How to Make Gil: Guide by Darkhavans

==Introduction==
Making Gil can be extremely hard, and most players have a lot of trouble with this pre-75. I have had a lot of experience and luck with making Gil in my FFXI career, and know hundreds of secrets and strategies; some I will share, others will remain secrets that you get to figure out yourself. There are hundreds of ways to make Gil in FFXI now, many more than a few years ago. The Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion brought tons of ways to make Gil. This expansion has simplified Gil making for me, I'll tell you how later in the guide. Like my Farming Suggestions guide, this will have information added to it periodically, and you may add your strategy if you wish, but please format correctly and use correct grammar/spelling. -- 02:39, 20 May 2007 (CDT)
==Strategies==
===Farming===
:Description: No, this is not Gardening, farming is a slang-term to describe the repetitive killing of weak monsters to get drops that can be sold for money. This is one of the most popular ways to make money, but also the least fun and most dreaded.
:Popularity: Extreme Farming is massively popular due to it's simplicity and straight-forward way of making gil, even though it is definitely not the best, it is a strong contender.
:Productivity/Profits: Very High, dependent on job/level/area. The profits are 5k-100k+ an hour; again, dependent on job/level/area.
:Level Required: 1-75, there are areas to farm at any level.
:How-to: Farming can be done at any level, in almost any area, with almost any job. Since you will be killing monsters for their drops, a Thief sub-job is normally used, as you get the Treasure Hunter trait at level 30. This is a very basic strategy, but you should do some research to find good monsters to kill. Some popular monsters that are farmed are Crawlers and Bees
:Resources:
::*Farming
::*Farming Suggestions
::*Farming Guide by Karinya of Carbuncle
===BCNMs===
:Description: Another popular strategy. These are Burning Circle Notorious Monsters, or BCNMs. You can find rare items that sell for quite a bit of money in these areas.
:Popularity: Very High What else are players going to do with those Beastmen's Seals they have laying around?
:Productivity/Profits: Greatly Varies you could die and loose the BCNM, or just get crappy drops, therefore wasting time and Beastmen's Seals.
:Level Required: 20+. Leveled capped battles at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 75.
:How-to: Firstly, find out which BCNM you want to do, to find a list of BCNMs you can do, just click on the BCNM link. You will need an orb to enter the BCNM, there are different orbs for different level caps. The amount of Beastmen's Seals required for each BCNM corresponds with it's level cap, so a level 40 cap would cost 40 seals. You can obtain these orbs by trading Beastmen's Seals to Shami at H-8 in Port Jeuno.
:Resources:
::*BCNMs
===Gardening===
:Description: Done all in your Mog House, gardening can be very profitable. It is a tedious craft, however; sometimes taking weeks to grow plants. Gardening is simple to do, and you don't need much money to get started at all. 
:Popularity: Medium? (This is debatable, you can't exactly see people gardening, and there aren't statistics or anything on it. So I'd put it on medium, based on Auction House activity.
:Productivity: Greatly Varies. You're not really working during gardening, it requires you to be dedicated and remember to check on your plants, however. But like I said, you're not really working, so there isn't so much productivity as it as just plain luck. 
:Profits: Moderately - Greatly Varies. You'll always know the possible outcomes of a mix of seeds/pots/feed/etc, but the amount of that outcome and whether you get what you wanted will vary a lot. There are few combinations which will yield only one outcome, but there are some, such as Tree Cuttings and Tree Saplings, a very popular thing to grow. 
:Level Required: Not really applicable. You can do this at any level, provided you haven't killed your Moogle out of frustration over something. If you have the money and inventory space, and you can't forget about time, you can do it!
:How-to: You'll really only need 2 things to Garden. You will need a pot, and seeds. Pots can be found in the auction house under Furnishings, and Seeds can be found under Misc. If you are considering getting started with gardening, don't think what I've told you is all. There is so much more to learn about gardening. So if you are really going to start, look at the resources.
:Notes: You really can make tons of money from gardening, possible results from some combinations being Elemental Ore, Tree Saplings, and high yield crops of cheaper items. There are tons of combinations for gardening and the possibilities are endless.
:Resources:
::* Gardening
::* Gardening Guide by Egomzez
::* Pikko's Pots
::* Advanced Guide to Gardening by Katadyn
::* Gardening Guide by the Clan of the Angry Monkey
===H.E.L.M.===
:What is H.E.L.M.?: H.E.L.M. is a series of "hobbies" that can be used to obtain crafting materials through actual work. The acronym stands for: Harvesting, Excavation, Logging, and Mining. 
====Harvesting====
:Description: Harvesting is the use of a sickle in a Harvesting Point found in grassy areas. You can obtain items used mainly in Clothcrafting and Leatherworking, but the materials may be used in some other crafts. 
:Popularity: Low - Medium. This can be dependent on your server/area. You may have some people who spend most of their time monopolizing most of the harvesting areas, you may be all alone. I'd say it's generally a pretty low popularity hobby though.
:Productivity: Medium - High. Like most other things, very dependent on luck. Generally a good 2-3 hour nonstop session will give a good yield, but you there's a good chance you'll walk out with just an inventory full of Moko Grass; which is probably one of the factors in it's low popularity.
