I'm loving this game. I'm a 12th level mage. Im running into a few issues. First...I dont have the money for a house and the dragon bones are weighting me down big time. Also, i'm not making much money, any suggestions? I'm always around 2k gold..spells cost so much.




Kelek

Sell your dragon bones.

I leave my Dragon Bones and Scales in my College of Winterhold room. I also keep my giant book collection there. I have well over a hundred books.

WHo will buy dragon bones? Also, theres no use for them?



Kelek

I don't put anything valuable in my house as it can get stolen by thieves if you aren't around even if someone is hired to watch it. I put all my bones/scales and other items in the Arch-Mage's Room in Winterhold college (the room is yours after you finish the necessary quests).

As for money, enchanting seems like a pretty good way to make money as well as once it is maxed out it is possible to enchant armor enough so that at spells from at least one school of magic (destruction for example) will cost zero magicka to cast. Daggers that usually cost 10 gold once enchanted can go upto 400+ gold.

Are you going to take smithing? Do you wear armor or robes? If you aren't, just sell the bones/scales.

As far as I know, only for making armor in smithing. And many merchants will buy them. Try some general goods stores.

go to wintercollege and get a free room, plus its the place where all the mages are and have lots of spells to buy, also you can do the quest line at the college and become arch mage and get a cool pad to live in.

Do all the main quests for Whiterun and you will be given a title and companion, she's cute too.


wolf

Money problems
If you don't wear armor then sell the dragon bones/scales. That will be good enough for early levels.

firstly, enchanting is not much good for money making, as it involves disenchanting other items which can in fact reduce your income, and, without perks or expensive soul gems (or both), enchants won't add much value to items.

secondly, I am a mage, and I am very wealthy (level 18, 40k gold at the moment), here's how:

alchemy is your best bet, whenever you wander the wilds, pick anything you run accross, tends to lead to you taking a rather zig-zagging journey to each objective but it's worth it. If you're not planning on using alchemy for boosts in fights, and just want the money, then you can feel free to use all your ingredients each time you return to a place with a suitable alchemy table (keep in mind sometimes the potions can weigh more than the ingredients used to make them). Experiment to find out ingredient properties, or you can find some lists online, UESP has a good one.

the second method I use, involves alteration and blacksmithing. At early levels you'll be running into a TON of iron ore, get yourself a mining pick early on and grab it all. Next you need a spell of transmute iron, I had the good fortune to find a tome at halted stream camp, it's near whiterun i believe, one of those "bounty" quests took me there (quests from inkeepers). This handy little spell lets you turn iron ore into silver ore, and silver ore into gold. You see where I'm going with this? First check in blacksmithing, under jewlerry, see what you can make, don't think there's skill requirements for what you need but check to be sure, my blacksmithing levelled alarmingly quickly. Anyway, I like to turn all my ore into gold, and make gold rings, they provide the best return on your investment, and they're light and easy to carry. If you have any flawless gems, they can be used to make better rings and amulets.

as a potential third option, yes I said enchanting isn't much good but it does have a small use, if you find yourself cluttered up with filled soul gems, just enchant everything you can, I find if you enchant lower value items they tend to increase in value more than higher ones. Doesn't matter what you enchant them with, or what item you enchant, generally they'll add more value to the item than the money you'd have gotten from selling the soul gem so as long as you don't buy any soul gems, you'll come out on top. personally I like to use this in conjunction with the above method, enchant all my gold rings until I run out of soul gems.

another thing of note, your speechcraft skill has perks to improve the money you get from selling items, first perk increases it by 10%, doesn't sound like much but every little bit helps if you've got perk points you can spare.

one last point, from now on your main problem is finding enough merchants to sell things to. I find if you fast travel between a number of the major cities, by the time you've made it back around to the first one, enough time will have elapsed that the merchant's gold will have reset, and you can sell to them again. be sure to sell items to the most specialized merchants first, least specialized last, so generally I start with blacksmiths, then go on to alchemists, magic shops (like castle mages), and then sell what's left to a general trader (this is the exact order of shops in whiterun, other places have different shops so check around to see what each merchant will buy before selling sell to the one who'll buy the fewest of your items first).

Oh and for god's sake sell those dragon bones, general merchants will buy them, scales too, I believe their only use is in the blacksmithing tree.

On enchanting I find it better money wise to enchant weapons instead of clothing or jewelry.

Edit: Also once enchanting is maxed out you can put two enchants on items making two schools result in 0% per cast

doing the thieves guild quests unlocks fences that you can sell your dragon bones to. i use a fence in solitude who has 4000 gold, a fence in markarth who has 4000 gold,a fence in windhelm who has 4000 gold, and a fence at the thieves guild in riften. ive saved up over 280,000 gold, didnt do anything special, just completed all the quests for the different factions. when i go in to every dungeon open every urn and take every potion and loot every corpse. only thing you shouldnt pick up is heavy items eg weight 12+ which have low value eg less than 100 coins.