Starting Fresh? Some Tips To Make It Easier.

Totally Unrelated Homage To Sylvanas.

 As I have said before, I am trying out new class/race combinations, and I am making them on servers where I haven't played before.  What does this mean for my new little toons?  It means they are responsible for their own finances, their own professions, everything.

Starting out fresh isn't as hard as it used to be.  Most areas have given you an 8 slot and a 6 slot bag for quest rewards by the time you are level 10. I believe every level 10+ area has a multiple profession trainer just waiting to load you up on every possible profession you could want. Mobs are dropping less garbage than they used to.  This all adds up to making it that much easier to follow my first tip:

1. Make a buddy for your intended main character.  Level it to 10, get professions that you are likely to use or that complement your main's, and send it to a major city.  Even if you are a mage and are able to port yourself to a main city, bag space will always be an issue.  This way, you can use mailbox space as storage, as well as the little bit of bank and bag space of your buddy toon. Make sure this buddy has your favorite auction house add on loaded when you log them in, and use them at least once a week.  Many will tell you that Friday before the kids come home from school is the best time to put up auctions.  I believe that so long as you post before you crash Friday night, you will grab a good portion of the weekend crowd, who spend more on the auction house.
2. Sell everything!  Being new to a server, it is best to grab two gathering professions. Now that you are able to track more than one item while you are in the world, you are no longer limited to having one tracked and adding skinning. During the lower levels, I am finding that herbs sell better than ore, probably due to the high cost of converting Cataclysm herbs down to usable low level inks.  There are lots of people out there leveling alts now, so no gathering profession is a loser.  By selling everything, I mean everything.  If you must level your cooking, do it, but try and send raw meats to your buddy when they are no longer a guaranteed skill up.  Gear, even if you think it has good stats, I would send away, too, and live off the quest reward gear.  Don't discount the value of a grey item!  If you are a rogue and pickpocket items with flavor text or that you can read, send them to auction!  If you are on a role playing server, even the grey clothing items could sell.  Sometimes even the starter clothes are worth selling. If you don't want to bother with auctioning grey items, that is fine, but make sure you at least get vendor price for them.  Nothing is sadder than throwing away money when you are scraping together money to train.
3. Buy bigger bags, ASAP.  Nothing hampers questing, and money making, quite like small bags.  You should be revered rather quickly with your home faction.  Near the flight master in each major city is a quartermaster that will sell you a 16 slot bag for 2 gold when you are revered.  This is a large upgrade for a small amount of change.  When you can, upgrade all your bags to netherweave bags (or, if you find them at a good price, traveler's backpacks).  These right now are running as low as 6 gold all the way to as high as 20 gold per server. Look for good deals, and replace when you can. If you hit revered with a second faction before you can afford to fill all your bag slot with 16 slot bags, go to that faction's quartermaster and grab their bag, too. Oh, and don't forget your buddy.  Throwing him a bag every once in a while won't hurt, and will make selling you mountain of loot faster.
4. Be prepared.  If you are starting the day, the dungeon queue, or a long quest chain, empty your bags.  Make sure you have the food, drink, and other items you must have, and repair. Running out of water, bandages, food, and bag space all just slow down your momentum, which slows down your money making.
5. Take a break.  I roll up a buddy character not only for banking, but to level.  Their main base is a main city, but they quest while the main is gaining rested experience.  It helps me keep from tiring of the main character, which is a big help.

That is all I do. Doing this, I have been able to upgrade to 16 slot bags on my hubby's toon, my main toon, my bank toon, and send 100 gold to the guild bank, buy glyphs for both my main and my bank,  train them both in professions and skills, buy mounts for my two toons, and even buy a few materials for my bank toon (who is an engineer), to make a few items she could not gather for herself.

I didn't follow my rule completely on my new server, and I am sure I lost a lot of profit by using the herbs the priest has been gathering to level her alchemy.  I also have lost quite a bit by not selling all the raw ore my engineer is using.  Nevertheless, I am not feeling the pinch, with 16 gold in my bank's pocket and all mounts and bags taken care of with only glyph purchases in the near future, and several auctions waiting to be sold. If you count the bags, glyphs, guild bank gift, and mounts, I have made almost 500 gold on this server, with one toon at 33 and the other at 26. Imagine if I had followed the rules and not decided to level crafting professions?