Gathering > Crafting

[LyraShu]

Oh shoot, I just looks up the mats needed for that and a few of those are used in recipes that are for leve quest turn ins and for the recipe you are cooking can be used for the supply mission for cul. A few of those are "higher" right now due to the supply and demand I think but I know I generally always gather myself unless the gil spent is negligible. Spending on the MB almost guarantees you are going to be overpaying for something by at least a little and normally a lot.

[SamSmoot]

Even when gathering to craft stuff for yourself, you can often come out ahead if you just sell the materials, and then buy the completed items.
If I did this with 20 Rroneek steaks, I'd come away with 20 steaks and 195,680 gil, plus a time saving by not having to craft them myself.

Just ran a test with 20 steaks, taking 15 minutes to gather and sell.

Materials income: 18,411 Down significantly from morning
Completed steaks: 140,000 These are nearly double the price this morning.

This is a huge flip. making the crafting profitable, and now I wonder if I got my math wrong in my original post.