Whilst smithing will make you money if you use it to smelt metal pubs, smithing loses you money if you use the skill for hammer and OSRS gold anvil metallic processing. It's not by inherently having level 74 smithing (like Salmoneus) which you can get a Santa Hat.
As far as needing level 60 cooking (Salmoneus' cooking level). Raw food typically sells for more money on the Grand Exchange than cooked food. People who do not need to fish but who wish to quickly increase their cooking level will intentionally eliminate money buy buying raw fish, cooking the fish to get fast cooking XP, and also selling the cooked (not as gp) fish back into the Grand Exchange.
A fantastic thing to do would be to fish, promote raws into the Grand Exchange. Maintain you cooking level . And should you require food to prepare your battle fish, sell the uncooked fish to the Grand Exchange and purchase cooked fish. You've got the cooked fish to eat and at precisely the same time wind up with more money should you do it like that. Again, if you would like a Santa Hat, a much better idea is to maintain your cooking level , and sell raws. Cooking only loses money. Another person who posted suggested runecrafting for good money. There are far better ways to earn money than runecrafting.
Someone proposed cows south of Falador for when you want to train your combat (melee, range), because it's close to a bank. But the cow field in the north of Lumbridge (that has Beefy Bill) is a better place. You give 10 raw beef to Beefy Bill and he'll put 9 into your bank (he chooses 1), give him 10 cowhides and he will place 9 into your lender (he takes 1 cowhide for himself). This is a great location for Buy RS gold low-level battle training, because Beefy Bill is standing right from the cow area, thus saving you the trouble of running far to bank your uncooked beef and cowhides. And should you would like prayer experience, then bury the bones while you are training your combat.
