Ok, enough about me, this is a WoW blog, right?
What made me decide to focus todays post? Ore is down to basically half of what it was last week (Elementium going for 120g a stack, and there is a TON on the AH. The price of gems (greens are going in the 10-15g range, and blues are sitting around 20-30g) prospected does not even cover the initial cost of the ore, and if you are lucky and proc two blues, that is the only way of making profit off them...at least it was good while it lasted- but yes, I have bought quite a few stacks right now, as I believe this price to be baseline, and not drop much lower).
Herbs are here, and in a big way. Whether the are in the AH solo, or milled to make Blackfallow Ink or Inferno Inks, here is the money game at the moment. The higher end herbs (Twilight Jasmine, Whiptail, Heartblossom) are still 150-250 a stack (so great for farming right now) and the lessers (Cinderbloom, Azshara's Veil, and Stormvine) are what I am focusing on for milling, as they are sitting around 80-100g per stack.
Here is an example on milling Cinderbloom (this is the average of 200 herbs milled- 10 stacks):
Total Cost (AH) 800g (80 per stack)
96 Ashen Pigment
27 Burning Ember
AH profit:
48 Blackfallow Ink= 837g (15.5g @ 48)
13 Inferno Ink= 1885g (145g @ 13)
Total profit: 1829g before AH fees (pending sold price)
Now, of course, this is server dependent and I was lucky on procs with the Burning Ember, as I got a handful of 3's (if you mill, thats a goldmine!). However you are seeing where I am going with this. With a little bit of basic math, you can see that profits are huge on milling at the moment, and will carry until the prices of ink drop. Supply and Demand. The story of making gold on the AH. As you can see, even upon purchasing the higher end herbs in the AH, you can still clear 800ish gold per ten stack. If you are not able to purchase in multiple stack amounts, you can always start small (even with one stack) and still see profits from milling.
Hit your AH now, check the prices on the Inks, and see how your server stands up. Then rake in the bucks. =)