How do you earn gold?

[Deleted]

So what do you do to get gold?

[the kins man]

This might be the most vague post, and it probably belongs in the profession tab.

To answer your question, I come from "old money" Back in the middle of BC I started selling cut epic gems on the ah. I would buy the uncut, and then cut into the design I wanted, and post for large profit, often 300-500 profit for one gem. Now at the time not everybody had the cuts because you had to be exalted with the raid faction in t6, forgot which one, so I had a small market to sell against.

Once Wrath rolled around, I continued with the jc shuffle, buying ore, prostecting, cutting and selling gems and then using the common quality gems to turn into rings and de. This is where I made the bulk of my gold. Also during Wrath I became an altoholic, having most professions maxed out, so I became self-sufficient, not having to spend gold other than gear repair.

In Cata, I continued with the jc shuffle, at a slightly larger scale, as well as getting into the darkmoon card market. Again, having most professions maxed, I was self-sufficient, not having to spend gold on anything.

When MOP dropped, I stopped the shuffle, it was too much work, and the profit margin wasn't there like it had been. (It can still be done, I just don't want to spend the time to do it.) I hit it big the first few darkmoon faires (man selling the caster dps trinket for 85k gold was an awesome feeling, especially since it only cost me about 15k to make.) Now, sitting on about 1.1 million gold, I am content to just sit down and relax with my gold. My net worth goes up maybe 1k a day, just from running treasure troves and lfg/lfr. I currently have farms running on 10 characters, so that takes about 35-45 minutes to farm, and I can supply my own flasks/gems/potions at no cost other than time value. I have every profession just about maxed (darn you leatherworking, and it isn't worth it to me to sit down and bust out the last few points I need) so I maintain my self-sufficiency, which is the biggest thing you can do to "make gold." If you have to run to the ah and spend 500g for a meta gems, or 100g for a rare quality gem, that adds up, especially if you have a few alts, or several sets of gear. (My main has enhance/resto gear, and pvp resto gear, which the enchants/gems would add up quickly, not to mention the three alts I play fairly regularly.) Have a few alts with jc/leatherworking/enchanting, and your gold pile will go up slowly as you can provide yourself with your own materials!

Just some background information, like I said I have 1.1 million gold right now. Over the course of my career, I have earned around 4 million gold, I have a bunch of the expensive mounts, and I often do a giveaway in trade where I send 25k to the person who sends me the best joke, or something like that. People say "why do you need all that gold?" To which I respond, "until you have had this much, you wouldn't understand if I told you." A friend on the server has around 2.5 million, and he routinely does a "feast-a-thon" where he spends like 200k making feasts, and them him and his guildmembers just bury the main valley in Org in feasts, just for a few minutes of amusement.

[Resentful]

I made within 5k-10k a day in cataclysm doing the shuffle shit granted each routine took like hours of disenchanting shit eventually I got bored and stopped doing it I still practice the AH just not as frequently as I use too however I can buy anything I want so that's nice.

Playing the AH is the only way your going to earn stupid amounts of gold in short.

[Gimlix]

LFR is a great place to get gold!

[Resentful]

LFR is a great place to get gold!

Oh yeah my 13/13 bags of 25g per bag is wonderful!

*cries in a corner

[Marema]

Buy cheap pets on one realm. Learn it. Log onto other realm. Cage it. AH it. Profit.

[Darmalus]

Daily quests. Auctioning excess materials gathered while doing my day to day stuff.

[Lizbot]

Head over to The Undermine Journal, look up your realm, and see if there's anything worth flipping. Buy low, sell high. Don't sink all of your money into one expensive item at once -- they can take months to sell, depending on your server.

[Felarion]

Do dailies, seeling potion on ah and of course from raid finder bags.

[jaber2]

I started making loads of gold just farming, before that it was just from questing.

[DeadmanWalking]

There are many ways to make gold but if anyone tells you how to make gold then everyones going to do it shutting down the profit margins. The first rule in profit club is to not tell anyone how you are making your gold.

