almost no profit on cooking ! (77)

[mrrhypon]

I'm lvl 77 cooking and still can't find a way to make good profit.
The HQ rate on meat kabobs is still 1/4 and will only get 6 chiefkabobs on that HQ... I also tried several other things to HQ on but here also very little to NO profit.

I heard pumpkin pies can give profit at lvl 80~ cooking..
Well, I calculated the profit on it but that's only 3k profit on 3 stacks ( Lakschmi server ) .. not worth the effort and time in my opinion... They say shogun rice balls at lvl 90 + give some profit..

This better work, else cooking is just a big waste of time
( at least in my server )

[tdh]

I'm 20 levels below you in Cooking, on Lakshmi, and my Cooking is quite profitable.

I can make a stack of mithkabobs that cost me about 220g. I sell them in Jeuno for 3.1-3.5k a stack. So I have a profit that ranges from 2880-3280k. When I know a full moon is coming up, I make crayfish balls, and insect paste ahead of time. I load up all my mules with them in AH. I then fish with some of stuff I make. I can easily fish up 12k in Moat Carp, and sell 10k worth of bait during a full moon. And it costs, what.... 150g to make a stack of insect paste? So that profit really adds up.

I buy all my supplies for making bait. They're relatively cheap. For Mithkabobs, I grow the garlic and onions in my Mog House. I buy the peppers. (54g each in Kazham) And I farm the cockatrice meat. (I usually hunt them during full moon, so much better drops.)

There are some other things you can make for a small profit, but it's still profit. I believe when I was leveling up on pie dough, I made a profit from selling the dough. I tried to sell all the apple pies I made while leveling, but they never freak'n sold. I ended up just giving them away to LS members to get them out of my inventory.

I can make some low level HQ BST tools pretty regularly. I was making Famous Carrot Juice for a while. Was selling for 4k in Jeuno, cost me maybe 1k to make. The only problem there was that it could take a week or more for them to sell sometimes.

Sometimes Yagudo Drinks can be profitable as well. Pineapple Juice seems to sell very well in Valkrum Dunes, I've found it hard to keep up with demand on some trips. Pineapple Juice is also very cheap to make.

I'm not sure I'll level Cooking much past Lv.65, but it's plenty profitable for me at this point. Meanwhile I do grow/farm most of my items to lower my "production costs" and keep my profits high.

[Irinicus]

I too agree with it being profitable. I am only lvl 40 cooking and I am making a profit on Insect paste balls. I too make them and load my mule with them and sell them. It costs me nuttin for the earth crystals, they came from me lvling my main character. I just save them and then have my mule send me the rest of the ingredients from Windy. I make them in Jueno and send them back to mule where they go up for sale. I make an average of 400g per stack. 1 stack pretty much covers the inigredients to make 12 stacks of paste.

[tdh]

I leveled Cooking from 0-40 pretty quick. I told myself I'd stop once I could make mithkabobs, and then just kept going.

Having a static party, and playing some mage jobs, I never thought the leveling as losing gil. I used the juice for leveling. (Weak Refresh it may be, but for an Elvaan mage, extra MP is always good.) For my static, I'd always save pineapple juice for my Elvaan PLD friend, and gave a few pumpkin juices to our WHM. Helped keep things going, even with a BRD in the static. So I did technically lose gil, it didn't seem like it since it helped me out in a number of ways.

Now, Mithkabobs are my cash cow, mainly due to my methods listed above. (Not having to spend 20k+ for a stack of Cockatrice Meat really cuts profit margin.) But for any DD melee I play, I never have to spend my gil on buying my steroids as I call them.

Another thing I forgot to mention, I make a profit from making Boiled Crab. I farm the meat and salt in Battalia, and I buy the bay leaves and fire crystals. Stack sells decently well, and farming the meat saves me a lot of gil. Though, at the time, I had a set customer list for the most part. I gave my static party's PLD freek Bioled Crab, but I knew a few other PLDs I sold the stuff to at a discount. It was always quick and reliable gil for myself.

