectors recognize the opportunity price of an honest-to-goodness super-rare pet.
• Disgusting Oozeling - 1 in 2000 droprate (taking into account how often the bags drop and how often the oozeling drops from the bags). Not many people farm this. Even on Moon Guard, I've only seen it on the AH once for about 1,500g. I'd really wished for the money to buy it, because that seemed cheap to me.
  
• Captured Firefly - 1 in 1000 droprate. More common than the others but still not as common as the whelplings.
  

The new pet achievements have made pet collecting more popular than ever. More on pets and pet news at WarcraftPets.com.

Greens, Blues, Epix

I disenchant all of my greens. I have a person for this. A good arrangement is to find someone you trust (perhaps an officer in your guild) and agree that they can skim a few enchanting mats off the top to put in the guild bank if they'll disenchant all the random garbage you send them. My person is a raid leader, former guild leader, my husband's best friend, and my de facto brother-in-law -- he takes a few mats for himself and uses them to give free enchants to guildmates.

You want to be careful about blues and epics and check for rarity before you just send it to be d/e'd. God forbid you have a [Teebu's Blazing Longsword] disenchanted, thinking it a crap old-world epic.

Why disenchant instead of sell?

Listing a piece of equipment costs money. Sometimes several gold just for a short amount of time. Unless you're sure the item will sell (such as twink items), it's cheaper in the long run to reduce it into easily-stackable enchanting materials that cost nothing to list. Yes, nothing. Ever. No matter how big and bad the mat is. 0g 0s 0c.

Listing a piece of equipment costs time. The easier it is to list your inventory, the more likely you are to do it. Nobody wants to spend time researching [Gloves of the Creepy Monkey] when you could just plop some enchanting mats up for the going rate and have done with it.

Auction House Tips

Always list 1 silver under the cheapest buyout. No one will spend 25g on something they can get for 24g 99s. Even though it's a small difference, it makes a big difference to the buyer and therefore your sales. And ignore auctioneer on this one -- just because your addon says it should go for 100g doesn't mean it sold for 100g. It just means someone listed it for that much. If you want it to sell, follow what people are doing right now. Don't worry about the money you could be making. Insisting on too high of a price will ensure that you don't make any money at all.

Be patient. If the price is lower than you're willing to undercut, wait a few days or a week. Keep checking. I never list dragonhawk pets for under 11g, and sometimes that means I just don't list them. I wait until I can undercut the lowest seller at a price I like.

Don't lose money. Once you've listed a low level item often enough to lose money on it, or if the average buyout price is lower than the vendor sale would make, cut your losses and just vendor it. Your bag space will thank you.

Always list a buyout. People will pay gold to buy but won't pay silver to bid on the same item. It's all about getting it now. When people want something, they don't want to sit at the auction house for a bidding war. They're going to wait and pay more to your competitor to get what they want so that they don't have to stress about it. Providing a buyout makes people willing to pay much more than a bid-only price. People only bid when they think they're getting a ridiculously good deal (ie, 4 silver for a 12g item). And ridiculously good deals are bad for you, the seller.

List on the weekend. Friday-Monday are your best sales days. More people are on and trolling the AH. On Zuluhed, I never bother to list anything during the week. On larger servers, during the week is reasonable, but on small ones it's just a waste of the listing fee.

Don't Spend Money

If you want to have money, you need to not spend it. What I mean is, you need to save it for those big ticket items you're interested in and not make impulse buys.

Philosophy

I don't see myself as an entrepreneur as much as someone who wants to supply the needs of her server. I see that people will need something and I want to help make it available. Not just to make money, though that's a nice side effect (and I'll list for as much as I can get ^_^), but because I think a happy, thriving server is a server where supply meets demand. So I try to help with the supply end of things.

Tales of Begging, or "Wow, That's the High King of Excuses"

I stopped on Plum (77 druid) to grab an herb in the Barrens and buff a level 7 rogue and his friend. Solid, friendly buffs. The kind of buffs that get you a pleasant /wave or /thanks.

"Could we have some gold, please?"

My reply was simple, eloquent, and perhaps a little rude. "Ha," as I rode off.

In my mind, most people wouldn't stop to buff in the first place, but that simple action turned into a ten minute persuasive conversation where he tried to convince me that he hadn't been begging and really did need/deserve gold and I tried to convince him of all the avenues of gold-making open to him.

