If you are lucky enough to find a world drop purple item and you decide not to use Cabal Alz, spend a moment finding out how much it should sell for, and do not be discouraged if it takes a few tries.
Items like the Ancient Scepter of Sue-Min can take a couple tries to sell before someone with the money to buy it will come along and take it. Once it does sell, you will be much closer to buying your epic flying mount.
You can also turn your trade skills to make a profit. However, this is where you have to be careful in what you make. Service skills, like enchanting and jewel-crafting have the least chance of losing money - someone asks you for a type of cut for a gem or an enchant, and if you have it, you make a profit from their tip.
However, this does have a great deal of time overhead, both in collecting the enchants or jewel-crafting patterns (Which generally require visiting dungeons and hoping for a very rare drop for the best ones), as well as advertising your skills in the trade channels in a city like Shattrath.
Other skills, such as leatherworking or tailoring can also make a profit, but before you go to create an item for sale on the auction hall, take a look at what that type of item is currently going for, and price out what it would cost to make the item if you had bought all the materials off of the auction hall.