Incidental Farming

I don’t know if you know Markco of Just My Two Copper. He’s a ‘gold blogger’. He tells people how to make lots and lots of WoW gold. I thought it was most strange when Markco asked me to write for the Carnival for I am epically bad at making gold. When I expressed this, Markco suggested I write about how I DO make gold.
It seems like my blogging time keeps getting pushed further and further down the priority list, so I didn’t write the article in time for the Carnival. I’m going to publish it here instead.
I don’t consider myself lazy, nor unintelligent, but making gold in WoW is not something I thrive at.
I’ve tried buying low and selling high. I trusted my addons, and spent a bunch of gold on items to ‘flip’. That left me with a whole mess of worthless materials that I eventually sold at a loss.
I’ve tried using my professions. My Paladin in a JC/Miner. Most of the I look at the Auction House on Altar of Storms, the uncut gems are selling for about the same as the cut gems. My alts are Miner/Skinner, Miner/Enchanter, and Skinner/Leatherworker. I like having a gathering profession so I can pick up mats while I’m leveling. Honors was double production at the beginning of Wrath and it about sucked my coffers dry trying to level up both Jewelcrafting and Engineering. The alts professions haven’t worked much better. Leatherworking Leg Armors and Enchanting Scrolls sell for about the cost of materials. At the time the ‘Saronite Shuffle’ was a major money maker, my Enchanter was still Alliance while my Jewelcrafter was Horde. I’ve found that people I read about who make gazillions via professions are nearly always Inscription, and work the Glyph market like a real business. No thank you.
I guess that’s part of my problem with making gold. When I’m buying mats on this alt to send to that alt to send to this other alt to finally send back to the first alt to sell, it feels like I’m playing a Spreadsheet. That starts to feel like work, and I want WoW to get me AWAY from the stresses of my workday, not bring them back.
So how do I make gold? I do what I call incidental farming. While I'm waiting for a queue to pop (Daily Battleground, Daily Heroic Dungeon, Arenas), I fly around Icecrown and Shalozar and mine Saronite and Titanium when I find it. When the queue pops, I jump into my game or dungeon. In this way, I get to farm, but it doesn't 'feel' like farming. I'm not farming just to farm. I'm farming as a way of passing the time while I wait for what I really want to do.
I also do my incidental farming is when I'm waiting for our raid to form up. I'm in a raid group, so I can't do much else so I fly around and mine. Wintergrasp presents another opportunity. I head over with about 10 minutes left to go and do some mining, or even fishing. I got yelled at one time for fishing during Wintergrasp (it had JUST started), so I don't do that much anymore, plus Honors is the only one with max fishing.
Lately, I'm been making gold incidental farming while working on my Explorer title. I decided to get Explorer as a way to see Azeroth one last time before the Cataclysm. As I ride around, I'll grab the minerals I run across. This has worked out really well, especially when I get gems from the Thorium veins.
Once I have some materials from my incidental farming, I send them to my bank alt. He runs to the Auction House, opens up the Appraiser tab in Auctioneer and hits refresh. Then I hit post at whatever the refresh price was.
After he posts the materials, I'll have him do a vendor search. I'm risk adverse after the debacle with buy low/sell high, but Vendor Search in Auctioneer finds stuff on the Auction House that is listed for less than a vendor would pay you for it. In truth I started doing this mainly to make sure that nothing I just posted is on the list, but Auctioneer has a nice warning before you post. If I see anything with a 'buy' price below vendor, I'll buy it and vendor it. Usually it's Icy Scales, and uncut 'blue level' gems.
This incidental farming gives me enough gold to make my repair bills and buy the gems and enchants I need for any upgrades I get. I make gold very slowly, only a couple of hundred gold each day I play, sometimes less. But it adds up over time.
Once I get Explorer out of the way, I’m going to start working on doing the Argent Tournament dailies on my Warrior. That should increase my income a good bit. My goal is buy epic flying on my Warrior, and possibly get him a motorcycle before Cataclysm. I’d also like to go into Cataclysm with a nice war chest of gold. My original idea was 100k, but I know I won’t have anywhere near that. If I have 20k, having bought those two items, I think I’ll be doing well.
With having mining on all 3 possible mains (Warrior/Paladin/Hunter) I will be able to make some good gold during the initial leveling rush. I remember Cobalt Ore going for a 100g per stack in the early days of Wrath. My goblin (Shaman or Mage, leaning Mage so I can make a Dwarf Shaman) will be an alchemist so I’ll finally have a flower picker.