SPENDING

Welcome to Business as Usual, the weekly segment on all that glitters.

SAVING MONEY IS MAKING MONEY
I’d like to talk a bit about spending this week, I’ve talked about it in the past but I feel compelled to discuss it this week because frankly, I’ve spent a lot this week. It’s important to keep tabs not only on how much gold you make but also how much you spend, why? Because when you put the two together, you have your bottom line. So how much did I spend?

■ Gamecards – 20,000g
■ Professions – 25,000g
■ Miscellaneous – 5,000g
50,000g – TOTAL

Yeah, I winced a little when I saw it. But it’s not all THAT bad. For starters, I consider the gamecards to be akin to operating expenses. I got two 60 day cards, one for each of my accounts. The miscellaneous expenditure isn’t as bad as it looks either, four went directly to a 6 tab guild bank on the alliance side for some much needed storage.

Which brings us to the professions, when dealing with large amounts of alts you’re going to have times where you need to build up your assets. This week I power leveled Enchanting on the Horde side, that wasn’t cheap. Of course, I also worked on my Warlock’s Jewelcrafting & Alchemy. I remain confident in my decision to stay Horde with my gold making enterprise, I’m not entirely confident however in relying on the Neutral AH to keep business flowing, therefore I needed an Enchanter on the Horde side. The worst is over, now I can get down to making some gold again.

CONTROLLING SPENDING
But back to our original discussion, it’s one thing to minimize the impact of your spending. But don’t think for a minute you should never spend gold. One must weigh the consequences of their spending vs the immediate return of the spending. For example, if you plan to skill up a Miner for your group you must ask yourself how often you will be using the skill. If you just want the miner around for rare time where gathering is more profitable than say simply buying materials from the AH for processing, then you may not want to buyout ore from the AH to skill up mining.

However, if you intend to mine extensively as part of your business model then it may be worth it to smelt your way to the skill cap. It’s all about calculating risk and reward. I speak to many Goblins on a regular basis, and one thing I’ve noted is that many I’ve spoken to recently ignore their spending, they don’t want to think about how much they’ve spent since Cataclysm launched, or ever. Because it makes them realize how much gold they’d have if they hadn’t spent anything at all. But this is a mistake, consider your expenditures. Myself, I keep records. I track it, it helps me make decisions. And it helps me see what I’ve done in the past, what mistakes I’ve made.

THE BLOODSCALP REPORT
Certain markets have been rallying since the patch, though I expect the windfall to be short-lived it’s certainly a welcome sight. The advantage of having all professions covered is it allows a certain flexibility in the face of ever changing markets, I’ve noted some interesting anomalies that I’m keeping tabs on. Once I’m satisfied as to their authenticity I’ll be talking a bit more about them, but first I need to remove the possibility of these simply being outliers.

THIS WEEKS TOTALS
■ 5,000g – Metas
■ 20,000g – Gems
■ 5,000g – Scrolls
■ 1,000g – Tailored Goods

31,000g – TOTAL

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading…