Need to generate some cash flow for your World of Warcraft characters? Here's a WoW gold making tip that will save you a little time and energy on your main characters and send a pretty decent amount of cash your way.

The first thing you're gong to do is make an alternate character ("alt".) This will be your auction house character (your "mule,") Your other characters should have the gathering skills. This will leave your main character(s) free to do whatever it is that they do.

I leveled up my mule to 10 (which allows journeyman enchanting) so that she could disenchant any junk green items found along the way. Check the prices on strange dust and such. You may find that disenchanting and selling the parts is a lot more profitable than selling the items.

The mule you'll run to the nearest big city and park near a mailbox that's close to the Auction House. This character's sole purpose is to collect the mail from all your other characters, sell stuff on the AH, buy stuff when necessary, and mail cash and items back to your other characters. Heck, you can even buy dirt cheap greens on the AH, disenchant them, and sell the parts.

Note - this also allows you to use the mail system for unlimited storage. Mail stuff that you need to store to your mule, then hit the return button. Your stuff will sit in the mailbox until you need it.

The gatherer is an alt (or your main character) you'll level to the point where you can run through the low level areas without worrying about getting killed by the monsters in the area. Of course, if you're on a PVP server you might have other worries... Unless you're gathering kills.

What we want to do here is make a gatherer character that can make the rounds of the zone as quickly as possible, gathering everything that can be gathered. The faster you're able to do this the more money you'll be able to make per hour of gathering.

As for professions, I suggest getting mining and herbalism as your gathering skills. Skip the crafting skills for now.

Skinning is a great skill, since you'll be killing tons of beasts anyway and the skins sell quite well, but you will get a lot of ruined leather scraps (at lower levels) and you'll have to take the time to kill things. Of course, the ruined scraps do sell and a leatherworker can turn them into light leather. With the others you can just rin and gather.

The only problem with herbalism is that you can't set your mini-map to dispay both herbs and ores at the same time. The herbs don't seem to sell quite as well as the skins, but they're faster to collect.

With mining and either herbalism or skinning you will just run a circuit around the zone and collect. If you take mining and skinning you can leave your detector set to 'ores' while you kill and skin.

I also suggest that you make your gatherer either a hunter or druid or shaman. Each of those classes gets a run speed boost at level 20 which will make your gathering that much faster. If you have a level 40 character collecting dust you can use your mount and you'll have access to higher level areas. The level 60 epic mount really helps in this area, with its greater speed.

If you would really not spend all your time gathering there is a better way. The Massive WoW Gold Blueprint will set you free from gathering. Check it out.

Next you'll want to get one of those nice wow addons called Gatherer. This makes your gathering much easier, because it actually marks your main map everytime you find ore or herbs. With a couple of loops around a zone you'll have a well marked map and you can just run through these areas and gather quickly.

While you're at it, pick up the Auctioneer addon. One of its little goodies is a tool tip that not only tells you what any particular item sells fo, but what the disentanted pieces sell for.

Most World of Warcraft inns will have a mailbox very close by, so when your pack is full from your relentless gathering you just hearth back back to the inn, mail your stocks of ore and herbs or skins to your mule and then go back to your rounds.

For your gatherer character, and all of your characters, you'll want to get some extra bags, of course. I suggest buying the biggest bags you can afford. Depending on your server, the 16 slotters seem to go for around 7 gold, the 18s for around 40, and the 20 slotters are, well, too rich for my blood right now. 10 slot silk bags generally go for around 1g each, so those are a good place to start if you're a little low on cash.

If you want to buy bags specific to one profession you can get a few more slots for your money. Herb bags, for example, will hold more herbs for the price than regular bags, but they ONLY hold herbalism related stuff. Can't put ore in them.

The main use of these bags is to store stuff for later crafting. Fill 'em up and stick them in the bank. Grab them later for a massive crafting session. Or, better yet, mail your gatherings to your bank alt and have him return the mail. That way you use the mailbox as your bank.

While this method won't generate any 200 gold an hour, it's a good steady way to generate enough of an income to get your mounts and some good gear. It'll also let you keep your main characters from having to make endless trips back and forth from the auction house.

Of course, you main character can always farm the higher level areas, in addition to all the nice stuff that occasionally drops while questing/grinding, and mail the loot back to the mule. Some of those methods can generate 200g an hour. See the link below for a reference that spills all the details.

Yes, I know your mage (Hi there, Rug') can teleport to almost anywhere and so you don't see the point of a bank alt, but why should you bother? Hit the local mailbox, you'll be swinging by oine anyway, and mail the goodies to your alt. You'll save time that's better spent grinding, farming, or killing other players.

Better yet, get the Blueprint, and move away from grinding forever.

Good luck with the (gold) grind!