Unlocking Botanist and Miner would certainly benefit you. You can start collecting shards right off the bat. RMT love gathering shards, so don't expect any huge gains here. Crafters easily blow through hundreds or thousands of shards per day, so these do sell fast. If you do jump into crafting, gathering moderately expensive materials on your own BTN/MIN can save a nice chunk of gil (and even make some if you gather a little extra for market).
Speaking of shards, the first few class quests from each crafting guild reward lots of shards. By doing these class quests and crafting everything in your recipe list at least once (bonus exp is granted for crafting something the first time), you can power each crafting class from 1-15 without issue. Takes less than an hour per class. Hell, the guild NPCs sell dam near everything you'll need for leveling 1-15. Start with WVR and LTH, then ALC and CUL, then do the next four.
Coming for XI's perspective, crafting is gonna blow your mind. I highly recommend it.
EDIT: An excellent comprehensive guide to crafting:
http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-ad...mie-tsukino.6/