Why am I so terrible at making gold?

I know, I know. Our morning breakfast topics are supposed to be a place to hang out over a cup of coffee and chat about the gaming issues of the day, but I am abusing the power of the breakfast topic to ask you all for some advice: why am I so terrible at making gold in WoW?

Plenty of players seem to find gold-making a breeze, and presumably spend their game downtime rolling around in a vault of golden coins. These are the players who have a Francois riding around with them on their brontosaurus mount, just for decoration. These are the players who have so much gold they pay for gametime with it. Nothing in the game is financially beyond their reach, and if it is, well, just give them a week or two on the auction house and they’ll get there.

I, on the other hand, am walking around with 27 gold in my (virtual) pocket. I struggled to buy a Darkmoon trinket — selling for around 60k gold at the time —to gear up before Uldir started. And because I raid a few times a week, I keep stocked with potions and consumables — around 300-500g per potion or 1,000g per flask. I can sometimes make my own if I have time to farm herbs, but if I don’t have time to farm herbs it’s usually cheaper to buy finished potions instead of the herbs to make them. I try to have good enchants and gems, which add another 2,000-4,000g each time I replace a piece of gear. And then there are repair bills which, if I took the time to add them up, would probably total to a worrying number. Whatever gold I have seems to come and go quickly, no matter what I do.

I’ve never exactly been good at gold-making, but at least in Warlords and Legion I could build a decent nest egg through the mission table. And Warlords practically gave away crafting materials, so I didn’t have to spend time farming as many materials (or the gold to buy as many materials). Perhaps those systems were too easy, but now I’m stuck staring at my dwindling virtual bank account and wondering just how people do it. I do my daily quests which earn me a bit of gold, and I collect a few coins here and there in raids. I don’t have a useful crafting profession (Leatherworking) or gathering profession (Skinning), so there’s not much to work with there. But I play the auction house a bit, posting any BOE gear or crafting materials I find that Auctionator tells me might have value. But even undercutting, gear doesn’t seem to sell — and the more valuable these items are, the slower they seem to sell. I’ve taken to simply scrapping anything Auctionator tells me is worth less than 500g, and undercutting anything else by at least 25%. I don’t need to turn a maximum profit — I just want to get some gold so I can carry on my everyday gaming activities.

So spill the beans, readers. Just how do you all manage to get (and stay) wealthy in the world of Azeroth? For my part, I seem to barely tread water while so many people are not only staying afloat but riding around on giant dinosaurs to prove their immense financial worth.

Give me your best gold making advice. And, okay, I guess we can share it with everyone else in the comments, too.