No money, not sure how to beginFollow

I recently re-started the game as well. I reached the same dilemma as you, fishing used to be my primary source of money.

A good way to start up some money is like you mentioned Copper Ingots. You're going to be killing Orcs in Ronfaure, so the fire crystals are free. If you really can't afford the ore, save up the ore you get killing worms at the very least. Save your earth crystals and sell those. After maybe 2 stacks of earth crystals you'd be able to afford buying copper ore at the smithing guild.

Another way I started building up money in the Sandy area with crafting was crafting Grilled Hare Meat (mainly if Sandy owns Zulkheim) First Crystal, 1x Hare meat, 1x Dried Marjoram and I'd sell those for 500 each.

Sheep Leather is an awesome way to make money as well. You can hunt the dark crystals from the funguar while leveling in Ronfaure, or go into Ghelsba and in the cave with lots of Funguar, farm dark crystals. Hunt, or buy from the leathercrafting guild the sheepskins. The windurstian tea leaves are cheap, just use a mule in Windy to grab those.

I experimented with a bunch of different ways to make gil and found those the most successful. Once I had a bit of money I mainly used a mule in bastok to make copper ingots and sell for profit. I'm not going to lie, I definitely made gil a lot slower than I would have if I could fish, but SE wouldn't let me sooo I tried to adapt. I'm sure you'll find your thing if you keep at it.

Edited, Feb 27th 2009 9:58pm by Niabi

Since everyone covered the early crafts, I'll mention the repeatable quests. Rabbit hides, bat wings and flint stones since your in Sandy. I got decent fame with these quests taking all 6 starter jobs to 10 and the gil wasn't great but good enough to get me set up to begin gardening. After you do the first mission, Orcish Axes also sell to an NPC for 148-150 gil. Hope this helps you out as well.

Let's see if I can come up with a scenario I would follow myself :)

1) Being in Sandy, you are in a bit of luck. Just forget about gil for a bit, and focus on leveling your job (and perhaps even a few you can use later on as subs) outside Sandy. Start using the Field of Valor manuals just outside the city gates to level jobs up to around 10. Once you are 'in the system' (i.e. you have some tabs to spend), this gives you free food at least. If you have a DD job, spend some tabs on Regen too, if you have a mage job, spend them on Refresh... they last for about an hour (or 90 minutes, I forgot) and are a godsend if you want to get EXP fast.
Keep signet on and collect all crystals and junk that drops. Do the repeatable quests with the rabbit hides, the bat wings and flint stones as said. Do the mission with the Orcish Axe once, sell all Axes you get to NPC afterwards. Sell stacks of crystals to AH (will go for about 600-1000 gil, depending on your sever).

2) Level 10+, head to Ghelsba Outpost and start killing Orcs and as soon as you can also the Funguar in the caves uphill. They drop Dark Crystals, worth a bit more then Earth, Wind and Fire (no pun intended) and tons of Sleepshrooms (NPC them). The Orcs drop Fire crystals, some gil and occasionally gear and spells. All of which can be sold to NPC for some gil.
Tip: you can still get Regen/Refresh from the FoV manual and zone into Ghelsba OP to take advantage of it. Unfortunately you cannot do any FoV missions (there's one in La Theine though).

3) Try to keep doing quests (especially the repeatable ones) to increase your fame in Sandy. The higher your fame, the higher the price NPCs will pay for your junk. Do some of the other quests as well that won't cost you anything (but some time) but will gain you fame and some gil or an item you can use or sell.

4) Level your main to 20 (you can probably do this solo, or at least to level 15-20). Unlock your subjob (if you still need this done) and level your sub (if you haven't done this already in point 1. above).
Try to buy your gear as cheap as possible with the money you made (e.g. Leather outfit: South Sandy vendor). Learn your local vendors, guild shops and merchants and the prices they ask for stuff. Learn your AH history. Base all your sales on where you can get things cheapest.

5) Try to give crafting a shot now. Especially cooking. If you are really going to fish Moat Carp for gil, you might want to be able to make your own bait (Insect Paste is Cooking level 29). If you will be following this road, you also might want to keep some ingredients to level cooking and to make your bait (like all insect wings you clubber out of the Scarab Beetles, a few stacks of Earth crystals, ...). Cooking is really easy and cheap to level, so you should be able to do this at break even or even a small profit and it will pay back later.

6) Once you have some gil saved up, it is time for the big decision: spend it on gear/food or invest it with the risk to lose it all or double it's value. If you have a friend with access to Whitegate (I assume you won't have that yourself) and willing to buy you some Wildgrass Seeds, I would invest some of the gil you made in 10 pots (Sandy vendors sell Ceramic pots at around 1K a piece) and a maple table. Gardening Wildgrass in those pots and feeding them Water crystals is as close to a 100% guarantee to make around 20K gil profit each week for a set of 10 pots (just don't let them whither) as you can get with a lowlevel char.
You might consider setting up a mule especially for this (if you do, pick another city but Sandy so you can actually cover more different vendors and guild shops).

7) Once level 20+, start fishing for Moat Carp and selling them to AH (or bazaar them) for profit. These probably sell faster then you can fish them up for about 3K a stack. West Ronfaure around the Knightswell lake is a great area to fish them up. You might want to invest some of the first gil you make in buying a Halcyon rod.

That should get you going, I guess. Once you have set up a way to make a consistent income (even when it is low), you should be able to figure out a way to increase your gil revenue each week. Don't be too afraid to invest (wisely) some of the early gil. It will pay back in the end (e.g. level crafts, invest in gear, ...).

Just for the record: You might want to look at HELMing as well (Harvesting, Excavating, Logging and Mining). This is a risk, since you need equipment that will break sooner or later (usually sooner ), but it might give you profit. Just try to figure out which activity yields you the most gil for the time spent (imo, gardening with Wildgrass by far wins the game for low level characters).

Good luck!