I've told this story a few times, how the last time i played was vanilla, came back to try out legion and was instantly hooked all over again albeit with one huge disadvantage - I had NO gold.
After mucking around and getting by on quest rewards, I decided I needed to get serious about making gold - learned TSM, learned how to navigate TUJ, and through the generosity of a goblin on my server who gifted me 25k, I was able to parlay those meager funds into a tidy profit 3 months later.
Most of this is old hat the majority of you but for folks trying to figure out where to start...that album's proof you can do it and even on a low pop server.
If I had to distill that experience down into a few quick tips that really unlocked things for me:
1) Understand the concept of opportunity cost. Farming mats doesn't make them free, that pulls you away from time you could have otherwise hunting down deals and flipping mats or boes. The final answer for me landed somewhere in the middle. I farm when I want to, but the vast majority of my profits come from flipping other people's efforts into gold.
2) Unlock flying - there's just no 2 ways about it - if you haven't done that then you're hobbling your production ability
3) Diversify...I scour all markets for deals and anything below 70% market value (MV) is fair game for a flip...I make the most of my money through the more price durable mats like Bacon and Felwort - stuff that can't easily be farmed fast in reaction to a market reset. But there's money to made everywhere - you just have to be online to catch those deals. So be in Transmog (but double check sale rates - .04 and higher should be fine but .02 or lower - steer clear), be in 101 BoEs, be in 110 BoEs, be in raw mats, be everywhere so when one supply dries up you can fall back to another market.
3) Legion Order Halls - get em and get as many as you can, an set them up to do fast and slow missions...the passive income you get from each max order hall is anywhere from 10k-15k per week of CASUAL missions. You can easily surpass that with a configuration that favors short duration missions. I didn't want that process owning me so I opted for a mix of long and short missions. I have 3 max order halls generating about 40k per week by just sending out missions that focus on gold or BoS.
As for time - except for raw mats, the vast majority of stuff I post gets posted for 48hrs. I don't do cancel scans anymore except on a rare occasion. I post in small stacks and just restock when they get sold...but I use the "SHOPPING" interface of TSM to quickly position my postings based what size stack is being sold (ie sometimes 200 stacks are priced at 100mv, while 5 stacks are priced at 85%MV). I know I can let TSM match stack size, but lately it's been a little TOO aggressive at undercutting and robbing me of % points in the process.
I repost maybe twice a day, then forget about the AH and actually go play the game...Lately I've been sharing my good fortune with PUG raids by supplying an endless supply of lavish feasts and repair bots (we wipe alot :D)
Anyhoo - for whatever that's worth - take a look at my sale sheets if you want to see the ranges I was buying and selling at...Just posting this as a thank you to this community for helping me figure out my own place in this one facet of the game, maybe I can pay that forward to the next goblin...
Oh and PS - after slogging through sales for 3 months, i surprisingly hit 500k for the first time, then 30 minutes later broke 600k when 2 more BoEs sold - hah go figure...
