The goal of this guide is to spend little or no money, while making lots of money. This may not mean that a certain method is the fastest training in a skill, but it is the most cost-effective way to train. Selling prices will not be shown, since they change daily. High Alchemy value may be shown, because that value is static.
From levels 1 to 5, you're not going to make much money, if at all. You can either mine clay and make clay pots, or sheer sheep and make ball of wool from the wool you get. At level 5, switch to crafting gold rings from gold bars and a ring mould. Gold rings sell really well, since they are used to make thieving magpie pouches from the summoning skill.
At level 7, pie dishes from soft clay is good money, but only if you mine your own clay, which is pretty easy to mine to begin with. Try mining clay south of the Varrock west bank. There is a pottery in Barbarian Village, a little further to the west.
For members, spinning flax at level 10 crafting is a great way to make money. Try the spinning wheel at the following locations: Seer's Village, Tree Gnome Stronghold, and Neitznot.
Members with level 33 crafting can make their own vials from glass. At level 46, they can make unpowered orbs to make battlestaffs. If you're going to make glass items, it is highly reccomended that you complete the quests Hand in the Sand for 84 buckets of sand a day and the quest Lunar Diplomacy for the lunar spell Make Glass.
Hints and tips:
Zaff's staffs sells 8 battlestaffs a day. For completing Varrock Diary 1 and wearing the Varrock Armor(1), he will sell you 16 a day. Varrock
Armor(2) lets you buy 32 and Varrock Armor(3) 64 battlestaffs a day.
Dragonstone and Onynx jewelry are best to be enchanted or sold on the Grand Exchange
Rogue Trader will buy all of your jewelry for low alchemy values, up to 100,000 at a time. To find him, finish Summer's End and go to Rogue's Castle in the deep wilderness (top right of the wilderness) and go to the courtyard in the back. Near the broom against the wall, use the Jennica's ring to find the Ghost portal. Close both doors in the ghost world, which will open them in the real world. Talk to him and after your conversation, you will find him in the room just south of the range shop in Varrock. Even when your membership expires, you will still find him there, ready to buy from you.
Needed to start: 6,000gp,
a hammer, a saw, normal planks, steel nails (about 100).
First go to Falador and talk to a
Real Estate Agent, located by the little house symbol on your in-game map. Pay
him 1,000gp and go find your house south of Falador
and head to Rimmington.
If you haven't done so already, go to Varrock
and find the Lumberyard, northeast of town. Get the saw and some steel nails
(or smith them) and convert normal logs for 100gp each into planks.
Now that you have planks, hammer, saw, and nails, go back to
your house and select “building mode” on the purple portal. Build chairs, until
your skill level reaches 5.
Build a Kitchen, costing 5,000gp. Go back to main room and
build more chairs, until you can get your construction level to 9. Build a
Larder. This is where you can make up your lost money by grabbing milk and
selling at Grand Exchange for profit.
At level 15, a workshop with a workbench will help you build
furniture without going in to building mode all the time. Plus, if you can hire
a Demon Butler (level 50), you can get the planks you need directly from your
bank, so you can build more furniture without leaving your house to do so.
When you're able to make Oak Chairs at level 19, you're
ready to power-level. You now start bringing oak logs to the Lumberyard and convert them to planks at 250gp each.
Just selling the planks themselves will bring you a nice profit, but we'll talk
about that later.
You are now going to make Oak chairs from levels 19 to 33.
Levels 33 to 74 you are going to be making Oak Tables or Oak
Larders. You can obtain milk and flour from your larder, they both sell well. A
level 43 Teak Larder is the highest larder you can get, so I either make more
oak tables in the kitchen or use my workbench to make Oak Larders.
Levels 74 to 99, Oak Dungeon Doors are the way to go.
Workbench works best here.
As for everything else, you can either build as soon as you
can, or wait until you're done training Construction to make the house of your
dreams, it's up to you.
Hints and Tips:
Barbarian Agility Course has four normal plank spawns for
free. Just take a Games Necklace and Select Barbarian Outpost. The agility
course is right behind the Outpost. A deposit bank is inside the Outpost.
Before you can afford the Demon Butler or you're not high enough to use him (level 50), chop oak trees and take some money to lumberyard and make oak planks. Sell the oak planks, so you have more money to make even more oak planks. Stop when you feel you have enough cash and oak planks for yourself.
If you've completed Defender of Varrock quest, take a Game Necklace and teleport to wilderness volcano. Get some good armor, about 5 good food, and be able to use melee protection prayer. When you are low on prayer points, simply go outside to chaos altar (level 11 wilderness) and recharge prayer points. Armoured Zombies (level 85) drop planks, oak planks, teak planks, and some other good stuff. When your inventory is full, simply head outside and use your Games Necklace to teleport back to the Wilderness Volcano and deposit the goodies you've earned from killing them. You don't even need the food if you are using Guthans set or if you bring a Bunyip familiar with you.
Agility paired with Thieving will help you get more money and items quicker while pickpocketing from some NPCs.
Mining is what most new players start out with. Mining and smithing go hand in hand, so train both together. Mine the ores and then smith them into bars. Smith the bars into weapons or armor or other things, such as nails or grapple hooks.
