30 Minutes a Day Project - Day 13 - 15

Time for another update on this project of mine! I'm torn between just getting everything up to date in one mega post or breaking it up but I think I'll stick to 3 days at a time, even if I get a little behind with posting! I hope you're enjoying these updates - I'd love to hear any more lowbie tips from you - I'll admit, I'm struggling a bit here!

Day 13

One thing I keep forgetting to do is to make a note of my opening & closing balances - there's no excuse really as I have Auditor addon installed which gives me the totals for the day really easily and in a simple layout too!

Not really much to talk about today - I did the Auctioneer scan again to see if there were any items for easy money from the vendor search but that just reminded me why I gave up on Auctioneer! The scan takes so long! I had just enough time to check the vendor search then to grab a few bargains from the trade Goods/Herbs category and to get them listed. Closing balance today was 301 gold - not very impressed with my lowbie gold making skills right now!

Day 14
Today was a better day overall with a mailbox opening of 65 gold and a Blingtron loot sale of 16 gold too. I received an email from Misha, reminding me that the Gaudy Winter Veil Sweater can be disenchanted into Strange Dust & Lesser Magic Essences. When I say 'reminding me', that's what Misha thought he was doing but actually, I didn't know in the first place so thank you Misha!

But here's the funny thing - I wasn't concentrating this evening so rather than waste time getting my bank alt to Ironforge, I took my baby Shaman there instead. She bought 15 sweaters and ran to the mailbox. Oops! I hadn't noticed they were Bind on Pickup so now my baby Shaman has Enchanting as a profession too! As for not wasting time - by the time I'd made this mistake and learned enchanting, I didn't have enough cash on the Shaman to send them or list them on the Auction House so I had to log my banker anyway!

The 15 Sweaters cost me a whole 3silver and 30 coppers but as you can see above, Strange Dust alone is selling currently for well over 2gold each so it's well worth the few minutes it takes to disenchant them! What a great tip for anyone trying to build their first bit of capital! Just don't flood the market!

I regularly check the Linen Cloth & Strange Dust markets for just this reason - when linen is mega-cheap, I buy it and convert to Strange Dust. I almost always have some Strange Dust listed on the Auction House and can usually get 2g per Dust easily. In terms of percentage profits it's probably one of the best little corner markets out there. Sadly the quantities that sell don't make it the best income source but added to other small markets, it adds a nice little chunk to your weekly income, especially when you are still building up your capital.

Day 15
Another ok day at the mailbox - 73 gold picked up and another Blingtron dropped meant 4 gold from selling the vendor trash it gave me!

As you can see below, I dived into the Herb category again and grabbed some more bargains. It took me back into Wrath times when I saw Terocone so cheap and Talandra's Rose too - I remember farming Zul Drak for hours for Talandra's Rose although I can't remember why now!

The Strange Dust from yesterday all sold too so off I went to the Smokeywood Pastures vendor and bought 30 more Sweaters! I'm sure I could sell almost all of the Strange Dust even if I disenchanted 100 sweaters but with the time limit constraint, 30 is more than enough to keep the gold rolling in!

Summary
Closing balance for today is 364 gold. It seems I've forgotten how to really make gold fast at low levels. I did a Gold Rush thing a couple of years ago and came about 4th or 5th with a total sales figure over 50,000 gold. There's no way I'm getting near that this time but I don't think it's just me. Back then, during Cataclysm, we had the Volatiles markets and I remember flipping low price Volatiles of all sorts for way more than I'd paid! It helped that Volatiles stacked in 200's as well as the volume turnover meant that even profit of just a few silvers each could mean quite a nice chunk on a full stack. I also flipped glyphs for nice profits too - the market was pretty mobile so it was easy to pick up good glyphs for cheap & sell them a day or two later for 2, 3 or 4 times the purchase price.

