I am a trillionaire and I would be happy to share how I got here and give you advice. You do not have to buy cash. What you do need is work ethic and some time.
Do you have one billion gold yet? Play some Booty Grab or take some of those charms Daily Chance likes to spew out for free and use them to craft a Dusty Old Scroll from GoFusion. Sell it on the MP. Voila! An easy one billion to start with. Yes, it takes money to earn money. If you have more than one billion, great! If not, things will be tough at first, but you can do it! All of my calculations will revolve around 1 billion gold from here on out. It is also good to have all 20 slots unlocked on MP via the Tycoon achievement.
So the next steps are how you'll get on your way to becoming a trillionaire. Exciting, right?
Go to the Main Forum then head to the Exchange. Take a look around. Wow, that is some expensive stuff floating around right? You'd like to have these things, but chances are you only have 1 billion gold! That's like 1/64th of one of those items! So what do you do? Start checking threads. At this point, I mainly recommend looking for threads that say "inventory sale" somewhere in the title or "cheap". Not everything in the Exchange is expensive or a high ticket item. What are you looking for?
-An item below 1 billion gold in the Marketplace
-An item around 1.5 to 1.7 billion gold in the Marketplace
-Anything in your darn budget, really
The next step is to buy the item. Remember to think about what you'll be selling for on the Marketplace. Is the lowest buy price (LBP) 1.55B? You may be selling for 1.5B so you can be the lowest listing. Some people may list lower than you. It's time for some math:
(Insert your estimated buying cost) - 5% (tax) = approximate profit margin
So how much will you be making? Well, it depends how gutsy you are. Say the item costs 1.7B in the MP and you happen to offer and get it for 1B. It sells and you just made 615M after tax! Or the item costs 1.5B and you get it for 1B, it sells and you've just made 425M! (The latter is more likely, but it all depends on what something costs and how much you're willing to offer for it.) That is the basic mechanics of exchanging. It is okay to haggle, but at some points you have to call it quits. You want to aim for profit that is worth your time and effort around the 1 billion range. (Try for 200M+ each time, if you can.)
Remember to always be polite, but have a thick skin. No, not everyone in there is polite. There are a lot of jerks. Let the rain water roll off your back, lil' duck. It's hard to always be nice, but you'll be thankful later on when you get deals based solely on reputation. We are a community just like any other. There are regulars and most are actually nice! Don't be afraid to approach just because someone looks absurdly rich.
*Note: At this point in time, DO NOT sell your items in the Exchange. Only sell on the marketplace. The Exchange is full of people like you who want to make some gold and it is likely you will lose money if you sell your items there. For maximum profiteering, stick to selling on MP for now. HAVE PATIENCE. Anything will sell if you have enough patience. The concept of a hard to sell item is garbage, in my opinion.
When you do not have a lot of money I recommend Quantity over Quality. You want to buy as many items at a profit as you can before you run out of funds. Try to fill your store as often as possible. Some of the stuff might cost under 10 million gold, but it is still profit in your pocket. You want a quick turn over rate so you can build funds as fast as possible. Things add up! So don't worry if not everything is expensive. But amp yourself up! Go big or go home! The worst anyone can do is say no. (But don't get labeled as a "lowballer". For instance, 50% off LBP is a little ridiculous to offer someone.)
Everything in Exchanging is about rinse and repeat. It is often boring grunt work. It is tedious. There will be times when you do lose money. You will get frustrated. You will lose deals sometimes. You will want to kick that neighborhood a*****e. All of this is okay. The Exchange is located in the Gaming forum! It's just game, so don't give up! In the long run, you are making more money than you had before.
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I will make this blurb about vending. Vending has changed a lot in the past year. It is not about misprices or ripping off other users, as the rumors may have it. There are very little genuine misprices these days as far as I can tell.
What you are now looking for in the vend is something I would dub ~intentionally listed low~ items. These are items that people list very low in order to get them to sell faster. It's not the same as forgetting to type in a zero. Usually, these prices are correct. For example, I bought a 65B item for 35B last night. There was no angry PM, no "Hey give back my item!". I bought it fair and square.
These are the sorts of things you want to look for! 5B-10B off can sometimes be a lot, depending on taxes. A lot of vendors pass perfectly good stuff up because it just isn't up their alley or not worth their time. But it can be worth it for you!
Don't worry about memorizing prices. Sure, it can make you better sometimes to know what range something might fall in. But prices change every day! Don't be afraid to go look at something before you buy. Sure, you may miss a deal, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
It's safe to say you likely will not be the fastest person in the vend- but that's okay! Don't pass it up as an opportunity to make money just because you think you're not fast enough! I am turtle slow, as far as vending is concerned. The point is to have eagle eyes. Does something look really low? Does it seem vaguely wrong to be priced that low? Take a look. Buy it if it's worth it. Resell it. Keep on looking.
Some shortcuts that could speed the process up some:
Turn Adblock on while in the vend so there will be less to load.
Use Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V to copy and paste your password instead of typing it in manually. (Do not use autofill!!!)
Use Ctrl + R to refresh instead of hitting refresh every time. (Optional)
There are a lot more things. Some people deck out entire browsers dedicated to vending. You honestly do not need to be that fancy or fast. You just have to be dedicated and alert.
(In case you do not know what the vend is or how to get there: Go to Marketplace > drop down the Marketplace tag > click All Listings > change the Sort By box from 'Expiring Soon' to 'Just Added' > refresh constantly looking for deals to buy!)
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Other ways to make money:
-Red, Green, Blue and Black inks. You can turn five of each RGB ink into a White Ink and those are worth a hefty penny. Or take 500 white inks and turn them into a White Body Dye, if you have patience. You can do this for 100% free if you have the time and energy.
-Booty Grab!
-Fishing (but I don't know a lot about it)
-Taking tickets and either selling them or turning them into the ever popular Long Drag.
-Short term hoarding
-Cash Tree & Daily Treat (but seriously, you can do this without Gaia Cash at all. That's just an added bonus you can save up, if you want to.)
Uhhhhh. Then it's up to you what you want to do with your new found riches. I've had charities, I've bought art, items...anything your heart desires, really. Don't spend it all at once though!, you want to reserve a portion to keep making money with.
Anyways, if you have more questions or need more details (this was a rudimentary explanation sweatdrop ) I'd be happy to answer or coach you ground up via PM.
TL;DR: You want to be poor forever? Stop being lazy and go back and read! It does you no good to not take advantage of free information. emotion_donotwant