get your skinning up, unlock everything. legion skinning enchantment. boon of the bloodhunter.
skin raptors. constant groups of 7-30 raptors that die in a single burst.
disenchant greens. open stomachs. open bloods. sell grey trash. i normally sold the eggs, feathers and claws to the vendor too. leave when your bag is full of skins.
** another alternative to disenchanting greens is to get leather working and make drums, in which case you would use your own skins, claws and teeth all dropped from raptors. something i didn't know about when i did this.
trade bloods for whatever gives the most profit, i used to trade for fel iron, but prices always change.
i did this for about 3-4 days, 1-3 hours a day, and it paid for 8 tokens, several hundred (of each) flasks, food, runes and pots. haven't gone back in months, and gained probably around 70-80 ilvls since then.
i could have continued to do it longer, but i get bored easily. token prices changed, so don't expect the exact same results now as you could have several months ago.
goats have a shitty boe that i'm not sure anybody is interested in anymore, give meat, but are further apart and less grouped than raptors.
since then, my gold has slowly dwindled away from buying consumables, and i ran out of gold once. that's when i sold bloods/disenchanted materials and expect this to last me quite a while.
since i personally don't give a rats ass about collecting anything, my only expenses are consumables and sub time, with sub time being covered for months at the cost of a few hours of a few days, so this works for me.
i still have disenchanting as it brings in a steady collection of materials that i throw in my bank, and helps keep my bags clean without giving up items for 10-1000% less than their worth to a vendor.
i just recently switched skinning to alchemy because i haven't used skinning in so long as mentioned previously. haven't gotten far in it yet, but the plan is to become self sufficient in terms of consumables.
other alternatives
mining + herblore
this is honestly how i started before i switched to skinning + disenchanting, while i was leveling my character, wandering everywhere, collecting everything.
it allows you to go anywhere you need/want to go, while stopping around to pick up some profit. it's great for leveling, whereas skinning would prime out when you're geared and able to burst down large groups instantly.
you can literally just wander the map and explore, on any 100+ character, gathering for profit. you can go for the map with the most expensive herbs, or the map you enjoy the most.
farming m+ dungeons, such as maw/cos 1-15 (or whatever dungeon/number you're comfortable with the given week) will give you a constant flow of purple items to disenchant, along with a constant stream of ap for your artifact.
obv if your goal is to get gold now, this wouldn't be the method to run with. however, this will help you get stronger, and gives you a chance to upgrade gear.
you could also push a key to 15+, pray you get maw, and try to sell it. you could charge more for non-depleted. charge more with completion in time (but your key upgrades and can change to anything else). charge less for depleted (keep your key depleted).
you would have to be at least decent enough not to be a burden on the other 3 who actually do stuff, or pray the person paying for the key isn't complete trash, or afk. you would need a team, or pugs willing to run for completion for their weekly.
more often than not, you can earn more gold grinding raptors than you can from carrying people. and i'm not saying raptors is the best, far from it.
unless you're somehow receiving 100% (or a larger cut than the rest) of the payment for a carry, the split is too steep for the time spent.
i bought the game, bought 1 month, bought 1 token (starting gold), bought 1 mount (account bound flying mount), bought 1 pet (the charity kitty). been playing for 5 (almost 6) months and haven't bought anything else.
bought a few thousand fg worth of gold via jsp, only to unwisely spend it on boe's on the AH before i knew any better.
that gear got quickly replaced by wq loot (apart from my 900 cape pre heroic nh release, which i now have 2 of).
boe's are generally not worth the price people want for them. however, a 900+ cape now sometimes lists at a more reasonable price than the one i paid for. but it gave me a boost from my old 865 cape to 900, multiple weeks before i found something to rival it.
basically
invest time in the game, earn gold.
otherwise, job/reduce spending, buy gold.
think about what you spend your gold on before you spend it. it takes more time and effort to earn than it does to spend. if you feel like it's a worthwhile investment, go for it. if its a cosmetic that you just really want, by all means, it's your gold. save when you don't need to spend.