Can we get a money-making guide?

[Oasis23]

I was just thinking that we need a Skyrim money-making guide. Post some ideas to make money fast. Thanks!

[Dark Spark]

Make potions. Lots of potions.

[azuarc]

Run a cave. Pick up everything that has a value that is more than the weight with an extra zero on the end. Return to town and sell it. Go to a second town to sell the remainder since the merchants in the first town won't have enough cash.

Rinse and repeat.

[NLN]

Take a follower with you to hold the sellable things, they weigh too much. Kill dragons at the beginning in masses, the stuff sells for higher than anything not in boss chests. Do random quests, like the ones you get in taverns.

[The Dog Whisperer]

Dragon's loot isn't actually very efficient. Scales' Worth:Weight is 25:1 and Bones' 33:1. They just look valuable 'cos BIG NUMBERS.
If you have the room take them, but for me they're some of the first things I put in the ritual circle I make when I realise I've forgotten to unload in a while.

Gems are probably the best Worth:Weight. A simple Garnet is 1000:1.
Mining is good too, because some mines you can sell the ores for their full base value and get some of these gems in the process.
It's especially profitable at Narzulbar. You can get 48-60 Ebony Ore, which has a base value of 60, so clearing it out gets a minimum of 2880 gold.
It isn't something you can really "grind" though, since it takes so long to reset after clearing.

And be an Imperial, too.

[noobishlord]

Chop wood. Keep chopping wood. Never stop chopping wood. You make 5 gold per wood, and the person you sell it too NEVER seems to run out of gold for the Wood Chopping job. Never.

Yes, it's long. Yes, it's boring. But it is infinite money.

[NLN]

Yeah, but dragon stuff is easy enough to get AND you don't have to do dungeons for it - in the open = fast travel (for those who use it). Not that I don't drop the bones, well, not now because I'm saving up for the armors XD

IDK, I never worried about money in Skyrim and I got so much extra now I pretty much leave everything non-unique where it is. We were whining for Morrowind, we got it I guess... >____<

Oh, kill Thalmors! And potions, you should learn a few easy-to-get ingredients that make some very expensive potions, then you are set.

[Rynkar]

Find a transmutation spell book (converts iron ore to sliver, silver to gold) one can be found in ansilvund north of riften and another in bolted stream camp north of whiterun.
Mine some iron or silver use the spell, get gold ore, make into ingots, make into jewelry, ????, profit.
Also boost smithing and alteration while doing it.

[DorostheConqueror]

Enchant daggers. An iron dagger with a Banish enchant at Petty level will fetch well over 1k septims at a minimal barter level. Keep a few of these in your inventory, and every time you hit town, sell off one per merchant. Better still, you can level both your Smithing and your Enchanting skill with this approach.

[SirMonz]

First complete the quest "A daedra's best friend"

Spoiler:

don't kill Barbas and you'll obtain the Masque of Clavicus Vile, which makes prices 20% better.

If you have an Amulet of Zenithar that helps to. Then craft iron daggers and enchant them with petty soul gems. As your enchanting skill increases use some perks to make your enchantments stronger. Then just sell everything back and repeat. To make 1 dagger costs about 5-10 gold depending on the price reducing items you have. Pretty soul gems range from 70-100. You can usually sell back for 200+ even when you're just starting out.

[Musicman247]

It's pretty hard to not make money in this game.

-Smith and enchant weapons
-Craft potions
-Dungeon dive
-Do personal quests
-Kill Dragons

Pretty much anything can make you some cash pretty quickly.

[DorostheConqueror]

Dungeon dives aren't that great a way too make money. You're at the mercy of your Loot tables, and even at high levels the price/weight ratios often aren't that good. Dragons, same thing; you have to find one, kill one, and then the loot you get may or may not be all that lucrative. As for personal quests, they rarely give you much money: while randomly generated Guild quests can fetch a small pile of septims for your trouble, it's hardly ever equal to and never more than the amount of cash you'd get trading a single cleverly enchanted dagger to a single merchant, with or without a set of Bartering gear on hand. If money's your goal, why go through all the trouble of tramping back and forth across Skyrim when you can earn four times your average quest payout without ever leaving your home city?

No, alchemy (if you've got enough ingredients) and enchanting (once you get the right spell effect) are the ways to go.

Also, someone mentioned transmuting: I wouldn't recommend transmuting as a way of making money. For me, transmuting is a way of making decorations- it's not enough to simply HAVE a ton of septims, you should also look the part, no? Well, nothing says "I'm filthy rich" like a hundred solid gold ingots piled up next to your bed. Don't make jewelry with your ingots, save them and use them to impress your guests.

[The Dog Whisperer]

And then complain that they're useless.