It went something like this:

Me: Ha.
Him: Why "ha"?
Me: Because begging is funny.
Him: That wasn't begging.
Me: Anything that includes "can you give me gold please" is begging.
Him: Why was it funny?
Me: That you thought I would give it to you.
Him: You're 77, I made like 2000g from 70-80 on alliance.
Me: Then you know how to make gold, or you can send it to yourself from your level 80 through the AH.
Him: My 80's on another server.
Me: You can make gold by gathering.
Him: I don't have the gold to train gathering.
Me: It just takes silver.
Him: I'm 3x experience, I can't even train skills.
Me: I did that on Moon Guard. You'll live. Just work the AH and don't train the skills you don't need.

And so it went. I kept shooting down his excuses and giving him sound money-making advice until he stopped replying. People with the 3x experience bonus might have a lot less gold to throw around, but it's not impossible to make and, really, you're leveling with 2 people and don't need all your latest talents or the best gear to be effective (though it can be a pain, and I'm not arguing that, it's entirely possible to survive).

I've made 1,000g from a small amount of seed money (from my level 60, who also started with nothing) on the Moon Guard pet trade. I told the High King of Excuses how I ran a level 2 to the Booty Bay auction house (from Ironforge) to pick up pets cheap and resold them on the Alliance AH for a 6-12g markup. It was slow, and it wouldn't be nearly as profitable on Zuluhed, but I now have enough for epic mounts for myself and my husband, and HKoE could easily get enough to train his abilities. It'll be harder for him to get the funds to buy mounts at 30 and 60 (I refuse to acknowledge whining about "I can't buy my epic mount" because I'm still riding a regular ground mount on the previously-mentioned level 60, but a regular mount is something I'm sympathetic to). The regular ground mount cost was lowered, and it really is possible to go an extra 10 levels without one (that's how we used to do it, after all), but I recommend one of two options: persistence in making gold or getting to know and befriend someone over a few weeks and asking them for a loan (something you will and had better pay back). Never ever ask for a hand-out. That's cheap.

If you want to make gold, folks, don't whine about how easy it is for high levels and how tough it is for you. Dig in your heels and do the work. There are always opportunities available, and if you learn how to exploit those opportunities (and not the people around you) and continue to practice similar techniques at high levels, you'll make money hand over fist. It's all about taking the time to do it right.

70 Budget, or "Where The Gold Goes"

One thing you realize when you hit the level cap is that there are a lot of nice things to buy. You're like a kid in a candy store.

Then you notice the price tags.

"Ooook. I need gold. A LOT of gold."

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Dustfire's Budget

Current Balance
8,021g

"To Buy" List

• 1,000g Flying Skill Dustfire (acheived)
• 5,000g Epic Flying Skill Dustfire (acheived)
• 5,000g Epic Flying Skill Druid Alt (pending)
• 1,200g "Gigantique" 22-Slot Bag (pending)
• 8,000g WotLK Teleport Ring (pending)
• 1,000g Shattered Sun Title (pending)
• More Definitely to Be Added for "Wrath of the Lich King"

Total Pending Cost: 15,200g

Expenses List

• Repairs (12-40g /week; cloth is much cheaper to repair than leather, mail, and plate)
• Respecs (I don't respec; commonly 100-300g /week)
• Rep Items on AH (?)
• Enchant Mats for Raiding (0-300g /month)
• Gemming for Raiding (0-100g /month)
• Enchanting Mats for PVP (stopped doing pvp on Dusty, will pick it up with druid)
• Gemming for PVP (stopped doing pvp on Dusty, will pick it up with druid)
• Raid Consumables (10-25g /week; hardcore raiders will spend a lot more per raid)
• Wrath: Training Skills

Approximate Income

• 0-100g /week from tailoring
• 10-500g /week from dailies (I have a lot of free time)
• 25g /week from mining

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I would like to save a few thousand gold over my current needs (7,200g more to just meet the items on my wishlist). If I work very very hard between now and December, I should be able to manage it.

This has been an overview of the finances of a level 70 who raids once a week, instances once a week, and can make her own job hours. There are MANY 70s who raid multiple times a week and spend most of their days at work/school and then have family obligations when they get home. These people are unable to grind gold every day and must scrimp and save every copper to be able to afford raiding at a high level.

Level 70 Money, or "No, You Don't Get A Cut"

Non-Gamer's Guide to This Post

Warcraft has a monetary system. You can make money by killing things, questing, selling things, or doing daily quests -- the same set of quests available once a day that reward extra money. You can then buy in-game items with this money or pay another player for professional crafting services.

Copper - Like pennies.

Silver - Like larger change. 100 copper.

Gold - Like paper money, the largest currency. 100 silver.

