Bridging The Gaap

Part 1 - Don’t Neglect Your Professions - Part 2 - One Crunchy Serpent At A Time -

Part 3 - Don’t Touch Your Money!

If you can be disciplined enough to function at an elite level in a game, there’s absolutely no reason why one can’t transfer those skills to real life. In some cases, you won’t even have to lift a finger (automatic savings withdrawls from one account to another means you don’t even have to think about saving!).

In World of Warcraft, I play a level 70 Undead Mage named Chainface. That’s her on the left, hangin’ out with her good buddy Whiskers the Rat!

One day I decided I wanted my end game status symbol: I wanted my epic flying mount.

While trying to scrounge together 5200 gold for my epic flying mount (improves flying speed by 280%! Whoaaaa!), I realized that there were three fundamental financial lessons that this virtual experience was teaching me about real life money management. So without furthur ado, here is how I earned my epic mount, and the three money management skills this experience has taught me:

1. Don’t Neglect Your Professions!
2. Small Amounts Add Up (or…One Crunchy Serpent At A Time)!
3. Don’t Touch Your Money!

1) Don’t Neglect Your Professions!

This piece of advice is self-evident in both worlds. Whether you’re looking to make money in a game or in your real life, you simply cannot afford to neglect your professions or any other marketable skill you may have. for Chainface, this means taking advantage of her two chosen professions (Mining/Engineering) but also in the skills that she developed along the way (ex: Cooking and First Aid). In reality this ensures that you strive for and obtain a marketable profession or trade that you find agreeable and which can provide you a decent income.

In life, just as in World Of Warcraft, you have to ensure that your professions are a) marketable and b) offer a decent income. Often, this will involve some real world leveling up of skills: really that’s just a fancy way of saying that your education should be a priority.

You “level up” your real life professions by educating yourself, by earning degrees or certifications in a given field, by learning a trade, or by using other innate or situational skills to your advantage (ie: artistic, charismatic, languages etc…).

Good news: it’s not all about being a doctor or a lawyer anymore. There are plenty of non-traditionally high paying jobs that are becoming high paying jobs simply because no one wants to do them. BTG’s “How Can I Make More Money?” article has much more information on the subject, but let me show you how this worked out to Chainface’s advantage:

Chainface is a Miner/Engineer. I make a decent amount from mining and smelting ore into bars and selling it in the Auction House, but I make almost nothing from engineering. I chose engineering because it was fun and I could make a neat hat (a part of my profession I enjoy), but I chose mining because it could provide a fairly good income at higher levels (which is the part of my professions which provides a decent income). But Chainface is also a master cook, and while all players can choose this skill, very few people invest the time needed to level it up.

Let’s see: marketable skill almost no one is leveling up?

Jackpot.

Let’s see how this worked to Chainface’s advantage in Part 2: One Crunchy Serpent At A Time…

Part 1 - Don’t Neglect Your Professions - Part 2 - One Crunchy Serpent At A Time -

Part 3 - Don’t Touch Your Money!

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