Oh man, I just came back too! Inflation is crazy now and I've also been trying to find a good way to earn gold.
rofl I'll share what I've been doing.
You can usually earn some gold and items from the Daily Chance on the top right side of the Home, My Gaia, GCash, Shops, GoFusion, Forums, World, and Games pages. There are also usually links to earn some free Gaia Cash on these pages.
Surfing, posting, and voting on polls in the forums still rewards a small amount of gold.
I've heard you can also earn gold from the games, but I've only really played zOMG! so far (which is pretty fun!), so I don't know how much you can get from the others.
sweatdrop I think the Booty Grab game in aquariums is supposed to be good, but I've only played it maybe twice.
If you can draw or do CSS coding, I've heard that making avatar art and profiles is still profitable.
If you can afford Gaia Cash, there's also the option of buying CS items and selling them on the Marketplace.
I hope that helped a little bit. Like I said, I'm still trying to figure it out as well. Welcome back to Gaia!
whee 
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