I also didn't have the time constraint so I'm wondering just how much I could be making if I removed the 15 minutes limit. I'm not going to, of course! That would negate the whole idea of this little project but it has got me thinking of my next project! Once we hit 31st December, I may just send all this gold to my leveling alt and restart the same idea but without the time constraint. I'm not sure I'd report it in such detail either but perhaps a weekly update of time spent and a screenshot of what's been selling.

I've had quite a few comments and messages about this project so I hope you're enjoying my misadventures in lowbie gold making! I know it's probably not that interesting to experienced gold makers but I think it does illustrate quite well which markets to look at when looking for stuff to flip when starting out. I'd hoped to have a lot more gold by now so you could see the mid-range price markets start coming within my pockets reach but there's still time for that!

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20 Days of Gold Making - Day 18 Advice for New Gold Makers

Today's 20 Days of Gold Making question isn't just a trip down Memory Lane as some of the early questions have been. Nope, today is Day 18 and the question is "What is the most important bit of advice you could give to a new gold maker? (not a game newbie though, just a newbie gold maker)".

This is actually quite a tough question to answer as so much depends on the current situation of the new gold maker. What level are their alts, which professions do they have and at what skill levels, and also how much gold do they have already. But as I was trying to think which piece of advice to give, I realised that actually there is a fairly straightforward single answer that would cover most new gold makers - at least to start with!

Research! 

Yup, read gold blogs (yay! you're here, it's working! lol), read forums, read Reddit, watch some Youtube or Twitch TV guys, listen to gold making podcasts - the list is almost endless & growing week by week. Don't forget to ask questions too - most public gold makers have Twitter or you could send them an email or ask on their livestream. A great place to start is my blog roll over on the right hand side of this page - I try to update it fairly regularly & as I find new gold blogs, I add them once they have a few posts published. It's sorted by most recent post too so if you don't have huge amounts of time to do your reading, the top few will always be the most current content.

Addons

The second most important piece of advice I would give is to get some Auction House addons - Auctionator is my favorite but Auctioneer is great too. Having said that, the great beast of the Auction House world is Trade Skill Master (TSM) and I use it all the time. It does many different things though so I think it would be intimidating to a total novice but there are loads of guides out there to help you learn it. I'm pretty sure I still don't use it to its full potential but I have calmed down on the gold making front for now so I guess it will be a while yet before I really get to grips with it!

Patience

The third important piece of advice I'd say is Patience! There are very few gold capped players who made their gold super-quickly. Most of us have been making gold for months if not years. The main exception would be those few players who saw the potential of the transmog market early on & dived in deep. By getting in so early and being prepared for it too, they had all the advantages of the huge buzz that surrounded the introduction of this new market & yes, some of them made a huge killing! That is the exception though, for us mere mortals who missed that boat, it takes time to build up your knowledge of markets, of hot selling items, of markets to avoid & which profession crafted items to produce.

Prudence

Lastly, I'd say prudence is vital too. Don't keep spending on stuff you don't really need, watch where your gold goes during normal playtime - do you reforge, re-gem & re-enchant too much? Can you resist that 'cheap' purple item on the Auction House or that lovely rare mount on the Black Market Auction House? If you can control your daily spending, spend wisely on raw materials for crafting, don't take huge risks when investing in items to flip (at least until you are really sure of your market) then you should see your gold balance creeping up nicely as you pull your gold from the mailbox.

There are loads of bits of advice I could give - that's partly why I started gold blogging! Each and every gold maker out there has their own way of doing things & every server is different too. By reading around, doing some research into markets yourself & trying things out, you will develop your own way. A little bit of Nev here, a bit of Cold there, throw in some Elvine or Power Word Gold & a bit of Eviscerated Gaming Podcast to top it all off & you'll have your own personal blend of goldmaking skills. The most important thing though - have fun!

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Nev's Top 5 Pre-vacation Goldmaking Preparation Tips

I'm off on my travels again shortly & I probably won't be able to access my EU World of Warcraft account which is where all my main goldmaking activities occur. So I've been slowly making preparations to continue making gold whilst I'm away & thought I'd share a few of my Top Tips with you.