I can give some over all suggestions, like farm your own mats and use them with professions to create items people -want- that is worth more than the mat. Selling 2 stacks of cloth for 40 gold each is terrible compared to turning those stacks into 4 pieces of PVP gear that sell for 200-800 each. The higher the ilvel requirements become the more people will spend to get into endgame in less time/effort. Find the highest demand.

Dont spend money on things you can make yourself by leveling an alts professions. You spend x amount on gems? Save it by leveling jewelcrafting, not only do you save money but now you have another profession that can generate money. Dont buy the fastest flight on every alt, you dont want to blow 12k gold on every character. If you have 10 alts thats 120k you pissed away. If you need to buy something frequently then consider making that thing instead of buying it. Money saved is money.

I suggest putting mining/herbing/skinning on a DPS character because during those 10-60 min long qeues you could be farming mats up and time=money. Tanks and healers tend to have to stop qeueing up for stuff to farm, so they will be better served being fed mats from your DPS character and producing high end stuff on your healers/tanks.

Look at demand and times of an expansion. For example at the beginning of an expansion gear doesn't have many gem slots so not a lot of people need gems, demand is down. At the end of an expansion people have more gem slots but after a few months they have all the gear they want/need and are mostly going after other gear for transmog purposes and they dont need gems for those, so last 4 months of an expansion gems loose demand. This goes double for .4 content recipies, nobody is going to want high end purple raid gear a month before the next expansion comes out so dont waste your mats.

Vary your sales, don't focus on one or two things because eventually someone will come in and cut the profit margins because they see you making gold and they want to sell theirs. Sell lost of different stuff incase the market takes a dump, this way you don't end up taking a massive loss like a player who invests heavily in gems only to see all gem sales drop off at the end of an expansion and not pick up again until midpoint of the next expansion.

And most importantly don't do the things other people tell you are easy money because now everyone knows about it and you have too much competition.

---------- Post added 2013-05-16 at 08:13 PM ----------

And avoid jeweled panther mounts like the plague.... THE PLAGUE!!!!

[K i s u]

I don't really actively try to obtain gold anymore I have around 300k and figure that's enough rainy day money for now. Should I ever need it i'll go out and make more, most I do now is sell random greens/blues/epics I come across and made a nice stockpile from questing, dailies and don't forget those nifty money bags. I used to rely on heavy profession use - mining, herbing and cutting gems as well as enchants.

[Grumpy Old Man]

This is my method:

- Identify stuff I can make with my professions that sells well on AH.
- Identify which of that stuff I can buy mats to make, from the AH, considering the total price of mats are below the medium price that stuff is sold (that is, profit).
- Buy the mats from AH. Make stuff, put them on AH.

I use addons to automate most of that, specially the first two steps.
Also, I exclusively buy mats from AH or others, I don't have any gathering profs currently. (no time for that)

[Deleted]

I just sell all my crap I don't need.

[Deleted]

Selling Haunting Spirits for 10-15k

[ACES]

I make gold almost exclusively though buying and selling TCG mounts.

[Deleted]

One character got JC and Alch. Obvious ore shuffling ofc, great profits with dem procs.
Second is tailor and enchanter, it's also a Warlock which i use to grind deepholm troggs with extreme success rate (good luck competing with warlock on a farmspot...) then making tons of Embersilk Bags.
Minor things like daily profession CD's and running tier 14 LFR for Valor and sha crystals (burning lots of coins in the process)

Overall pretty decent gold income. +75k this reset already, will get to ~150k ish by the end of a reset. Involved around 5 hours of ore prospecting and 3 hours of farming troggs in Deepholm. WTB auto prospect.

[Jaylock]

I used to snipe the neutral AH all the time when I played. It was a great way of earning legitimate gold because people post the most stupidly low auctions there which turns a great profit on your own factions AH.

I also created an addon that would automatically buy up auctions if set below a certain gold threshold that I put. Was great!

I made hundreds of thousands of gold easily this way.

[Ceece]

So what do you do to get gold?

Buying and selling market, friend.

[Elvine]

Transmog, MoP Greens, Gems, Enchants, Rare Recipes, Glyphs, Transmutes.

Buy low, sell high.

Never farm, just play the AH