When I did it I never went to Jagex forums, if I were desperate I'd simply have a few companions purchase 10k for me. Buying 10k of one type of herb then say having 3 friends purchase an additional 10k each is 40k herbs. This is enough to run the bot for over 4 hours til you can buy more. Also there are always several herbs you can clean resulting in a profit. If you really wanted to, you could always clean a herb with a slight loss and maintain a similar exp rate to doing potions without the massive loss. With the multiple herbs available to being purchased though, you can easily buy 40k herbs yourself (10k herbs of each of 4 different types). Enough for over 4 hours cleaning.
Doing herbs is not recommended if you have to buy and sell in a couple of k's if they only have like 10m to spend, but if they are poor then doing herblore itself is not recommended at all, as it simply demands cash.