Top Tip #1 - Get the Remote Auction House App

If you have a smart phone, download the WoW Armory app - Remote Auction House access is now free & although you can only do 200 transactions per account per day, it's still very very useful. If you don't have a smart phone but will have internet access, you can access it online at worldofwarcraft.com. Just log into your battlenet account, choose your character from the top right hand corner drop down list then scroll down & you should see a 'My Auctions' section.

Top Tip #2 - Check & Tidy Your Mailboxes

Check your mail boxes on all your alts. You may have mail due to expire whilst you are on vacation & you don't want to lose anything valuable (I speak from experience, I lost 2 Epics last year when I took an unexpected break). If you don't have space in your bank, you can just send it to another alt, it will stay there for 30 days then bounce back to the sending alt & be safe there for a further 30 days.

It's a good idea to empty as much as possible from your mailbox though, especially on your banker - partly because you could lose some stuff but also because it does make the RAH a little bit easier to use. If your mailbox is full, you can only see those items & will have to relist the first 50 items to get to the next lot. With a 200 transaction limit, that can be a right royal pain in the derriere!

Top Tip #3 - Sort Out Bank Access

If you use a banker with your own personal guild and keep stuff to sell in that guild bank - be aware it is not accessible via the Remote Auction House. I've put most of my glyphs & gems into the bankers Guild bank as I have plenty of other stuff to sell. Any items that I pull in & out of the guild bank to sell are now in my bankers personal bank - that IS accessible via RAH.

Top Tip #4 - Tidy Your Bags

Tidy your bags! If you're anything like me, you probably carry around all sorts of useful stuff (*cough*) whilst out questing. My banker is overflowing with stuff so I've had a tidy up in some of my crafting alts bags so I can use those for overflow.

Top Tip #5 - Craft Everything

Craft like crazy before you go. You know which markets are making you the most gold, use that knowledge. If it's gems or glyphs then you may have to change tack a little. Posting those without addons is not only painful but cancel/relisting is not likely to be posssible given the 200 a day limit. I'd suggest looking at crafting leg armors, spellthreads, shoulder enchants, other enchants, flasks & potions, belt buckles & tinker's gears at least, depending on which professions you have.

I've also been able to craft a few Epic armor items on my Leatherworker & I've picked up a few cheap pets on a different server to sell on my home server. I've also bought some 100 Year Old Soy sauce with my Ironpaw Tokens as they do sell albeit slowly sometimes. If you have alchemy & Ghost iron ore is cheap, then don't forget to check Living Steel - there is still profit there on some servers. If Living Steel doesn't look too profitable or you can't resist listing it as soon as you make it (like I do!) then pre-craft trillium bars - not quite as profitable as Living Steel on my server but pre-crafted means I can sell a whole heap of them whilst I'm away.

Bonus Top Tip 

Remove cats (or dogs or whatever pet has decided to take up residence or to help you pack) from suitcase! Not only will you get more in your suitcase, you aren't going to run foul of any animal import regulations!

I hope this helps. I'd be interested to know if you have any pre-vacation tips to add so feel free to leave a comment below. Happy travels

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Improve Your WoW Gold Balance - Tips for New Goldmakers

Get Organised!

Do you have several high level alts with professions you don't use? Got a level 90 or two or maybe a bunch of 85's just sitting around not doing much whilst you concentrate on your Main toon? Are you always short of gold to buy the stuff you need to raid or pvp? Well, if you answered yes to any of those questions, keep reading - I hope I can give you some pointers that will get your gold flowing into your bags rather than out of them!

The first thing to do is get organised!