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I got to know a beggar fairly well. He's the little brother of a friend's friend, and I was nice to him a few times, so I got asked for things.

I don't think this phenomenon happens too often, but there are a few ideas I'd like to address.

• It is never a 70's job to do things for lower levels. When a 70 does something for a lower level, it is a favor. I don't even ask my husband to help my 46 druid, and if you have the right to ask anyone to help your alt, it's your own spouse.
• Yes, 70s can make 100g a day. Note "can." Many 70s do not have time to do dailies regularly.
• No, being able to make 100g a day doesn't mean we're all sitting around with lots of gold or, if we are, that we should give ANY of it to people who ask. Dailies are *gasp* time consuming and we do them when we need to pay for something -- because believe it or not, things at 70 are massively expensive.
• We do give loans to people we trust. But "40g plz" by Org bank does not inspire trust. Being in the same guild for a year or more, seeing how the other person makes and spends gold, etc, does.

From my association with the friend of a friend's brother, I think that beggars don't see other players as people but as game mechanics set to serve them. Until they break of this delusion, they'll continue to treat other players like things to be used but not befriended. They see 70s as resources that are done with the level grind and have nothing else to do and nothing else to spend their money on. They are often either ignorant of endgame or dismissive of it.

How to Ask for Gold

• Never ask someone you don't know well.
• Always give a valid reason.
• Always offer to pay the person back.
  

I hope to do another post with example level 70 budgets: what it takes to get the money and what we're using it on.

Saving Gold, or "Dustfire's Plan for Buying Things"

We've already discussed making gold, but now we're going to talk about how to save for the things you want.

It's a basic fact that mounts and riding skills in the game are expensive. In fact, over a character's lifetime, if he or she wants all the available types of riding speed, it will cost 6,700g (NOT including mount prices, which tend to run 110g before 70).

And that's per character. Add a beloved alt into the mix, and you have some serious cashflow issues.

This is my advice:

• Make an alt. It could be your bank alt or a savings alt, but the idea is that you won't touch this character's money.
• Start sending this character the cash you can spare -- make it a % of your character's money, and do it on a regular basis. (Bank characters should be sending the majority of their profits to this savings, just keeping enough to manage their own auctions.)
• Level 70s without time to do dailies should try to squeeze in 2 dailies a week and send the resulting 20g to their savings character. (There's a very nice bombing quest that requires no effort at all on the Isle of Quel'danis.)
• If you can, get in the habit of doing the easiest daily every day. That's 70g a week without a lot of effort. (People often think they have to do all the dailies once they start, but limiting yourself can free a lot of your play time for more important things.)
  
• If you have trouble keeping your money untouched, get a trustworthy friend or relative to keep it for you. (If this person has their own money issues, don't send it to them.) My brother's brother-in-law is sending his savings to the GL, who is my husband's best friend and would never bilk anyone out of their gold.

Therefore, even if you don't have a lot of play time available, you can still manage your money in an intelligent way and save for the things you want.

/bow

The Dumblist, or "When Friend and Ignore Don't Quite Fit"

There are plenty of addons for tracking the people you hate -- GankList and VanasKOS (my addon of choice) for example -- and Blizzard finally put notes onto your friends to keep track of where you met them, but what about keeping track of that percentage of the population that seems so prevalent when you need a PUG?

Where's our Dumblist?

I had the supreme joy of heading to Orgrimmar this bustling Sunday night to make a few Auction House purchases. I ran into a good guildie friend in front of the bank, as you tend to do with a guild larger than 1, and stood around for a moment listening to the mature banter being /yelled about ("how original" says one -- "says the guy with the stupid name" replies the offended -- "this is my bank character" is the witty comeback).

Then comes an orc. An everyday orc, and obviously lost because he opens a trade window with me and tries to give me several greens, two rare-quality gems, and some other junk I didn't notice because gems are pretty. And I start to wonder if I'll actually accept the trade if he just gives the stuff to me -- he's obviously looking for someone else, maybe one of my clones, but definitely not me. And if I accept the trade, he'll be embarrassed and have to ask for the stuff back when the real person he was supposed to give it to gets there.

So I'm pondering all of this in light of my love for the way gems sparkle and he whispers me: "80 g ok>" (spelling preserved).

I blink and, ignoring the fact that I was seriously considering taking his stuff if he was stupid enough to hit trade, said: "I didn't agree to this." And closed the trade window.

He comes quickly back with "60 g" and reopens the trade window and starts putting the items back into in it.

I close it. "That's considered rude."

