One of the first things new players need to know is how to make money in the game. The money you get selling monster drops to NPC vendors is not very good, especially at low levels. The easist way to make money is to save everything you can and then check the broker in the nearest city to see what you can sell these items for.
As you learn what other players will pay good money for, you can start selling low value loot to NPC vendors to free up bag space for the stuff you will sell via the broker. Try to avoid selling any loot you find until you know what broker prices are for that item; players will pay more than 100 times what the NPC vendors will for some items. For example, most treasured loot or rare resource items sell for good prices. Also collect: "Leaded Loam" & "Lead Cluster" (mining), "Root" (gathering), and collectables (sparkly collectable nodes). "Fat Grub" and "Golieth Beetle" collectables are worth 20-80 gold on some servers and are found in zones that level 10-15 chars can explore.
You might want to ask for help getting to the nearest city. Unless you are at least level 5 and/or know exactly where you are going, you will probably die a lot trying to find it. Alternativly, you can just level up a little first; it shouldn't take longer than a couple hours to reach level 6, and this is high enough you should be able to find the city on your own without dying. Note: if you start out on "Queens Island" you will want to finish the quests here first; you can't get back to the island once you leave.
To facilitate selling items via the broker, you will want to buy a strongbox and several bags from the broker. Don't buy boxes or bags from NPC vendors; player made items sold via the broker are much better (if more expensive). Don't buy ANYTHING (i.e. save all your money) until have bought your first strongbox. It may take all of your money, but you will make all that money back and more when you start selling stuff via the broker. The box is needed to hold your "for sale" items on the broker, and the bags are to allow you to carry more stuff (being able to carry more means more items you can carry back to sell on the broker). Try to get the biggest box you can afford, and trade up to bigger boxes as you can afford to. Remember, the bigger the box, the more things you can have up for sale, and the more items you have for sale, the more money you make (assuming you price them correctly). Teak strongboxes give you good value for your money but may be too expensive when starting out. Look to buy one of the following player made strongboxes [Type(slots)]: Teak(24), Briarwood(20), Ash(16), Maple(12), Elm(8). There are bigger boxes as well, but they cost much more. Note: bags can be used for broker sales as well, but since they cost more (per slot of storage), using boxes is a better idea.
Warning note: All strongboxes weigh 100; this is enough to really slow down the movement speeds of low level charactors. If you buy a box from the broker and use it right away as your "for sale" box in the broker, you won't have to carry it anywhere.
It's also a good idea to find the bank in town so you can store stuff you want to keep for later but not carry. As you upgrade (buy bigger) boxes and bags you can put the old (smaller) ones in your bank slots to increase storage slots. Another storage trick is to store items in your broker (for sale) box rather than the bank. Just remember to set the items to "not for sale", or else price them high enough so that if they do sell you will be happy with the gold you get.
You will only go though the "broke" period with your first charactor; any new charactors you create can be given money and items from your first charactor. Once you learn how to sell stuff on the broker you can continue to make money this way, even at higher levels. You'll just find and sell different (and more valuable) stuff.
In general, tradeskills tend to be money sinks; they cost more than they return until you reach high level. One exception is Provisioning. Selling some low level food and drinks to other players via the broker can make money, and making food and drink is useful for your charactor as well.
PVP warning: If you play on a PVP server, stash all (or most) of your money in the bank; if killed you lose money to your killer. On non-PVP servers the only reason to put money in the bank is to share with other chars on the same account or to keep you from accidentally spending all your money on something.