Note: As a DRK/THF farming in Battalia, I'd kill Tigers, when HP and MP finally got low, I'd find crabs on the northern edge of the map to Drain and Aspir. Drain 175HP and Aspir 75MP, Steal salt of them, and they'd drop crab meat. Sell the shells in the rare occasion they dropped. Talk'n about using every part of the animal! lol

[Icemage]

It amazes me how some people consider farming to negate costs. It does not cost you 220 gil to make a stack of meat mithkabobs.

No, hear me out.

It doesn't.

It costs you the money for:

Fire crystal (probably 200gil)
Mhaura Garlic (~50 gil)
Kazham Pepper (~50 gil)
Cockatrice Meat (~1500 gil)
Wild Onion (~400 gil)

Total cost: 2200 gil in materials

You could turn around and sell all of those materials at AH at the listed prices - THAT is your cost. Farmed materials are not "free" - you simply made the money while you were farming (or whatever else you were doing when you got that item).


Icemage

[tdh]

Now, we all know from the age old adage, "time is money." But I don't understand how it can be denied that costs can be greatly reduced or negated through other channels.

Yeah, the onions and garlic aren't exactly 0g. I either farmed the seeds or actually purchased them. Time and actual gil. The peppers I've always purchased in Kazham, the price was so low, why bother any other means. So I've considerably lowered the price most of the items, then killed for the actual meat.

2200g may be the market value of items used, but 2200g was not my cost. While the 220g isn't an exact cost for me making mithkabobs, (I wasn't about to calculate how much I can produce a stack or single onion/garlic for. Or how much time I spent going to Kazham for peppers or time spent killing for meat) profit is determined by the difference between cost and gain. Well my cost is not 2200g. So my farming and gardening has drastically lowered cost. The only cost negated, is the cost of meat. Which can sell up to 2k a piece last I checked.

[little ninja]

in cooking i am lvl 50, an i can say that there is a profit to be made. but that profit isnt something to run around an brag about. an while yes small net profits do add up. you are talking years for it to ever really matter. example 1 from my server with maxed fame in bastok. 48gil fro a stack of worms, 516 for a stack of corn, 500gil for a stack of crystals, an 120 for a stack of distilled watter. total cost to make 1184. that is with all vendors in bastok. almost all sell in bazarr for 30gil a peice. that brings us to 360 a stack. or a grand total of 4320. minus the cost to make = 3136 profit. those numbers may change depending on other sellers, or if i can even move all that paste. an add in the time it takes to sell it. to a lvl 66 char like myself is not worth the trouble. only way i see this as great rewards is if it was a low lvl player.

meat mithkabobs were never really a good cash cow. it costs alot of money to make, an then you have to put it up for sales against alot of other crafters. in the end the net profits isnt something to brag about. i would usually average 1k-2k profit. once again for someone high in lvls it isnt worth it. an for someone to compete against a mule with 55 slots if it. id rather go out an farm.


i have always had a belief that cooking was only intended to save you money over a long period of time. not really to make insane profits. an the only way i can ever see it being a very good money maker is if you had a second account with a char that stays on 24/7 to a.h/mule the stuff to no ends.

[Icemage]

You still don't understand. The meat you acquired is not "free" - it IS a part of your cost. While you are not spending GIL out of your savings for it, it is still an asset that could be turned into gil by selling it, if you so chose.

Let me give you an extreme example to show you what I'm talking about.

Let's assume (hypothetically):
Roast mushrooms are 5K per stack.
Sleepshrooms are worth 3K per stack.
Fire crystals are 3K per stack.
Rock salt is negligible

Cooking formula is:
Fire Crystal + 2xSleepshroom + Rock Salt = Roast Mushroom

So to make a stack of roast mushrooms is 3K + 3K + 3K + 0 = 9K for 1 stack of fire crystals and 2 stacks of sleepshrooms.

But wait, you say you farmed the sleepshrooms and fire crystals, so you didn't spend any money on those, right?

