I bought the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth this weekend for 16,000 gold.  I was putting off buying it for a long time, because of the high cost (of course).  There was always something better to use my money on.  However, a loan got paid back to me so I decided it was time to take the plunge and I’m glad I did.  Now that I have it, I wish I had bought it earlier.  The mount is pretty sweet.  Here’s my list of why the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth is so awesome.

1. Its like purchasing an infinite size bag.  I don’t need to worry about bag space at all since I can sell all my junk at any time, wherever I am.  If I really wanted to, I could sell stuff and buy it back later using the BuyBack feature for even more space.
2. I don’t need to worry about carrying around so many Symbols of Kings or Symbols of Divinity, saving me a couple more slots.  I also don’t have to remember to pick them up after every raid.
3. I can repair from anywhere.  If we wipe and need to run back, I can just mount up at the graveyard and give repairs to everyone in the raid.  This is even more useful in Ulduar where we can actually mount up inside the instance.
4. I can restock and repair while on the run.  If I’m in a BG or a capital city running somewhere, its really easy to right-click my repair vendor and sell a couple things, do a repair, or purchase some reagants without even stopping (its even easier if on auto-run).  I don’t even have to take any time to do those things, I can do it while on the run to wherever I’m going.
5. It looks pretty cool.  I have other mammoth mounts, but this one looks the best, especially with the two vendors sitting behind me.
6. I’m sure someday I’ll find a use for those two extra passenger seats.

Where do I get all that gold?

Gold in WOW is really not that hard to get anymore.  I don’t farm for it at all.  Here is what I do to get my gold:

• Complete all the non-daily quests in every zone and get the Loremaster of Northrend achievement.  This will net you a ton of gold by itself and its really fun.
• I do the cooking daily every day.  They’re all really easy and quick and you don’t even have to leave Dalaran.  I spend about 10 minutes a week farming chilled meat from the monkeys in Sholazar Basin.  I spent like 10 minutes farming Rhino Meat in Borean Tundra once and haven’t needed to again since.
• Do as many dailies as you can.  Get exalted with the Sons of Hodir and the other Northrend groups, including the FrenzyHeart Tribe, the Oracles and the Kalu’ak.  Do your Argent Tournament dailies.  Do the fishing daily (the Wintergrasp fishing daily also gets you a ton of fish for Fish Feasts).  Do the Wintergrasp quests and the BG daily.  There’s a ton of dailies you can choose from.  You get a lot of benefits from being exalted with these factions and the masses of gold is just a very pleasant side-effect.
• I pick up every herb I see on the mini-map in Northrend.  This nets me a ton of gold on the AH, especially when I’m flying around Storm Peaks or Sholazar Basin.

That’s all I do.  I don’t specifically farm for gold at all.  Here’s some other things that I don’t do very often, but I could if I wanted even more gold.

• Turn in my Emblems of Heroism for Frozen Orbs or gems and sell them on the AH.
• Sell my enchanting mats and other profession mats instead of storing them.  Also, I could be available to sell my actual enchants to those looking for enchanters in trade chat.
• Work the AH, buying things for cheap and selling for a profit.  This is especially easy if I buy greens and sell the disenchanted mats.
• Farm primals and other in-demand items.

You can sometimes get over 20 gold for quests that only take a few minutes to do.  You can make quite a lot of money on the AH from your professions, especially if you’re a gatherer or an enchanter.  You can make quite a lot of money from the sale of Frozen Orbs and other BoEs and rare drops from heroics.  If the only thing you do when you log on is raid, then you’ll probably be short on gold.  But if you can spend a day a week doing 9 or 10 dailies and maybe do a few easy dailies every day during the week (like the cooking daily), you’ll find you have plenty of gold for whatever you want to buy.