Quote Originally Posted by 'Hellraiser',index.php?page=Thread&postID=197022#p ost197022
If you can spare 2k gold to try out trading, just give it a try. (Be aware that your gold also can be lost.)
My very first character got burned. Back in July of '05 I took my meager holdings of about 20g at 35 (was actually a lot for the level) and started playing the auction house. I had 146g at level 39. At 40 it was ~100g for my mount. Did I sit on my gold to get my mount? Nope. I got into the Dark Iron ore market. Unfortunately this was at the time the patched DI ore into the world, before it was only in BRD and MC). This obviously made it much easier to obtain and drove the price down. I was stuck with a bunch and only 23 gold when I hit 40. I ended up having to move it to the opposite faction to sell it. I ended up making a profit but it took a week and moving and selling and buying other stuff and moving back and then selling that stuff. Took about a week and a half and level 46 before I got my mount.

It soured me on the whole buy low sell high. It was fun to corner the market in something but I took too big a risk for where I was in the game at the time(life lesson anyone -lol). I also learned that you HAVE to be on top of the market, you have to know as much as possible about what is coming next from blizz and, like any gambling be it stock market or the craps table, do not over extend yourself and put in more money then you can afford to lose or even have unavailable for the short term. You follow those rules and you have a very good chance to be sucessful.

Instance runs are a fun diversion. People on my server regularaly offer up to 50g for SM Cath/Armory runs and Strat UD. 20g for deadmines/sfk/wc. As boxers you can camp an AH toon or two by the AH of your choice and take another toon else to do the run through for any of that. I personally can solo (just my pally) every 5 man through TBC and most of ZG. Doing run throughs, for me, is nostalgic. I loved the challange they were at level. I can do an SM Cath in one pull in 7 minutes. It takes longer to loot it then for me to kill it. I love Strat UD and can do a full clear in about 15 minutes solo, that is skipping a bunch of mobs. Killing everything takes about 25.

Taking a team to do some larger old school stuff making some gold is fun and a nice diversion. I do about 45 minutes to an hour of dailies for 130g (just one toon at this point for me). 5 SM Cath runs for 250g in about an hour, accounting for looting, is more profitable but not as reliable. So doing it might not be as profitable as the AH or even dailies or solo heroics but it is something different and fun to do as a diversion and still brings in some coin.