Is your cost 0? Well... no.

Let's say before you synth those mushrooms, you decide to sell off the sleepshrooms and fire crystals. You would have 9K gil when you're done.

If you choose to synth them instead, you'd have 5K gil worth of roast mushrooms.

This is a NET LOSS of 4K gil. Yes, you have 5K in your pocket, but your total assets are actually lower than before you started synthing. If all you wanted was money, you should have just sold the materials and made 9K instead of 5K.

Cost is not just "money out of your pocket" - it is a loss in total assets. Understand now?


Icemage

[little ninja]

time is the biggest part of this whole debate. really the time it takes you to travel everywhere for the items. chobi cost/airfare. or to log in an out 3 times to your mules. then you add in the time it took you to farm for the seeds. then the time it took you to grow the items. then the time it took you to farm the cockatice meats. to finally make the items. to now spend more time an money in hopes that they sell.

all that time, all that effort for a 2880 -3280gil profit in my mind is not worth it.



lol im agreeing with icemage on something.

[Vavara]

If you leveled cooking to make a profit, well you must have been smoking something pretty good. Care to share the recipie?

I myself personally have leveled cooking to 70 so far, planning on taking it to at least 90. I never leveled it with the intention of making a profit (or at least, a considerable profit)

The reason I leveled cooking is to SAVE costs. I can do up 12 stacks of Meat Mithkabobs and get at least 2 stacks of Cheifkabobs out of that synthing run. More often, if I base it on the moon phase/day, I get close to 4 stacks of Chiefs. I then bazaar my NQ kabobs to cover my costs, and use the HQ food to level with.

So I get to look rich leveling with HQ food, and make a small amount of profit while doing it

Cooking is all about saving costs, not making money.

[Azlar]

Quadav Bug Broth. If you farm your own water crystals, the recipe for two Quadav Bug Broths (HQ1 of Bug Broth makes 2 Quadav Broths) comes out to be 300g. The money made is 500g, depending on your fame, selling it to NPC. But the recipe caps at 15, so you should be able to get HQ3s with fair certainty. Do this on firesday facing south-east, blah blah blah. HQ3 I believe makes 6 Quadav Bug Broths, which is 300g of ingredients for 1500g. This like I said sells to NPC, so no waiting for it to sell (You can sell in Jeuno for 12k/stack but it is not that fast). A fellow cooker in my LS, at level 71, was able to sometimes get 2-3 HQ3s in a row NOT on firesday, so you should be able to do good. I mean, 1200g isn't so much of a profit, but if you have all the gobbie bags completed and just craft nonstop, you'll have a crapload of this. ANd the beauty is that you do not have to wait for it to sell at AH.

Good luck!

By the way, if you DON'T farm your water crystals, the cost is 400g, so you only make a profit of 100g on each HQ1.

And uhh, these numbers were from my server, a stack of Shell Bugs were 1500g at time of writing.

[guyincorporated]

To further expound on the farming materials = extra profits fallacy, you could have spent that time farming something more profitable than Ingredient X, which could have been used to buy said ingredient and still have money left over.

If I want to make scorpion arrowheads, I could:

(A): go to maze of shakrami. I can kill scorpions for their claws, undead for their bone chips, and wind elementals for their clusters. I can get the materials for 12 synths an hour, that gets me $18,000 gil pure profit!

or (B): I could have spent that time farming doll shards, magic pot shards and light crystals in defkult's tower and made $20,000 gil in that same hour. Then I could have bought 12 claws for $6,000, 12 bonechips for $3,000, and 12 wind crystals for $3,000. $20k from farming - $12k in ingredients + $18k in profits = $26k net profit.

An extra $8,000 in my pocket because I maximized my time and farmed the most profitable item I could.

[mrrhypon]

or you just don't lvl a craft and farm that 20k in onzozo

[excaliburefire]

Or you could do some gardening to get your ingredients and crystals.

[little ninja]

gardening takes alot of times, an resources. plus sometimes other things a farmed then what you intended..