[unokitsune]

Go out into the world at night keeping close to the roads in the green regions of Skyrim ((such as whiterun Hold, Parts of the Rift and Some of Falkreath/ and Markarth holds))

Catch Luna Moths, you will get 2 wings per moth you catch. They kinda look like the Lunesta moth white and glowy.
Collect Nirnroots, even with the herbalist perk you will only get 1 each but it's a good source of invisi ingredients until you start collecting chaurus eggs.

Or go to Halted Stream Camp which is north of Dragonsreach and is the closest location to Loriel's farm where you meet Cicero for the first time.

Inside mine all the iron with a chance for gems. At the end where you kill the boss and find a dead mamoth, there is a table near the bosse's bed and on it has the Transmute spell. Get it, turn all iron into silver then gold. Melt that to Ingots. Turn that into Gold jewlry. 1 ingot makes 2 rings that sell for a better price than making 1 amulet.

You can enchant these to make them fetch a higher price. Sell them to mages and pawnbrokers/fences unless you have the merchant perk where you can sell it to anyone who buys.

[Boulderheart]

I agree with Rynkar.
Get a transmutation spell, buy/mine lots of iron ore, transmute, then again, and you have some Gold. You smelt the gold and get jewellery, sell the jewellry.

I haven't tried it yet but I'm assuming there will be high profit margins even if you buy the ore.

[unokitsune]

I agree with Rynkar.
Get a transmutation spell, buy/mine lots of iron ore, transmute, then again, and you have some Gold. You smelt the gold and get jewellery, sell the jewellry.

I haven't tried it yet but I'm assuming there will be high profit margins even if you buy the ore.

Oh it's worth it even though at low levels you have very little majika to use an expert level alteration spell. at low levels I can only use it once, sometimes twice which equals 1 gold ore. but at higher levels of alteration and a bigger majika pool I can make about 8 ores around middle level.

[NLN]

Don't tell me anyone needs more gold at higher levels. As for chaurus eggs, I think there's a million (ok, only some hundreds) of them in that lighthouse a little west of Winterhold, with the corpses and mini-quest. I actually got bored of collecting them. Those berries that are everywhere in snowy parts... winter berries or what's their name make resist potions with a lot of things, those are worth around 60-something I think, and the ingredients are all cheap and easy to get.

[unokitsune]

Don't tell me anyone needs more gold at higher levels. As for chaurus eggs, I think there's a million (ok, only some hundreds) of them in that lighthouse a little west of Winterhold, with the corpses and mini-quest. I actually got bored of collecting them. Those berries that are everywhere in snowy parts... winter berries or what's their name make resist potions with a lot of things, those are worth around 60-something I think, and the ingredients are all cheap and easy to get.

Snowberries you mean? Mixed with Hagraven claws or BLue butterfly wing they make fortify enchanting potions.

I'm just saying Chaurus eggs and Luna Moths are super easy to get and they make invisbility potions which even on low alchemy levels sell for pretty high. .05 pounds each though.

[enyamerT]

To quote a very wise man:

"Go down the holes, kill some monsters. Sell your loot back in the city!"

It's just that simple.

[Avron the S'wit]

Make potions. Lots of potions.

This really is the easiest way to get money. Ingredients are plentiful, potions are easy to make, and even cheap, useless potions in large numbers will turn out a terrific amount of gold to hold you over. The other half is this:

To quote a very wise man:

"Go down the holes, kill some monsters. Sell your loot back in the city!"

It's just that simple.

Do these two and you really will have more shiny septims in your pockets than you can shake a stick at.

[azuarc]

Press tilde.
Type "player.additem F 99999"
Press enter.
Press tilde.

[OblivionDuruza]

How about check out this nice guide that our own Chaos was kind enough to write up for low level starting characters.

Or I can quote it, as it's been pointed out that you have to be logged on to read it (I'm always logged on so I can get notifications on new posts and new users to be confirmed or banned if they're bots, in other words, I didn't realise because not all the Forums there are private ):

Spoiler:

A Chronic Kleptos' Guide to Taking and Making Gold

Being the third TES game I've played, I look back fondly on my early game strategy and noticed a lot of similarities...I'M A KLEPTOMANIC...every time I start a new character in any of these games, I pretty much take everything that isn't nailed down regardless of my character's virtue or profession. Hitting Morrowind, I stole everything out of sight from the census worker and guard in the boathouse; Oblivion, I squeed with joy when I took Captain Renauld's Sword after her quick death only to howl in agony of the thought that I wouldn't be able to pawn it later. Skyrim it's even more prevalent, I always follow Ralof (not just because I'm a sworn Son of Skyrim) because of the fact that the gold I get from selling the Imperials' gear is ten fold that of fighting storm cloaks (And because I predominately use Heavy armor, which the Stormcloaks lack). So this is a guide for those that like to stockpile gold early on without even having to do any quests.

