Ever spend time chopping wood, or working the lumber mill? I know every time I start a new character, which is every week or so, I spend 2 hours sometimes, chopping wood, just to have a nice chunk of change to start my adventure with.

I think they should open up some of these smiths, mills, and farms for purchase where you could invest some time and make a bunch of money, and take a breather from combat

A few of my first toons I would spend hours chopping wood so I can afford the house in Whiterun but that was back in my hoarding days. Now I just pretend like I spent any extra cash I had just to get to skyrim or I lost all I had when I was captured by the Imperials so now I have to start from scratch.

There should be a way to take over a building or landmark and having people inhabit it and create some kind income making economy there. Like make a bandit camp into a hunting camp, make a small building in town into a specialty market, or even startup your own brewery to compete with the others out there.

One interesting thing to try, although somewhat dry, is becoming a travelling merchant who acquires their wares by looting dungeons. The catch is not using combat, and instead employing a bodyguard (a follower) to do the dirty work for you. For extra role-playing experience, you could 'pay' them by trading some of your gold into their inventory every now and then.

I would definetely try this if I could have more than one follower. then split the profits between the three of us and use the money to upgrade our wepons/armor and have a big feast every time we went to sell our wares.

You may be able to find a mod allowing you to do so, assuming you're using the PC version.

I hope there will be mods making it better

I'm on PS3. Man I really need to get a gaming PC.

Ah, well.. If you focus on levelling your smithing, you could craft armour and weapons for a follower which would make them virtually twice as powerful. Same goes for enchanting.

Eh, at the start of every toon i have over 1000g by the time i enter whiterun so i never chop wood. It just bores me so much. If it was more useful i would do it