Your gear starting to smell from overuse? Your weapons rusting up because you can't afford new ones? Your mount looking a little rickety (or nonexistent because you haven't seen 100g yet)? Worry not! We're here to help. Here's five easy (and TOS-compliant) ways to rake in the moolah.

1. Get some greedy professions. If I could tell people two things about professions, I would say: always take First Aid asap, and, if you want to make money, get herbalism and skinning. Those two, skinning especially, are your best bet at making tons of cash on the Auction House. Leather is used by almost all the professions (not just leather workers), and as any alchemist will tell you, even though Silverleaf literally grows on trees, there's never enough of it around to make the potions you need. Some people will say enchanting or mining, but for the first, I'd rather auction my green items off seperately, and in the second case, well, maybe that's just my personal taste. Mining seems to sell well on the AH, too. And speaking of the AH,

2. Get real familiar with the Auction House. Don't ever sell anything to a vendor unless you really, really need the space in your bags, because even stuff that seems worthless to you can usually find a buyer on the AH. Twinkers are looking for good low level items all the time, and even fish scales are used by Shamans as reagents. If you're serious about making gold, you've probably already done this by now, but make yourself a level one alt, get him or her to a city with an auction house, and park them there, then mail things to them from your other characters. One more note about the Auction House...

3. Get Auctioneer. This is a no brainer-- if you haven't heard of this wonderful addon yet, then it's no wonder you don't have your mount. Once you've installed it, run to the nearest AH, let it do a scan, and boom, you've got all the AH prices cached on your computer. Then, when you're out in the world, you've got exactly what every single item in the game should sell for. Plus, when you have things to sell, Auctioneer will tell you the best price to put your items at so they'll sell and you'll make money. Usually, you can sell a little higher than the price Auctioneer puts your items at (especially in the high levels, this can squeeze you a few more gold), but there's nothing easier than just throwing all your extra stuff on the AH, and letting Auctioneer set them up for you. And having Auctioneer around will help you...

4. Look for deals everywhere. Don't ninja anything, but there's no shame in casually announcing, as your party makes their way to SM, that you're saving for your mount, and so you'll be rolling on everything that no one needs. When you get quest rewards, most of that stuff is soulbound, so if you're offered a choice of two things you can't use as a reward, always take the most expensive item. And watch vendor prices, too-- every once in a while, Traveling Salesman Antonio Perelli (or any of the other NPC vendors) will be selling a potion that's selling for a few gold more on the AH.

5. Play! Finally, the best way to conjure up more gold also happens to be the best way to conjure up experience-- get out there and kill stuff. Any looting at all is better than standing around Orgimmar telling Chuck Norris jokes. Of course, you should choose where you're killing stuff, too. If you're just grinding for XP, pick humanoid mobs-- they drop much more money, and usually better items. And if you can get a group together, an instance run is (literally) a goldmine for hard-to-find items.

But above all, the best way to make a lot of gold quickly is just to have fun playing the game. Do what you want, enjoy it, and before you'll know it, you'll have the epic mount you so desperately desire. Just in time to start saving for flying mounts...

Tags: auctioneer, auctionhouse, gold, money, mounts

Filed under: Herbalism, Skinning, Items, Tips, How-tos, Economy, Making money