Chaos' Tips for easy living:

• Tip #1: Weight is key
  
  • I've come up with certain limits for myself on what to pick up dependent on weight (In Morrowind it was anything that had a value of five times its own weight or more, Oblivion that became 10). In Skyrim, I don't pick up anything that isn't base valued at ten times its own weight unless it's over 50 gold. This ensures that you get good prices for all that weight and maximize your value-to-max-encumbrance.
  
  
  
  Tip #2: Gold assurance
  
  • Following the previous tip, this is to warn you away from picking up all those 0.1-0.5 weighted items with wild abandon. Why? because most starting characters have little to no speechcraft skill and will make values to be pathetic. My rule is that an ingredient/food has to not only fit tip #1, but also has to have a base value over 2 gold because anything less will be worth 0 gold to most traders this early on. There are exceptions however, crops being the big one: Cabbage, Potatoes, and Wheat can all be sold to farmers for their base price (Cabbage = 2 per head, Potatoes = 1, Wheat a whopping 5 per) regardless of where the crops came from. The exception is ingredients, which I'll talk about next.
  
  
  
  Tip #3: "No, I'm not an alchemist!"
  
  • In your travels, you'll stumble upon tons of ingredients that you'd be compelled to horde or sell off quickly, but that's a waste. Taking just a few seconds to combine a couple of almost worthless roots into a concoction worth 30 or more gold. Alchemy advances pretty slowly as well, so you don't have to worry too much about it either. My limit is that any ingredient under 28 gold should be used for potion/poisons and anything above be vendored tout suite.
  
  
  
  Tip #4: For the love of Talos! shut up and get this over with!
  
  • Don't be afraid to buy a necklace, ring or helm that reduces prices early on, it'll save you a fortune in just one tour into a bandit cave. In particular, Clavicus Vile's quest (level 13 is your best bet for his great masque that boosts a whopping -20% on price. (His quest starts out of Falkreath, but I won't say anymore due to spoilers)
  
  
  
  Tip #5: Life, now at half price!
  
  • Soul trapping and enchanting items is a great way to make money effortlessly. Soul gems are easy to come by and cost very little unfilled, but simply enchanting what what you find isn't living up to the potential. What gets the highest prices are enchanted weapon and not just any old enchantment will do, you need something otherworldly to get those astronomical prices to fill you Money Tub for your nightly baths. The highest price enchantment is by far, the Banish enchant: it isn't easy to come by, but if you find it lying in a shop, take it! It will easily finance anything in no time. But seeing how this is a de facto starter guide, I'll include the runner up, who is extremely easy to come by. Turn Undead, it fetches a pretty penny on the market and is one of the most prevalent non-elemental weapon enchantment.
  
  
  
  Tip #6: Get Creative!
  
  • Don't be afraid to dive headlong into a lake, river, ocean, or pile of vomit for that elusive chest sitting at the bottom. Always check waterfalls for hidden caves, Always check animal corpses for the odd jewel or pocket change they crammed up their ass in lieu of beads, and always check burial cubby holes for the truly dead Draugr. Don't be afraid of shouting a dead body out of a hanging cage or looking into fire pits for the random ruby or other precious gem. And finally, don't forget to check broken urns, they usually contain potions or gems at the bottom that you would have missed because there was no action associated with it. (Will probably add more later as I remember them)
  
  
  
  Tip #7: Get Paranoid!
  
  • Paranoia is a great habit for TES, you always find a random gem or ingot you accidently blew out the room because you decided to run in, guns blazing, only to find the room empty because of all the explosions. Every nook and cranny has possibilities, this was extremely prevalent in Morrowind where things like Daedric armor, moon sugar, or even entire rooms could be hiding in the tiniest of spaces.
  
  
  
  Tip #8: Hunting, now an actual job with pay
  
  • Hunting is a lot more lucrative this time around, animal pelts are easy to sell or use and Skyrim is teeming with wildlife ready for the reaping. Small game like rabbits aren't really worth it as you'll take more time trying to hit them than trying to find them. Mudcrabs are easy to find and they sometimes carry gold or gems on them, but again, this is small game. Wolves and bears are the common pittles and only the snow variations have pelts worth selling rather than turning into leather straps. Horker tusks fetch okay prices and are so easy to kill that you'll be recreating the Bloodmoon Prophesy without even trying. Saber cats are the high end of the common targets, they are hard to sneak up on and can give you quite the thrashing, but they drop both pelts and ingredients as well as random minor loot.
  