:Profits: Very Low - Moderately High. As stated above in Productivity, it's a game of chance basically. There are other factors that go into it, which you can find out more in some of the resources, preferably the wiki page on Harvesting. Almost all areas will have a very high profit item, but you'll generally be harvesting Moko Grass, Fresh Marjoram, and Woozyshrooms. 
:Level Required: Around 5+. You could theoretically do this at level 1, but the monsters in Sarutabaruta around where the Harvesting Points are will be extremely hard for you. Obviously to harvest the better areas such as Bhaflau Thickets, you will need to be a higher level.
:How-to: Harvesting is easy! All you need is a sickle. Available from lots of vendors in almost every city. Once you have a sickle, go out to either Bhaflau Thickets, Giddeus, Wajaom Woodlands, West Sarutabaruta, Yuhtunga Jungle, or Yhoator Jungle and find a Harvesting Point. Once you're at this Harvesting Point, trade the sickle to it. You will enter a tiny cutscene, and then your results will pop up in the chatlog. You may break your sickle, so it is recommended to get the Field Tunica Set or Worker Tunica Set to decrease breaks. Set this macro to speed harvesting up:
:::::::/item Sickle <t>
:Resources:
::*Harvesting
::*Harvesting/Logging/Mining/Excavation Maps
====Excavation====
:Description: A somewhat dead hobby, this involves using a pickaxe to excavate bones and other materials found underground. It is quite similar to mining, yet arguably yields a much smaller amount of gil.
:Popularity: Very Low. I don't see a lot of people excavating, mainly cause there really aren't a lot of places to do it at. The possibilities are expanding, however.
:Productivity: Low - High. There are really no high profit items in excavation, so you rely on lots of cheap items. Things such as Bone Chips, Scorpion Shells, etc can be found. The most expensive items being things like High Quality Scorpion Shell or Colored Rocks. Since there is not much competition generally, it should be easy to keep a good system going.
:Profits: Low - Medium. I'll tell you right now, you will not get rich off excavating. No way it's going to happen. Now, if you use it in conjunction with a high level Bonecraft, you could definitely increase your profits, but this is in no way a high profit hobby.
:Level Required: 15-20+ The lowest level area in which excavation is performed is in Tahrongi Canyon. You should be safe at 15 in Tahrongi Canyon. You get access to 3 of the 4 possible areas at about level 35-40. It's not until your upper 60s and 70s that you can safely venture into Attohwa Chasm.
:How-to: This is pretty much identical to the How-to for Harvesting. Just change Harvesting with Excavating. Refer to the Excavation article if you need to.
:Resources:
::*Excavation
::*Excavation at MysteryTour
====Mining====
:Description: Similar to Excavation, mining is the act of using Pickaxes to pull minerals and rocks out of the ground. It can yield good profits, and couples with Smithing or Goldsmithing very well.
:Popularity: High. Lots of people mine because it's ability to pull out expensive ore on one hit with a pickaxe, it can be a fast profit. Competition can get extreme at times.
:Productivity/Profits: Medium - Very High. With the ability to pull out ores such as gold, platinum, and even orichalcum, you can strike a large profit very quickly. Competition can slow you down quite a bit though, and you'll have to rely on getting more of the cheaper ores. Using goldsmithing can be a great way to turn these cheap, unstackable ores into ingots that will stack, saving inventory space, and sell for much more than the raw ore.
:Recommended Level: 5+ Mining can be done as early as level 1, in Zeruhn Mines, and will continue to go up for places such as Ifrit's Cauldron.
:How-to: Almost exactly the same as the how-to for Excavation. All you need are pick-axes and find a mining point in one of the many zones where you can mine.
:Resources:
::*Mining
::*Animated Mining Maps
::*Ifrit's Cauldron Mining Guide
::*Delarius' Mining Guide
::*Mining for Profit at Early Levels
====Logging====
:Description: The last one to finish up the group of 4, logging is the hobby that involves using axes, or hatchets, to cut logs from trees. These logs can then be used to turn into lumber, which can then be used in a plethora of woodworking recipes.
:Popularity: Medium. Logging isn't super popular, but among woodworkers, it's a smart choice due to the fact that pretty much everything you get can be made into lumber. 
:Productivity/Profits: Negative - High. It goes to negative due to the fact that hatchets are approximately 6,000 gil. It is highly recommended that you buy field gear, otherwise you may go into a deficit. If you're a high level woodworker, you can turn all of your logs directly into stackable lumber, making logging sessions long and extremely profitable. If you can't turn many logs into lumber, you won't make nearly as much in the same amount of time, but it can still be rewarding depending on the place you go to log.
:Recommended Level: 10+ The earliest places to log are Ghelsba Outpost and East Ronfaure, so you'll want to be around level 10 to avoid aggro. 
:How-to: Almost indentical to all the other H.E.L.M's, logging requires Hatchets, which can be purchased from multiple places, and it generally better to buy them from a vendor than craft them or buy from the Auction House. You'll then want to go to a zone where Logging is possible, and find a logging point, which are generally marked on the logging maps found on the Logging page. Then trade your hatchet to the point and hope for the best!
:Resources:
::*Logging
::*Maps and Information
::*I'm a Lumberjack and that's Oh-Kay!