Why does everyone else seem so rich? AKA-how to make money boxing

To preface this, I was never great at making money even single boxing, so you can imagine my shock when I regularly hear people on here talking about being gold capped. I can't even imagine what that would be like. So-what is your strategy? Professions? awesome farming spots for AH goods/rares/epics/motes?

I was going to level up all 5 in one profession, but I have heard that the profit margin has gone down quite a bit in inscription, and my main is an alchemist and makes next to nothing anymore. I was raking in 10k/week for a while as a potion master, but unless I go gathering there's little money to be made there.

I made tons and tons and tons of gold last expansion, and at the start of this expansion I did OK.

But then the gold stopped, just as you found with your alchemist. I think because there are fewer and fewer people playing, but not fewer bots. We have less buyers but the same number of sellers.

Most of the money you make comes from simply selling instead of buying. Learning what sells and why. Even the dumbest trash loot could be worth thousands and thousands to the transmog community. Burning Crusade greens are a gold mine.

Expansions are always a great time to make money. Resources from every level spike in value. So you can either buy everything now while it's cheap, or farm it up yourself and bank it. New classes/races mean people will be buying even level 1 mats at crazy prices to max their trades for the bonuses on new toons. I made about 200k when Cataclysm dropped. I had an entire bank mule full of Lich King ore and gems that I had harvested back doing ICC raids. Saronite was crazy for the alchemists to transmute to for 50 points of skill.

Personally, I never go out of my way to make money. I don't really do much with my professions, they are more for making myself self-sufficient than making money. I sell the majority of what I pick up as is unless I know for sure that I can sell whatever I make very quickly, and that means knowing your server.

My server is, in a word, pathetic. If you want more words, here.

So because of the tiny population, the Auction House is really weak. Purps rarely sell, so I never craft purple gear {exceptions being spellthreads/armor kits}, weapons never sell unless they are world drop blues/purps. Most stuff gets DE'd since mats are always in demand. Netherweave bags sell like crazy, but other bags never sell.

Glyphs are a waste of time to get into - I consistently make more selling raw herbs.

The only potions that reliably sell are Health and Mana {only the highest} and Swiftness potions, so I only do raiding flasks when a new raid is released and only in small quantities.

Food is always a pretty good one to work with for a while. I was selling raw fishes like hotcakes for a long time in MoP. In previous expansions, I did good business selling prepared foods as well, but with the new cooking quests, everyone was taking advantage of the "quick money/xp/leveling" so no one has been buying anything but raw mats this expansion.

Transmog gear *never* sells on my AH. Ever. Can't even sell it for more than DE, no matter what the piece.

So as you can see, your market can be vastly different from someone else's. Best bet is going to be keep an eye on what does sell quickly for you or what is lacking on the AH so you can find what will sustain you in "dry periods" between expansions and patches. Then read up on what upcoming patches or expansions will be bringing and try to prepare for some fast and furious sales there.

I have found that the best time to make money is the first 2 months of a new expansion. Last expansion it was alchs, this one it was scribes. After that its a mix of AH and dailies for me. I made around 600K with my scribes, until the decks stopped selling and herb cost stayed high.

I lost 400K or so this expansion, last expansion I bought rare recipies/plans etc. and made a good profit being the first to make really high end items. This expansion that didnt work as I think product was duped early. So my million went down to about 500K and has stayed there.

Anything that shows profit one day then 20 people are on it the next day, its just really hard to do much now. Gear is easy to come by with world boss and what not. Why is someone going to pay 30K for an item that they might get at the next world boss kill? And I am sure that many items are being duped, it used to be high end items were duped but now I think stuff like ghost iron ore is being duped in mass to avoid attention.

No single stratagy will be effective, you just need to make what you can and sell it at the right time of the week or month when it will go for the most.

I have skin / herb / mining / alchemy now enchanting maxed out on seperate toons, Alch and mining is a nice money making- i have few spots that i go and farm, i also sell level 85 green items looted from MOP starting zones. dont forget to throw goggles , which can be purchase from AH.

i also made a ton, after expansion launched, i sold alot of ghost iron. everyones wants to level up their proffesions and rush so they buy stuff from ah, also i found out alot of stuff sells for good amount of gold from LK expansion - herbs / mines, cloths usually 60-80g a pop, seems that nobody wants to go and farm in that area.

also people may think you cant make any gold running 25 man BC+ and up, you can, loot everything and vendor the trash, green items and epic

I've farmed the battle-pets in raid-dungeons (MC, BWL, AQ, NAXX)
learn them, put them back in the box and sell them via the AH

Earned 10K - 25K with each pet