  
  
  Tip #9: Real Men go Big Game Hunting
  
  • And by big game, I mean BIG game. Mammoths, Giants and Dragons are the mainstay of this category, they are the high risk, high profit targets that makes my Khajiit drool when he sees the telltale Mammoth or Dragon skull on his Compass. Mammoths: pain in the ass to kill unless you use the terrain to your advantage (i.e. high places or small puddles), ignore the meat unless you're into cooking, the real prize is the tusk; beware that you don't get cornered by multiple Mammoths into a 'pushing circle'. Dragons: Easy gold early on, bombers of terror later on; their bones and scales fetch a high price anywhere and they also have a good amount of gold on them sometimes. They do have a major weakness though, interruptions, apparently all dragons were raised with impeccable manners as they will shut up the second you shout at them, 2 and 3 word Unrelenting Force will stop a dragon from breathing fire/frost if timed properly (just as they lean back to breathe on you, whether they be on the ground or flying). This gets harder with higher level dragons as they can breath fire/frost more frequently and do bombing runs on you making them a hard target to hit with the imprecise shout. I always carry an Amulet of Talos for those occasions. Finally, Giants: They carry large sums of gold and valuable items on their persons and in their camps, but they hurt...they hurt good. While Mammoths are stupid enough to keep at bay with a small brook, the giants aren't afraid to chase you and will often do so despite the thousands of guards, bandits, and dragons chasing them. Their swings are slow and can be avoided easily and staggering them with a bash or magic is an easy way to ensure they don't go smashy smashy. There's also a rather odd "bug" with fighting more than one giant at once, every once and a while after I've killed their buddy, the other giant will simply stop fighting for quite a long time.
  
  
  
  Tip #10: Forsworn are not real people
  
  • These guys are great for those looking to make a quick septim, their armor and some of their weapons are light weight and high value. Their deer head hats weigh 2 points and have a base value of 50 gold. They also carry around a lot of ingredients and potions, always a crowd pleaser. And finally, they have been know to hang with Hagravens, whose loot can range from "make valuable potions" to "Why didn't she just kill me with this sword? It's worth more than me!"
  
  
  
  Tip #11: I don't want to play, I just wanna chop all the wood all day! ♪
  
  • Chopping wood is worth it, there are tons of inn keepers and mill workers that love the once green stuff and pay good/easy money for you to take a few seconds to make 10 gold a whack. As I stated previously about my Stormcloak love, this comes up again because of how Ralof's journey plays out. He goes to his sister who runs the mill and unlike Alvor, she stays outside the whole time within spitting distance of a chopping block with an axe in reach. I usually speed ahead of Ralof to sell off some weight and head straight to the block to chop while I wait. My average final sum from start to finish is about 210-280 gold for the dialogue up until his sister offers her help.
  
  
  
  Tip #12: If it isn't yours it's mine
  
  • There are tons of places with things to take without taking a bounty, even in a Jarl's bedroom! Pottery, clothes, food, it's all there for the taking and in plain sight. Many cities and towns have barrels scattered around filled with various foods and ingredients. Books are pretty good money makers as well for some of them boast high prices or skill increases. Gold also is just laying around in just about every wardrobe and end table in the game, rarely will you ever find one without a couple coins in them.
  
  
  
  Tip #13: It's only murder if you're caught
  
  • Skyrim has thousands of randomly generated folks wandering the roads, ready for you to plunge a blade down their throat. But instead of spewing some obvious anecdotes to you, I'll tell you who isn't worth your time. Old Orcs: They can be tough fights, but only rarely have anything of worth early on, rule-of-thumb, if you don't see anything of value being worn by them, keep moving (after you've taken the saber car pelts of course ^_^). Vigilants of Stendarr: they usually only have a low level robe on and a necklace which is usually not worth the effort to kill them.
  
  
  
  Tip #14: Support PETA, Kill the Silver Hand
  
  • Short and sweet, their silver weapons fetch good prices and are one of the best weapons to enchant for price.
  
  
  
  Tip #15: Fences? We don't need no stinking fences!
  
  • At least for the sticky fingers that kife ingots and ores, just smelt them down or turn them into jewerly for a higher price
  
  
  
  Tip #16: Fullmetal Dovakiin
  
  • In a certain bandit cave near Whiterun or just random dumb luck, you'll stumble across transmuting spell tomes which convert iron ore into silver ore and silver into gold...do I really have to spell it out for you?
  
  
  
  More in the future...

[Red Guardian]

The easiest way to get money is by boosting smithing and enchanting.

Mining and woodcutting helps too...

[Shadowscale]

If you become leader of the Dark Brotherhood and keep doing the "Dark Brotherhood forever" quests you will get a 1000 gold each assassination and they are all simple i almost got 20k in one hour.

[shu]

I need a money using guide. I have everything I need, whenever I see useful potions, arrows (Ebony, Glass and Daedric) and ingredients I buy them all. But after a Draugr dungeon (Deathlords all using Ebony weapons) I have even more money. And I need to sell because I don't have 100 in speech yet. I currently have over 130000 gold. The only big thing I have left to buy is the house in Windhelm, but I have to wait 'till I do the Civil War.