Spend gold or farm?

I hate waiting, and since I got my epic flying mount, I have not had too much use for my gold, so I decided to finally level up my Leatherworking from 373 where it had been stuck for several weeks to 375. The quickest way, would be to create Heavy Clefthoof Boots so I went to Nagrand and gathered 60 Thick Clefthoof Leather -- that took several hours. I bought the Primal Earth at 4 gold each and went to work, I figured since the recipe was yellow, 2 out of three would not be bad if I could get it up there. So with very little in expenses but time I set to level up. The first creation brought me to 374. The next did not level me, no problemo, there is another. Aaaannnd, nope no 375 on the third. Do I go back to Nagrand or do I buy the expensive leather on the AH? Portal to Darnasus (because I would need to go to the Dragonscale Leatherworker for the new recipes) Head over to the Ah to spend 90 gold on 20 Thick Clefthoof Leather, a stop by the bank to pick up my last two rune threads and... Damn... three in a row no level.

Back to the AH 95 Gold this time (still have plenty of Primal Earth) but no Rune Thread, I head over to the Leatherworkers place to get some thread, and as I am standing there, my avatar busy working on the boots, I think how nice it would be, to come full circle and hit 375 in the very place that I first trained to become a Leatherworker and BAM 375.

Then the gathering for the chest peice. Had the Primal Nethers, had the scales, had the leather, did not have the primal shadows or primal fires. A Guildie gave me 5 Primal Shadows, I bought five at a low AH prices (spent about 30 on the 5) and farmed six more.

Then I went to farm the Primal Fires, they were selling for about 30 each on the AH and I did not want to pay that much. So early morning I started farming Elemental Plateau, got four primals before 3 other people showed up and chased me away. Then I started to go to other places with fire elementals to gather up the motes of fire, and I learned something as every place I went usually had one or two other farmers. The more something is farmed, the lower the rate it drops, I finally hit a 1 for 41 skid on motes and I was ready to drop kick the computer.

Thats when I went back to the AH and spent 200 gold on the final 9 primals I needed, crafted the chest piece and spent another hundred gold on the gems.

So 500 gold down, but I got a good chest piece out of it, really cool looking too.