I then recount the affair to my guild. My friend, beside me, replies to me in guild: "I got it for 60g. Can I borrow some cash?"

I think he was joking. >_> Not about being offered the same deal, but about taking it.

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Do you have anyone you've really wanted to dumblist? Those that aren't quite horrible enough to be ignored and nowhere near competent enough to be friended, so they're stuck in a noteless limbo that leaves you wondering "How will I ever remember how dumb this person is?"

Me, I just write blog posts about them and keep screenshots of their names. You know, in case anyone is really really curious.

Buy Gold In-Game!, or "How to Become Insanely Rich . . . or Flat Broke"

I asked three very rich players (at least, they used to be) how to make gold quickly and easily.

Manasseh

How to make money in WoW (from NOTHING):

Step 1: Create a level 1 character. Place this character between the Auction House and Bank (mailbox should be nearby also). I recommend Silvermoon City or Orgrimmar for Horde, and Stormwind for Alliance.

Step 2: Create a main character (any class you like). Level to 6 in the starting area. Train MINING/HERBALISM and SKINNING.

Step 3: Mine/Herbalize/Skin EVERYTHING you come across.

Step 4: Mail full stacks of skins, ore, stone, herbs, and all valuable (green or better) items to your Bank Alt.

Step 5: Sell said stacks and items on the Auction House for JUST BELOW the lowest price (this will ensure a sale and since you have only a time investment thus far, it's the best and easiest way to build your bankroll).

Step 6 (ADVANCED ONLY): Take the money you have made from these investments and either horde it OR use the Auctioneer Add-On to re-invest by purchasing things for 50% of average sale price and reselling them for profit. I usually start out with sure-sales like trade items (the same things I've been selling from my farming) and work my way up to greens, blues and purples. Eventually, you'll land that one great buy like a 30 gold Crystal Pulse Shield that will send your bank account into the triple digits. But like all investing, you have to be willing to take risks, and you have to SPEND money to MAKE money.


Seglda

Get Auctioneer.

Do 3 scans at least 2 hours apart.

I tend to stay away from 60+ gear or spell books (Codex: Prayer of Fortitude etc). Also, watch out for Wimpy (the most retarded person on Zuluhed) who put up a bunch of worthless items at really high prices to make it so it showed up on Auctioneer. Don't buy "Fishing Tournament!" or whatever.

Trade goods are almost always a sure sell, as well as twink items.


Occult

Well, mine are really not fair. I have access to a 70 lock, in return for helping this guy in our guild level. I farm elementals for motes, which turn into Primals (these items used in every tradeskill). Every 4 days I turn these primals and some easy-to-get cloth into Shadowcloth and Spellcoth which sell for like 60g each.

M_____ and me also transferred about 1500 gold from my/his old lock to this server using a friend's transfer and some trickery with neutral AH. Other than the above, I genuinely suck at the AH. However, I think I'll be pretty awesome at making cash at 70.


Me (Birdfall/Dustfire)

Addon: Have Auctioneer, and scan every time you head to the AH (so, every now and then). It helps you know how to price things and when you're getting a good deal.

Gather: Train mining while you level. You make [bronze bars] from [copper bars] + [tin bars]. Bronze is essential to leveling engineering and therefore sells very well. [Thorium], especially, is a goldmine, so never pass it up. (Un'goro Crater has lots of thorium.)

Farm: Motes of Air & Fire turn into the most costly Primals and can be farmed from elementals on the plateau northeast of Garadar & the Throne of the Elements in Nagrand.

Crafting Tailoring: Tailors at level 70 should constantly be making Spellcloth, Mooncloth, and Shadowcloth, which sell for 30g-60g, depending on your server. Felcloth has 17% drop rate from Felguard Elites.

Crafting JC: Jewelcrafters will have to spend a lot of money to get the best gem-cutting patterns, but the better patterns will make more money in the long-run. Focus on widely-used pvp gem patterns like +12 stamina (Solid Star of Elune) or + resilience.

Prospect Mining: Miners can ask a trusted jewelcrafter to Prospect stacks of adamantite, which can yield rare-quality gems (which go for ~20g each on my AH).

Dailies: At level 70, do your dailies, which afford roughly 10g per quest. Skettis dailies are available beside the Shattrath flight master once you have a flying mount. Ogri'la dailies have a 5-man quest chain to open them. Once you have epic flight (5,000g), Netherwing daily quests open up. Also daily instances, profession quests, and battleground quests reward gold plus honor or reputation.

Quest: Questing at level 70 usually gives you 7g-20g per turn-in.