If you're really just starting to play this game there's something you must know.
You need tons of gold in order to play this game decently. And on top of that, the game has inflation. Meaning that every time you buy an item, the price of the same subsequent items will go up 5%. For example, first year, second lesson, Buy School Supplies From Diagon Alley - Wand, Books, Robe, requires a robe before you are allowed to do the lesson. The first robe costs you 200 gold.
But since I know that the first year will require 4 robes in the total I went ahead and purchase 4 robes at once, only spending 800 gold. If you were to buy one by one you would end up spending 860 gold. After I bought 4 robes, they now each cost 240 gold each. That's a 20% increase.
You may think, 40 gold is not a big deal... well, it will be a big deal when you're trying to buy a Tornado Broom for 7,000,000 and you need 10 of them with the highest paying job paying no more than 223,500 and even when you have all the properties allowed you cannot generate more than 688,500 in rent every 40 minutes. But I digress... :P
On a good note, the price will never be more than 2x the original price. The bad note is that it applies to all items in the game, including properties (though you can't buy enough properties to double its price).
So try to save up and buy all the supplies you need for the whole year in bulk. "But how I am going to do that if I can't see the whole year at the beginning of the year" you might ask. That's why I'm posting this list ;)
In the First Year you'll need a total of:
Items
4 Robe
6 11" Holly Wand
1 Sorting Hat
2 School Textbook.
3 Standard Flying Broom
Magic
1 Expelliarmus
You'll need Expelliarmus in the final lesson, but don't go to the Magic Store to buy it because they cost hall passes instead of gold. You can get them "free" because you'll always see the lesson that gives you the magic you need before you have to do a lesson that require such magic.
Of course you won't always be able or willing to save all the money to buy all your supplies at once, but at least this way you'll be somewhat prepared for what's to come.
If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:
