Earnings Analysis

Exactly a month after I hit my highest gold amount ever (32K), I am back to the top again. I've been tracking my total gold amount since March of this year, in an Excel spreadsheet. I use Titan Panel and one of its components shows me the total gold across all my characters of the same faction and server. So each evening when I log out for the day I make an entry in my Excel sheet and I have a graph which plots my earnings nicely.

The following diagram is a screenshot of my chart, with a few highlights. The diagram in fact ends at just over 30K gold, when in fact I'm over 32K as of this morning. I had over 1700 gold waiting for me in the mail when I woke up today. But more on this after the diagram.

Here's a breakup of the diagram:

• Before 3.1 hit I was hovering around 15K gold. I made some money then I spent it on various things, mainly gear upgrades for my 2 mains (Hunter and Death Knight).
  
  
• The small dip before the patch is due to stocking up on lots of cheap mats that I thought would rise up in price after 3.1. Needless to say, a lot of people had the same idea so this plan didn't quite pan out as we all thought. However, I don't regret buying certain mats at low prices even though I can't sell them now for a profit, because I can still use them. For example, enchanting mats are always valuable, especially since one of my characters is a high level enchanter. I am also slowly re-selling Titanium Bars for 7+ gold each, after buying them pre-3.1 for 4-6.50 gold. Not a lot of profit but since I have a huge stock, I need to get rid of them.
  
  
• Patch 3.1 hits. My gold amount starts rising at a very fast rate. Even after buying Dual Specs for 1 character (1000 gold), you can't see any variation in the slope. Most of this gold is made by selling glyphs. I was veeeery lucky to get a Book of Glyph Mastery as a drop about 2 days after the patch hit. The book produced a Glyph of Haunt and for a week I was the sole provider of said glyph on my server. I sold it for 300G a piece. The funny thing is that I haven't had that glyph book drop even once since then.
  
  
• After reaching my all-time high of 32K (I know, it's not a huge sum but for me it was special), I made my first large purchase, a Band of the Kirin Tor (8000G) which I upgraded to an Inscribed Band of the Kirin Tor for another 1000G.
  
  
• At this point my earnings slowed down to pre-3.1 levels.
  
  
• I then made my second-highest purchase: a Mekgineer's Chopper for 13,500 gold.
  
  
• Things go back to normal. For the past month I've been clearing my inventory like crazy. I have a lot of metal bars to sell, as well as various other crap like Outland herbs and ore, food and fish, motes and Eternals, leg armor kits and of course, more glyphs.

Speaking of glyphs, they still sell very well. Since I had a ton of Northrend herbs, I converted all of them to inks and I started cranking out glyphs. My strategy is a bit laborious but, I would say, very profitable.

• First I scan the Auction House quickly using Auctionator. This gets me a snapshot of all items and their prices.
  
  
• Next, I log in on my scribe and go through all his glyphs. I will make 2 of each glyph that sells for around 14-15G or more.
  
  
• I mail them to my bank alt and list them, 2 at a time, undercutting the lowest seller by a very small margin, usually a few silver.
  
  
• I then lay back and do other stuff while my glyphs are slowly selling. Occasionally I will log back in on the bank alt and re-check my glyphs. I will cancel those that were undercut and re-post them, undercutting the undercutter by a small amount.
  
  
• The cool thing about glyphs is that the AH deposit is very low for them - just a few copper - so I can afford to cancel auctions at a moment's notice and then re-post them, without any losses.
  

Now the reason why I found 1700+ gold in my mailbox this morning is twofold. First, I sold a nice Nobles card for about 1300. Second, I sold a lot of glyphs.

Like I said earlier, besides glyphs, I also sell a lot of mats. I am basically clearing my inventory. Just after patch 3.1 hit, all my 6 guild bank tabs were filled to bursting. I even had 2 tabs for herbs: Classic&Outland and Northrend. Now, the Classic&Outland tab is almost empty, while the Northrend herbs were converted to inks and then glyphs. I'm also slowly clearing my bars and ore tab. I even sold a few stacks of Eternals that I figured I wouldn't use anytime soon. I think of my guild bank in the same way I think of my fridge: I love it when it's mostly empty, containing only essential stuff and I hate when it's so full that you can barely close the door.

As for selling when prices are high, I try to do that but mostly I just try to get rid of stuff as quickly as possible, even at a lower profit because I am literally swamped in wares of all sorts. I don't have enough space in my bank alt's bags for all the crap I want to sell.

So there I am, back again at the highest sum ever and I am still clueless what to spend it on. So much money, so little choices...