You'll find a pickaxe south of the eastern Falador bank. There is a pickaxe salesman inside the mountain, north of Falador, as well. The dwarf inside the mountain, just north of Falador, is where you can buy the other grades of pickaxes, up to rune. Dragon Pickaxe can only be used by members and is a very rare drop from a certain monster near Keldagrim.
Hints and tips:
Goblin Mines under Lumbridge and the bank chest, is a fast way to get iron ore. You need to do Recipe for Disaster to get chest and you need to do the quest involving the H.A.M. Cult. Bring a light source.
Coal Trucks can get you coal quicker. Go to Seer's Village and follow the tracks until you get there. Mine the coal there, put it into the cart until it is full. Travel all the way down to the other end and take out your coal.
Level 60 mining, iron or better ore, fire staff, nature runes, pickaxe. Near the eastern bank in Falador is where the Mining Guild is. Take these requirements and with 45 magic, turn your ore into steel or better bars.
Clay south of the west Varrock bank is the best place to get clay. It is used in crafting pots and members use them to make teleport tabs. Soft Clay sells very quickly, most of the time.
Check the price of an ore and its completed bar. If the cost of the nature rune and the ore together is less than the completed bar, then go ahead and sell some bars. Current profitable bars are: Steel, Mithril, Adamant, and Rune.
To start, take your copper and tin ore and make bronze bars. Use the bronze bars on an anvil, with a hammer also in your inventory. Make the highest bronze item you can, until you can make bronze platebody. Keep making that until you can make iron platebodies from iron bars. And so on...
Bronze bars= Copper+ Tin
Iron bars= Iron Ore (50% chance of getting nothing, unless you use superheat spell or wear a ring of forging)
Steel Bars = Iron Ore + two Coal
Mithril Bars = Mithril Ore + four Coal
Adamant Bars= Adamantite + six Coal
Rune Bars= Runite + eight Coal
Smithing Table:
levels 1 to 17: highest bronze item you can make
levels 18 to 32: bronze platebody (high alch: 96gp)
levels 33 to 47: iron platebody (high alch: 336gp)
levels 48 to 67: steel platebody (high alch: 1,200gp)
levels 68 to 87: mithril platebody (high alch: 3,120gp)
levels 88 to 98: adamant platebody (high alch: 9,984gp)
level 99: rune platebody (high alch: 39,000gp)*
Example: somebody with 73 smithing can make adamant bolts. However, those bolts give less experience than making mithril platebody. So this player would have to stick to the mithril platebody until level 88. Now if you really need adamant bolts, then go ahead and make a thousand or ten thousand of them.
For any item you make, you can either sell it or use alchemy to directly turn it into coins. Nature runes usually go for around 300gp each, so only high alch items that are higher than the cost of natures or else you'll lose money. Anything lower, use lumbridge ring low alchemy ability (you get 30 of these a day) or sell them off. A fire staff is also required for the spell.
* Rune platebody always sells for more than the high alch value, at the Grand Exchange. Rune Bars may be obtained from crystal keys or certain Implings (see hunting section). Black Demons can also drop them.
To start fishing, get a small fishing net from one of the fishing shops. You can fish for shrimp and then at level 15, Anchovies. When you can fish for trout and salmon, take a fly fishing rod and go to Barbarian village (members, if they've done Shilo Village quest should fly fish inside Shilo Village (bank nearby)). From the level you can do either cage fishing or big net fishing, members should fish at Catherby, until they get level 68 fishing (or 63 with admiral pie). Free players can go to Karamanja and cage for lobsters, until they can harpoon for swordfish and tuna.
For those that have done Swan Song, go to Piscatoris Fishing Colony and fish monkfish, if you'd like.
For the really tough players, head to Living Rock Caverns, located inside the mountain north of Falador. A rope will take you down to a new area, full of high level living rock creatures. Fish for cavefish with a fishing pole and regular bait at 85 fishing. Fish for rocktail with a fishing pole and living minerals (kill the rock creatures and mine their body to get these) at fishing level 90. Again, if you are close to fishing these, eat an admiral pie to get a temporary fishing boost.
The easiest way to train cooking is to cook what you fish. But if you need extra cash, try making the following items to put a little more coin in your pocket:
level 1: Meat and Anchovy
level 7: Baked potato (members)
level 10: Redberry Pie.
level 20: Meat Pie
level 21: churning Milk to Cream (members)
level 25: Stew and Salmon
level 28: Sweetcorn (members)
level 30: Apple Pie and Tuna
level 35: Wine and Plain Pizza
level 38: Milk to Butter (members)
level 39: Baked Potato with Butter (members)
level 40: Lobster
level 45: Meat Pizza (add cooked Meat) and Swordfish
level 48: Cheese Wheel* (members)
level 55: Anchovy Pizza (add cooked Anchovy)
level 65: Pineapple Pizza (add sliced (not diced) Pineapple (members))
level 67: Tuna and Corn Topping (members)
level 68: Tuna Potato (members)
level 80: Shark (members)
level 88: Cavefish (members)
level 93: Rocktail (members)
Find free cooking supplies inside your player house or all around Runescape for free money! These items include: redberry, cooking apple, pie tin, potato, flour, bowl, empty pot, wheat, onion, cheese, tomato, grapes, jug, milk, bucket, cake tin, and more!