• Look at your alts - what professions do they have? Have you maxed them where possible & are you using them effectively? You can max professions on a level 85 so make sure you are doing the daily cooldowns wherever possible - Inscription, Alchemy & Tailoring spring to mind. 
• Do you have a lowbie toon to use as a banker? I always use a lowbie as I'm less tempted to take them out into the world & away from the Auction House.
• Here's a tough one - are you spending way more than you need to? Or perhaps just more than you are earning - making adjustments to your spending habit can have a huge effect on your gold balance.
• Have you tried using an Auction House addon of some kind? My favorites are Auctionator & Trade Skill master (TSM). TSM is fantastic but does have a huge amount of stuff to learn to make best use of it so if you are new to AH addons, just stick with Auctionator for now.
• Have you got a Tillers farm started on all your level 85+ alts? At 85-89 you can only have 4 plots but some crops sell for 10g or more each & you can get 5 vegetables per plot. Tilling & planting 4 plots should only take a few minutes at most. Once you hit level 90 you can max your farm to 16 plots & farm for Motes of Harmony or other useful profession materials. That 1.6 Spirit of Harmony a day can then be used for crafting gear to sell.
• Have a think about areas of the game you know well - you can sometimes utilise that knowledge to make gold - I'm thinking twink related stuff like enchants or gear, PvP stuff like crafted gear or speed potions/buffs etc or raiding - buff foods, flasks, high level gear etc.

OK, so you've sat down & had a think about this stuff - what next? Well, I hate to say it but patience! When you see gold bloggers talking about their millions or guildies flashing their half million - you have to remember that it does take time to accumulate wealth. Yes, there were some players who made their million very quickly when transmogrification first arrived but those guys were the exceptions, most of us take much longer to get there so when you feel yourself wanting to rush to get a sale, slow down - it's that rush that can cost you profits in the long run.

Not exactly the list I had in mind!

• Start with small-ish stuff - if you only have 5000g across your characters, don't jump in the deep end & buy a 4000g item to flip - that's just asking for trouble with using all your nest egg at once. 
• If you need to build some capital up & have a level 85 character with good professions but you were going to focus on your main, you may want to reconsider - have you ever wondered how much gold you can earn leveling from 85 to 90? I did & this time around, I actually managed to keep track of it too - almost 6000g just from quest rewards, vendor trash & looting while questing.
• If you are already at level 90 then I am going to say it, I'll apologise in advance - but Dailies! At about 20g per daily quest reward plus loot & drops, you could easily add 200-400g a day to your income on just one character, more if you can bear to do dailies on more than one character of course!
• I know it's a bit time consuming but if you're short of capital, you will need to farm herbs & ores yourself to level your professions. Obviously you don't have to but it is definitely the cheapest way unless your play time is severely limited then time becomes a cost to you. If you have limited time & don't want to spend it farming, just level your profession as cheaply as you can via the Auction House - take a few extra days & only buy the very cheapest materials.
• Do some reading - you're here so I guess you know about gold blogs - my blog roll has a whole load of them for you to skim through. You don't need to read everything - just skim until you find something you understand & think you can do easily. Look for Ghost Iron Shuffle topics, Ironpaw Token Shuffle, Enchanting Materials shuffle or if you like to run old instances - maybe transmogrification articles will interest you.
• Join a gold focused forum like The Consortium or join in one of the goldmaking Reddit sub-reddits like /r/woweconomy, /r/goblinism or /r/wowgoldmaking and read & ask questions. There's loads of advice out there & freely available.
• Make a list of things to do at the start of a gaming session. This could be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be - some items will be every day at least, others will be as & when your time permits.
• There are a huge number of options for making gold in game - the long term goal is to diversify across as many markets as possible but you need to know your markets & your Auction House - pick one or two markets to get into, spend a little time watching them then jump in. When you think you have them worked out, add another market or two. Try to think outside the box too - as a newbie gold maker, you may see something that more experienced goldmakers have forgotten about or overlooked.

So there you go - some basic tips & ideas for improving your gold making in WoW. I haven't gone into specifics today - many old favorite methods are already in old posts but you can find them under the 'Basics' tab at the top of the page. If you have a specific question, you can always leave a question in the comments section below or email me. I hope this helps but remember - have fun at it too - don't stress yourself when you see people talking about 10k+ a day - you're just starting out, you will get there eventually.

Edited to Add: I've made a downloadable To Do list, you can find the link in my post Nev's Daily To Do List

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