Almost every gold blog going has suggested a low level bank alt for newbie goldmakers – it’s a basic necessity when you first start out on your gold making journey. I’d also say it’s a necessity when you first start playing the game or when you want to start fresh on a new server. Having the ability to just mail everything saleable to one alt & then list it at the AH later saves so much time while questing & you maximise your profits instead of vendoring or just deleting stuff to make space!

Now I always feel the need to level my banker a little – probably because I really enjoy those first lowbie zones but also (especially on a new server) because it raises a little cash to start the ball rolling. But my banker doesn’t just sit in Stormwind, oh no – she has work to do as part of my gold making routine. I thought I’d list just a few of the things my bankers do for me & how your banker can work a little harder for you too.

1. Limited Supply Vendor Recipes & Pets

I pretty much covered this in last week’s post re the RecipeProfit addon but for my banker – she just does a run around Ironforge with an occasional side trip to Darnassus or Exodar to purchase any recipes/patterns/plans etc that are available from various vendors.

For the pets, I have found the Moth Eggs from Exodar are my best sellers with the White Kitten available in Stormwind from Lil Timmy selling for the highest price. Unfortunately Timmy is on a 3hour spawn timer so getting a regular supply of White Kittens is difficult.

2. Flipping items on the AH – Buy Low, Sell Higher

Using Auctioneer or Auctionator, you can often find some really good deals – I tend to stick with trade items like cloth or low level gems (malachite/star ruby/aquamarine  especially). I tend to stay away from armor & weapons purely because prices can vary so much, they can take a while to resell & the AH deposit fees are usually quite high. One or two relists & you could easily wipe out any profits.

3. Cooking

Yes, cooking! If you base your alt in one of the capital cities that has cooking dailies, you can do the cooking daily to get XP & some cash & spend your Chef’s Awards on the bag of Imported Supplies. Once opened, it will give you Cocoa Beans – usually 2 stacks which you can sell on the AH. Check the price of Chocolate Cookies on your server & price your Cocoa Beans just below – that way, the Cookie Makers will be able to buy your beans & still make some profits.

Obviously, if you’ve levelled your banker much higher then you can also look on the AH for meat & fish to cook up into buff foods – watch the prices for a few days before jumping in though – I find buff food prices to be very erratic on my server.

4. Inscription

This one isn’t for everybody as it does require some ‘nursing’ to get the best returns. I did a post on my own blog back at the beginning of July with a level 10 bank alt glypher – I won’t try to re-write the post here but basically, if you can get really cheap herbs on your server, you can probably make a nice profit on glyphs & Darkmoon Faire Decks.

5. Tailoring/Enchanting

Why these two professions in particular? Well I’m aiming this at people who are still levelling new characters through the lowest zones – you will pick up shedloads of linen cloth & wool cloth & although you could just sell it on the AH, I have often found that prices for a stack are ridiculously low due to the almost unlimited supply. It also doesn’t matter what professions you have on your levelling alts – they will pick up cloth anyway. However, when you use this cheap linen to make into something using your tailoring (for example, Brown Linen Pants) , you can then disenchant it & sell the enchanting materials for a much higher price.

You can also search the AH for armor & re-sort the listing to show by lowest bid price – anything below say 50silver may be worth bidding on to be disenchanted. I’ve been doing exactly this on my main server – my budget is a little higher as I have maxed my enchanting & I am looking for materials across the whole range but I am still making some nice profits. Not huge profits admittedly but that’s not actually the aim for me – I’m trying to get the Guild Achievement!

I’m sure there are loads of other ways to make gold with a low level banker – what’s your favorite method of maximising your bank alt?

Til next week

Nev