Without using cheats or exploits..share with me some of the things you guys do

No joke - just go adventuring. DO NOT buy raw materials and smith them into finished goods without paying attention to things. You can lose money on it. Some materials cost more than the finished goods you smith from them, and that's based on the base cost alone, and not even taking into account the merchants' markup on what they sell you and their markdown on what they buy from you. Improving smithed items might change that, but that isn't an option early in the game when your smithing skill level is still low.

Go and do some easy quests for people, and seriously - just go adventuring. Find a bandit stronghold, clear it, and sell the loot.

Pick up armor,gems,weapons,etc and sell them.

I don't smith, so I sell all my dragon bones and scales. Usually get 1-3 of each per dragon kill.

Other than that, I'm just thorough with combing dungeons for anything with a decent sell value, preferably the light items like gems, although enchanted gear you find laying about can sell for a nice bit as well.

Need fast cash?
Loot, loot, loot. Enchant with any gem under Grand and sell it.
Other than that...Smith and chop wood. Although these two fell more like an exploit, they are not.
Then there is always murder, which constitutes loot. You can usually render about 100 per guard.

Prowlers Profit.

I loot dungeons, caves, ruins, etc. I make plenty gold selling off what I don't need.

I am a jeweller.
I pick up all the Iron ore and all the gems I can find (there are a lot of cheap garnet or amethysts in every dungeon). I buy even more iron Ore if I haven't enough ...

Then, I transmute the Iron into gold or silver (depending on my jewels) and make jewelry. If I have lesser / petty filled souls gems, I enchant rings to increase the value even more.

Then, I sell it all ...

best way is to play the game!!

its quite simple

i havent sold barely any goods ive found - ive just stored it all

but if i was to sell it all id be a very rich man - but just the gold i find in caves makes me more money than ill ever need!

Actually use Alchemy to create a few potions, then resell them. Alchemy levels very slowly, and collecting ingredients in the wilderness takes time and is an easy way to level other skills that will keep your character alive when doing quests like your main attack skill, your armor skill, Sneak, a secondary skill like Block or Archery for a two hander or Mage type character.
Chopping Wood, selling rarer pelts, ores, and gems. I found selling the hides and meat from the animals my Mage hunted collecting ingredients was more profitable in terms of experience gained than clearing many dungeons. Killing a rabbit while sneaking with a bow is no different than sniping Bandits.

alchemy. find some valued potions or poisons and where you can buy or gather the needed supplies and go crazy.

enchant. gather all the daggers and such off bandits... gather alot of petty or lesser soul gems and enchant the daggers.

smithing... gather all the pelts you can find/harvest... upgrade all the fur and leather armors you find.

loot dewmer ruins for soul gems and metal.

pickpocket people.

Alchemy makes good money after you up skill just a bit. Depending on your speech level and the prices you get for things.

Blue mountain flowers and blue butterflies will make a stall magika potion that sells for me at between 400 and 600 gold . So a quick skirt around whiterun catching butterflies and picking flowers can make you more potion wealth than you can sell without travelling or sleeping till the shops restock.

PLAYING THE GAME. Adventuring, exploring, looting, and so forth. I've never used Smithing or Alchemy to make money..

I find the thieves guild get's me a ton of money, of course you have to think about the moral implications of being a thief. I find doing theft quests to be a good way of gaining money, that and smithing helps a lot too. creating items and selling them around Skyrim can help make some money too.
But when it comes down to it I think the best way of making money is to loot dungeons. I just suggest the thieves guild because I went from 500 gold to 12000 gold just completing the main quest line and doing a few jobs.

get the spell transmutate mine lots of iron as there is lots of it arround and use the spell to turn it to silver and then silver to gold and sell, sell
I havent done that much tho i clean out a lot of dungons and store all loot in my house dont buy anything cause you can always find better. im a rouge and pickpocketed a necklace of waterbreathing from a woman in whiterun. If you want do the theives guild and get some fences they have lots of money and pay really good for the most part even with low speech. thats what i did when you get to the point start packing all that loot to em before you know youll be swimming in gold.

Gold is pointless, I only have 56,000 and I don't spend it on anything, besides my house.

It's a shame to put the Gold to no use.

I've made a fortune as an alchemist. Go visit Angeline's Aromatics in Solitude. She'll even let you use her alchemy lab.

Once you've got heaps, it kind of is. I saved up 100k gold for the achievement (on 360), but even though I've let myself start spending unrestrictedly again it's never gone below 100k since. The only major thing that drains it a bit is buying a new house with all the furnishings.

I've noticed that you can pickpocket enemies' gold then kill them and their bodies have more gold. I'm guessing that's considered an exploit though.

Kill stuff
remove everything possible
sell it
profit

Golden Formula there