Alchemy early in the game

[JuneMaddox]

You can earn a lot of gold. I mean a lot. You just pick some free weed that and create something that can be for 20, 30, 50 or more coins. There is plenty of ingredients for potions which resist fire, frost and magic around Whiterun. I often make more of them than traders can buy with their money. So I have to travel around to sell all of it.

What I also missed, is that you can select top item in Alchemy Lab menu, "Ingredients". That allows you to freely combine ingredients and experiment. You can learn how to create more useful and more expensive potions.

Creating potions gives you experience to level up. Selling potions gives you more experience in Speech skill and also helps you level up.

You will have enough coin to buy training, spell tomes, weapons and armor. You don't need to invest a perk. Just making potions will increase your skill. However, for highly effective potions, you are probably going to need perks.

At some point, you should visit all the capitals of Skyrim traveling on foot, in order to learn where particular kind of weed can be found.

No need to chase bandits in the caves at lower levels and haul heavy gear to the traders. You can do it later in the game, for fun, when you have enough coin in your pocket.

[Katsuro]

You can make the highest selling potions from ingredients collected right from Helgen to Riverwood: Nordic Barnacles, Salmon Roe and Salt Piles. This assumes you have the Hearthfire DLC.

Each potion will sell for approximately 400g when starting with a 15 alchemy skill

[Secret Magic User]

Blue Mountain Flower and Wheat, restores and fortifies health. Great way to level Alchemy, give yourself something useful, and double effect potions are insanely valuable. BMF and Wheat are also extremely common and cheap ingredients.

(Edited for spelling)

Update: BMF, PMF, Eye of Saber Cat makes a dual effect Restore Health/Restore Stamina Potion.

[CursedGrim]

Snowberries, hawk beak, and bone meal. This mixture gives resistance to all 3 magic types. Useful when others are so expensive at low levels.

[ciberzombie]

well hawk beak is really RARE

[CursedGrim]

True to a point. Hawks spawn often in these areas:

Spoiler:

Solitude, Bloated Man's Grotto, Shrine of Peryite, Near Ironbind Barrow and its overlook, Arcadia often has them, Orgnar in Riverwood,The Pride of Tel Vos shipwreck.

[ciberzombie]

i don't remember any Orgnar in Riverwood... , wait isn't he an in keeper? well maybe, because in keepers isn't on my list "sells alchemy ingredients", except salt

[CursedGrim]

That is true. He is one of the very few that sells more than salt. I have even been so lucky as to get whisp wrappings from him.