Try finding a market that is profitable on your realm. On my old realm I found that potions were a big hit. Potion mastery ftw! It's always in demand if there's an active raiding community. I have an alt with maxed out alchemy and blacksmithing. I have him sitting around SW.

I use the addon TSM set up for the markets I want to play, took me maybe an hour to set up to my liking. The addon scans the AH for all the materials I need, I never farm or even leave SW with this character, it buys all the materials I need if what I can craft from the exceeds 20% profit, TSM takes care of the math for me, it automates the buying and the crafting and posting on the AH. Even the sending of the gold to my main.

10 minutes a day with this character has built me a small fortune and depending on what time of year he nets me a profit in between 200g-3000g for these 10 minutes I've invested. I would recommend a few thousand gold as base to build your fortune on, I accutally started with less than 500g, and when I hit my first 10k I could start buying the large quantities needed to make alot of gold.

Honestly? Yes. Just like real life, you need to put in what you want to take out. I generate about 1500 gold a week playing casually. I farm mats for an hour (scales/leather), craft the item (leg enchant) and sell it (800-1200g depending on market). Done. If you aren't interested in doing the "work" chances are you won't ever bring in large sums of gold.

But, does it matter? If you're happy with your casual play style and can afford the requirements to play (i.e., flasks, food, enchants, etc...) then don't concern yourself with making lots of gold.

Some of us just enjoy playing the economy, too.

The trick in making money in WoW is to find a niche-market that you can fill or to play a small part in a larger existing market. There are tried-and-true strategies that will work (but often require more dedication) and those which may end up losing you money. The point is to keep plugging away and work at finding a market for your particular skill-set and playing style.

On my last server I spent a great deal of time making contacts with the major glyph sellers. I ended up making a lot of money supplying them with ink which saved them a great deal of time and effort. Could they have done the milling themselves? Sure. But while I was milling and producing the inks for them, they were off doing things that were far more enjoyable/profitable.

There are many communities out there that are more than happy to take you in and show you some of the strategies I mentioned above. A simple Google search for strategies will turn up thousands of results. After weeding out gold sellers and the pay for access sites, you'll still be left with a good bit of information.

If you read back through these columns, there's also a glut of information on easy, simple strategies to help you both find your niche and maximize your GPH.

It takes me about 20 minutes every day to post/ buy at the auction house, and I do it while watching the news. Add to that an hour or two crafting on the weekend. Just that is enough to earn me 500K so far.

There can be massive profits to be made in niche markets, but especially on high population servers, there's plenty to be had in just plain flipping trade goods. Find a guide on how to powerlevel a profession, make a list of all the things that you need 200 of (like knothide leather and infinite dust, but not medium hide or nexus crystals), and monitor their prices, through an addon or Undermine Journal (or both). Buy up when prices are really low, and resell at reasonable prices.

I got burned trying to flip boes when I didn't know what I was doing, and I never learned to leverage my only maxed profession (leatherworking, *shakefist*). Each transaction doesn't make me a lot of money, but I make it up in volume.

Also, buying up things that stupid people list for below vendor value. I must have vendored a thousand rare gems by now.

I'm transferring my main shortly and running into the 50k limit myself. I don't spend that much time making money. I sell whatever my toons pick up as I level/do dailies, and I spend about 10 minutes a day picking up cheap greens to disenchant on the AH, 5 minutes disechanting them, and 5 minutes posting them.

I play on the same server as Basil as well as a lesser server and I can consistently make 300 to 1k Gold per day with only about 30 minutes of work.

As others have said, find niche markets. There are tons of them. Running older dungeons for fun and profit. Perhaps reselling pets can net you a few hundred gold a day. Maybe it's potions. Perhaps bags are your bag. Or failing all of that, there is always buy low and sell high. Maybe it is a combination. There is always something that makes more gold than you invest.

Dip your toe in the water and give it a try with a hundred gold or so. Once you get your feet wet and find something that works, you have to be aggressive. Others will try to drive you out of the space. I liken it to the last scene from "Trading Places" where Winthrop is telling Billy Ray about the trading floor. Tenacity in the Auction House can be a virtue. Or is can be a death blow. Know when to bow out of the market. If you suffer consistent losses on Saturdays, quit trading on Saturdays. If you keep getting undercut below your margins (and you absolutely must know what your margins are), then back off, sell short and find a different niche.

It's really not that hard. It just takes time. If I can compete with Basil, you can compete with anyone.

@ura: I play ultra casually, and try to min/max my gold per hour instead of total gold. I'd be more worried about Namssob if I were you... ;)

Buy/sell Vial of the Sands? :p