Iksar or Human? Your strategy for money making will differ a lot based on that.
Regardless, save for weapon first, no armor comes close to making such a big difference. However, you can get a full set of Cured Silk for 80-100p, so it's not that much extra you need to save. A Wu's staff can also be found for as little as 100p these days.
I'm an Iksar, and I saved Bone Chips and vendor loot all day and made nice cash that way. People often come to Field of Bone to buy chips for faction, offering between 5 and 10pp per stack. Spiderling silk is also good money.
At level 20 I went to Antonica (I would not advise you to leave Iksar land without having trained and skilled up Feign Death first), and farmed a shitload in the commonlands zones. Will-o-wisps for lightstones (turned in for dark elf faction and pp), bears for HQ pelts (30p), orcs for scalps (10p) and DF belts (5p). Just farming orcs for a few hours and selling scalps and belts will net you hundreds of pp per hour.
Good luck!
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