Ok.

1.

- I sell some items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items. Click wait 24 hours. Eat some chips. Click wait another 24 hours. Sell some more items.
- then keep playing

OR.

2.

- Install a Vendor gold addon (so they have more gold)
- I sell all of my items. Eat some chips.
- then keep playing.



Am I cheating? If I am, is it justified?

its your game dude. its only cheating if you say it is....

Install the mod. I'm not judging you.
Actually, theres a mod that instantly cycles the vendor's inventory; it has the side affect of keeping their gold at a more or less static level; while they won't be aboe to afford big ticket purchases, they will be able to afford most anything they could otherwise (they will only have 700 or 800 gold, but it will stay at 700 or 800 gold). This doesn't break the game too terribly; you still get benefits from perking into speech if you decide to. Really, at that point, you're just saving yourself tedium.

-Edit-
Really, it's less about the 'its a single player game, you're the judge of if you're cheating or not' and more 'I'd like a second opinion before making potentially serious changes to my gameplay'. Sometimes, it helps to have an outside opinion before making these kinds of decisions; especially if you are otherwise attempting to maintain a reasonable balance for yourself.

You could try fast travelling to other cities to offload there too.

Also, going up the left hand side of the speech perk tree will help a lot if you like to sell stuff, get the investment perk and invest in shops to give them a permanent 500g cash boosdt everytime they refresh and theres a trader in Riverwood who will have over 10,000 gold to spend per refresh if you invest in him.

First addon I installed was one to give vendors 2k gold each. It's not playing "fun" to mutz around waiting to sell dungeon hauls.

If you don't want mess with mods or console commands, just try to get your speech to 100 for the master trader perk. You can easily do that in riften with the guy at the black briar meadery. Since it's just pressing the same buttons over and over for 30 minutes to get to 100, I just use the console to get there, save me some tedium.

I remember in Oblivion with enhanced economy I set all the merchants to have much more gold available. Again, it's single player, do whatever you want to have fun.

Play the way you want as long as you have fun.
Take it easy on the chips though.

I add gold to my npc's. I gave my self permission after I figured out I good fast travel around the cities on a cycle and sell all my stuff and keep doing it till I was empty. Its within game mechanics so I thought why not just sell to one and save some time. The anti fast travel folks might have different answer or if I decided to ever have a toon that does not. Gophers quest just bug me to no end! Certain LOTRO quests come to mind. Why can't they just figure out that they needed all this junk at once and I could get it once... sorry OT now

What I do is:

- Sell stuff until vendor has no money.

- Change my mind and reload save, only to find the vendor still has no money.

- Exit and reload game. Vendor now has money. Sell.

- Save game and exit. Reload game. Vendor has money again.

- Sell more, just to spite them for stiffing me the first time.

Since the vast majority of what I have to sell tends to be weapons and armor, I trade them for smithing supplies. Similarly, food and potions go to the alchemist for ingredients. Yeah, this means my cash reserve stays sub-20K for quite a while, but I gain several skill levels in smithing and alchemy in trade.

I probably won't be modding vendor gold, since there are ways to push some of them to over 4K cash on hand, but I see no reason why the OP shouldn't if he so wishes.

there should be a patch for vendor gold so mods wouldn't be necessary. The only vendor I can use at all is the "bugged" riverwood trader.

Riften and Markarth (sp?) are slightly more than one day apart by fast travel. Just jump between the two and when you arrive back at one of the cities, the vendor's inventories will have been reset.

Well your better then I am. Hell I won't even go that far... lol if I feel I need the money I may, just may travel around to sell my junk, but if I can't typically sell it In one town then it just gets unloaded at my home.

I'll buy what I need at first, then sell my crap. That usually helps get stuff I need rather then all the heavy crap.

I honestly don't think it's cheating... I don't do that and I have a bunch of gold.... It's not like "oh man if I had more money I would buy that!" I have all the money I need!

It is really not cheating. According to dialog, Imperials and Stormcloaks are buying military gear so fast that the smiths can’t make enough, now an adventurer comes along with a ton of weapons, armor and potions yet no one is intelligent enough to borrow money and buy all of it off of him since he is selling it all with a huge discount? Really?
I would understand merchants not paying full price for uber expensive items, but iron/steel everything should literally be flying off your pack and onto the shelves as soon as you enter a smiths workplace.

Haha, I have supplied the troops out of whiterun with ~1000 enchanted iron weapons. Easy money.

You're not cheating, you're exploiting game mechanics to your advantage whether or not that's a bad thing is your call.

This, you can also train alchemy and pay in potions, also bring with you some enchanted iron daggers and potions for sale so you can sell in other towns you visit.

Nah. That's not cheating. Choosing the first option just makes your selling a bit more tedious.
I would recommend installing the addon so you don't get your cholestrol to dangerous levels with all those chips.

Well, you can also invest in in speech to have wealthy merchant, and the thieve guild is your friend with their 4000 gold fence.

If you finish the Thieves Guild Quests, you get Fences that have around 4000 gold in Markarath, Solitude, Riften, Windhelm & Whiterun. I just travel around these cities to offload my loot. I'm getting pretty close to hitting a million septim right now. And I have only invested one perk in the speech skill tree.

Well since they offer such pitiful amounts of vendor gold and one dungeon loads you up with more than they can handle, you do what you have to.

I could not have put it better.

No you're not cheating, but you ARE getting fat from eating all those chips.

at this point, just skip the mod.

player.additem f 100000

or whatever amount of gold you want. then, just loot items you will actually use since there's no need to sell anything....

Or just get the investor perk and invest in the riverwood trader. 10K is quite enough per trip, even when you're in your post 50's looting ebony like mad. Like, as long as you keep selling stuff as you go, and not hoard it at your house (there's a ton of stores around, invest, learn where they are) and then you don't have to "wait 48 hours".

I do personally feel it's cheating to install an increased merchant gold thing. For the simple reason as sometimes I just sell things to get rid of them, and I lose a few GP in transactions (like selling something for above 500, and the trader only has 400 on hand or such).

The "Wait 48 hours" is RP friendly if you want it to be. I usually justify it by saying "my character spent some time chillaxing in town for a day or two"...