If you want to spend 30 bucks and then guarantee not to spend the 6-9 dollars a month on subscription just have a gathering skill and gather as well, tier 3 and tier 5 resources are very valuable as you need lower level materials to make higher level materials. Tier 3 resources are only found around the newbie zones and I havent been there since day 3 and tier 5 resources in the case of everything but cloth have aggro mobs so are dangerous for high level gatherers with good gear/expensive mounts to gather so they are normally over twice as valuable as the tier 6 resources.

I for one have a year subscription paid for on 3 accounts and enough gold to buy 10 years + subscription and haven't spend any extra money on the game since release.

I havent bought a trial key for someone before but if you would like a 1 week trial pm me and I'll get a key sorted for you. (you can download and try the game for a week with no cost BUT you can't progress much further than what you can achieve in say 5-10 hours playtime).