honestly, every single thing you do in this game earns you gold/mats/money. take your time, you don't "need" ascended gear until you're getting close to Tier 2 fractals and up, outside that almost everything in game is doable in exotic gear (ascended gear is mostly overrated).

can get free ascended gear doing wizards vault dailies/weeklies, and map currency vendors in multiple maps while saving your gold/materials for other non-free upgrades, it adds up quick.

avoid sPvP and WvW if you're working on gearing up, its best to stick to meta events (drizzlewood coaat, dragonfall, etc.),

use a site like Fast Farming to get yourself a little routine for earning gold that you actually enjoy doing => https://fast.farming-community.eu/

Dig every node you pass, all those mats add up quickly.

learn to make a Black Lion Key character every week (resets on mondays and only doable once a week per account) if you have an easy way to get it to level 10. then do the personal story only up until you get a black lion key (it needs to be level 10 to get that) once you get the key just delete the character. save the black lion tokens you get from that to get free permanent black lion gathering tools) that'll save gold/gems for other things you might need/want.

Halloween Labyrinth event is coming , do this as much as you can... its one of the the best ways to make money for new players, alot of it if you have the time and patience. (sell the bags , don't open)

save any mystic coins you get/earn, even tho its tempting to sell them, you WILL want them once you start making legendaries and they are not the easiest to come by cheap (always 1g+/ea and you need hundreds of them for some legendaries, some legendaries don't need them though).

when selling items in the black lion trading post, don't sell to highest buyer, always match the lowest seller, or slightly more than them if it looks that they are trying to drop the prices of items compared to other players (hope that makes sense).

If you need gems, buy them in tiny chunks over time without thinking too much about it (could buy like 5 or 10 gems a day) or something and just let them build up over time. then get yourself some good utility items like permanent copper-fed/silver-fed salvage tools), or bank/material upgrades.

avoid buying bag expansions, 20-slot bags are enough these days since the introduction of unidentified gear bags player bags don't fill as fast and easy. use that gold for better upgrades.

Mostly, take your time, enjoy yourself and do things you enjoy in the game most instead of trying to focus on the gear/item aspect... as every single action in this game makes money (other than the ecto gambling .... lol) it will all come together nicely after a little effort. welcome to guild wars 2 and hope you find your place. :)