Most produce farmed in allotment space are used as cooking supplies. These will only set you back a few seeds and your time.
* Cheese wheel is a new feature for cookng. One bucket of milk makes one cheese wheel. Cut them into wedges with a knife or wire. Depending on your cooking, it makes a minimum of five cheese wedges. The wedges can be sold or traded.
From level 6 onward, members can do gnome delivery. one of the prizes for doing this mini-game is a very vauluable gnome scarf!
Wood that are in high demand are: normal logs, oak, yew, magic, teak, and mahogany. It is recommended that you train fletching along with woodcutting. Selling your extra logs will also help earn you a nice chunk of change.
The type of runes that a free player can make are severely limited. That person can make: Air, Earth, Water, Fire, Body, and mind runes. Of those, Body and Mind runes are used by f2p and members alike. The four elements can be eliminated by a staff.
Members can make any type of rune, provided that the player has the level and the requirements (such as a quest) to do so. If you care more about experience than money, do Lunar Diplomacy quest and go to the Z.M.I altar. You'll recieve random runes...sometimes runes you can't do just yet.
The following runes are in high demand:
Combo runes and the talismans used to make them are also popular.
Big Money to be made here! I'm just going to group the items into three categories: herbs, secondary ingrediants, and finished potions. I'm only going to list the ones in high demand.
Herbs: Marrentill, Irit, Kwuarm, Ranarr, Cadatine, Toadflax, Avantoe, Wergali, Snapdragon, Lantadyme, Dwarf Weed, and Torstol
Secondary Ingrediants: Ground Unicorn Dust, Eye of Newt, Limpwurt Root, Red Spider's Eggs, Snape Grass, Mort Myre Fungi, Ground Blue Dragon Scale, White Berries.
Potions: Super Attack, Super Strength, Super Defence, Prayer, Super Restore, Anti-poison, Super Anti-poison, and Antifire potion.
Farming is a very slow way of earning money. potatoes are a good start, plus they are used in a few foods made
with the cooking skill. To get the seeds, pickpocket the Master Farmer in Ardounge or buy at the Grand Exchange, located
in Varrock.
There is a spade spawn in Falador. You can either buy the other supplies at a farmer's store (there's one near the farming patch
south of falador, and one in Catherby) or you can get them from your player house for free in your crafting room.
While you are waiting for your crops to grow, you can play the Vinesweeper mini-game by talking to any leprechaun and selecting
teleport.
Slayer is the skill that is directly used with combat. To start go to a Slayer Master and buy a slayer gem. The NPC that contacts you from the gem is the one you want to get assignments from. Assignments are to kill a certain number of a certain type of creature (i.e. 142 Moss Giants). As you kill monsters from your assignment, you get experience in the Slayer skill. The higher your level in the skill, the better the monsters you can kill. The following list is the level of slayer, the monster name, and its best rare drop(s):
Feed oogleroots to the rabbits at the Vinesweeper minigame until level 17.
Catch all the baby implings you can in Puro Puro. Trade these implings to Elnock for three impling jars for every impling you trade him, with a net gain of two impling jars. Catch the next level of implings you can. These you either open up for the items it has or sell them on the Grand Exchange.
Here is a list of the various implings and the best item(s) they carry:
To start thieving, pickpocket man until you reach level 5. Go to Ardounge and steal from cake stalls. When you can steal from silk stalls, steal them and bank them, then sell another day. At level 29, pickpocket the Master Farmer for seeds used in the farming skill. Levels 40 to 50, pickpocket guards. Levels 50 to 75, safe crack for gems at Rogue's Den. Levels 75 to 85, gnomes at Gnome Stronghold. Levels 85 to 90, Elves. Level 90 to 99, Dwarves in Keldagrim.
If you ever need gems, seeds, food, or cash, then by all means, go back to that type of thieving for as long as you feel like. Completing all of the Ardounge Diary achievments and wearing the cape is benificial to your thieving endevours.
Summoning is not a get rich skill, but will pay off in the long run. You must complete the really easy Wolf Whistle quest before you start making pouches. Finishing this quest will start you at summoning level 4, with 275 gold charms. To get more charms, collect them from monsters. It is suggested that you collect the charms while killing assigned slayer monsters, so do that.
This section is where I put the information that doesn't fit into the other skills or there isn't enough information to make section of it.
High Alch values for completed bows are pretty bad up to maple. maple, yew and magic bows completed and high alched will make up for the cost of the nature rune, but you still have to chop your own logs and pick and spin your own flax to maintain your profit.
Completing the Achievment Diaries can give you the advantage on making money. For example, Zaff normally sells 8 battlestaffs a day. While wearing Varrock Armour level 3, he sells to you 64 battlestaffs a day.
There is now an Explorer Ring level 4. It gives you 15 free High Alchemy spells and 15 free Superheat spells a day.