This guide is all about making money and incrasing Alchemy and Speech at the same time. It will show you how to get started, increasing barter early, how to set up a trade route, and helpful tips to buy ingredients for less and sell potions for more. All of this can be started as early as the first time you step foot in Whiterun.

Once you enter Whiterun for the first time you will want to sell all the loot you have collected if you haven't done so in Riverwood already. After that it's time to head to Whiterun Stables just outside of Whiterun. You will want to talk to the carriage driver and ask him to take you to Riften but we aren't going to enter Riften at this time.

Head North away from Riften till you pass the guard towers. Turn right and head east close to the mountain side you will see that you can walk along it to an open area. Be careful as enemies can be in this location protecting a shrine. You can choose to run in and only take the Amulet sitting on the shrine and run out, or fight the monster that protects it. This is the Amulet of Zeniathar and will increase the players Barter by 10% when equipped making shops sell for less and pay you more for sold items.

Now it's time we head back to Whiterun and start our potion making at the local Alchemy Shop.

Now that you have fast traveled back to Whiterun and enter the shop it's time to know what ingredients we need to buy and what potions we want to make.

Below is a list of potions and it’s ingredients used to make them. Making these potions then selling them will give a player the best gold. Note that you only need two ingredients to make these potions for example Canis Root + Swamp Fungal Pod = Paralysis

Paralysis:

Briar Heart
Canis Root
Gleam Blossom
Human Flesh
Imp Stool
Netch Jelly
Swamp Fungal Pod

Damage Magicka Regen:

Ancestor Moth Wing
Bear Claws
Blue Butterfly Wing
Blue Mountain Flower
Burnt Spriggan Wood
Chaurus Hunter Antennae
Chicken’s Egg
Glow Dust
Hanging Moss
Hawk’s Egg
Human Heart
Jarrin Root
Nightshade
Spider Egg
Spriggan Sap

Invisibility:

Ash Creep Cluster
Chaurus Eggs
Crimson Nirnroot
Ice Wraith Teeth
Luna Moth Wing
Nirnroot
Vampire Dust

Slow:

Burnt Spriggan Wood
Deathbell
Large Antlers
Poison Bloom
River Betty
Salt Pile
Trama Root

Fortify Carry Weight:

Creep Cluster
Giant’s Toe
Hawk Beak
Netch Jelly
Poison Bloom
River Betty
Scaly Pholiota
Trama Root
Wisp Wrappings

You can also make potions that have more than one effect that can also be sold for a lot of money, but you have to have three ingredients to make them. It’s best that if you get a Giant’s Toe to save it for these potions.

Giant’s Toe + Bear Claws + Hanging Moss
Giant’s Toe + Creep Cluster + Wheat
Giant’s Toe + Blue Butterfly Wing + Blue Mountain Flower
Giant’s Toe + Wheat + Scaly Pholiota
Giant’s Toe + Wheat + Wisp Wrappings

Here is also a list of ingredient combinations that make potions with more then one effect that also sells for a nice price.

Chaurus Eggs + Garlic + Vampire Dust
Chaurus Eggs + Luna Moth Wing + Vampire Dust
Chaurus Eggs + Luna Moth Wing + Namira’s Rot
Deathbell + Dwarven Oil + Salt Pile
Creep Cluster + Mora Tapinella + Scaly Pholiota

The following potion is to be used right before you are selling the other potions you made and when you are buying ingredients. This is a potion of Fortify Barter and it will add 5% Barter for 30 seconds. It's effect can be combined with the amulet making a total of 15% Barter.

Fortify Barter:

Butterfly Wing
Dragon’s Tongue
Hagraven Claw
Tundra Cotton

Note that as you increase Alchemy and spend more perks into it potion effects will increase making it have a higher selling price. This also means that the potion of Fortify Barter will also give you a higher percent. You will also want to make and sell the potions right in the shops after you buy them this way the shop keepers gold won't be a problem.

Now that you know what you need to buy it's time to start a trade route. You will want to start by going to the Whiterun Alchemy Shop and make the first set of potions and sell them back to the shop's Alchemist. Make sure that you sell them one at a time not all at once this help increase Speech allowing it to level up faster. This is what you will want to do at all Alchemy shops in Skyrim.

To get to each location you will first need to use carriage like we did when going to Riften for the first time and pay to go to each of the loctations that will be listed below. Just note you will only need to do this once and you can fast travel to them after words.

Starting at Whiterun -> Windhelm -> Markarth -> Dawnstar -> Solitude -> Morthal -> Falkreath -> Riften

We want to save Riften for last so we can have enough money to buy our way inside. However you don't have to do this. You can always skip it and do what you would like later on. You also don't have to do any of the quests given to you when you enter the towns you can just save the quests for later when you are happy with the money you have made and the level you are at.

By the time you are done you can go back to Whiterun by this time the Alchemist should have restocked on gold and potions you can now repeat and fast travel around Skyrim to make and sell more potions.

I would suggest adding a mod to increase shopkeeper's gold. This is optional but will help prevent them from running out of money too quickly and keep you from needing to wait for restocking less.

I'm sure by now you are thinking how can I get even lower prices and more gold well that is simple all this time you have been increasing speech by only selling potions one item at a time slower yes but it has been leveling up Speech. Spending perk point into it also helps. You can even train Speech and best of all it's on the trade route. So now all that hard earned gold is worth spending to get even more gold.

Let's go to Markarth and head to Silver-Blood Inn you will want to talk to Ogmund who will frecuently visit the Inn. He is not only a Bard but also an expert at Speech. He is the best person to pay gold on for traning at this point in time. Note you can only train 5 times per player level. You will have to level up before training in the skill again. Also you can only train till you are at level 75 in speech skill.

If you want to go out of your way you can try doing some quests to enter the Bard's Collage in Solitude, another trade route location, and talk to Giraud Gemane. Giraud Gemane is a master at Speech and you can level up speech till you are at skill level 90.

Note that as of the 1.9 Patch players can reset a skill trees by going Legendary in that skill giving back all perks and allowing the player to level that skill up again. This is so that all players can eventually unlock all skills in every tree at a player max of 252. This mean that you can keep on spending gold to increase your skills again.

As said before you can stack the amulet and the Fortify Barter but did you know you can also stack even more into it without even adding any perks. Yes that's right you can get even more Barter. Go to Solitude and head to Temple of Devines. You can now pray to Zenithar adding 10% Barter for 8 hours. Wait we aren't done yet. Find Noster Eagle-Eye the beggar and give him 1 gold. This will give you The Gift Giver effect for 1 hour adding another 10% to Barter. That's a total of 35% Barter in one go without any point in speech. Imagin the saving and the gold when you do add points into it.

If you have been training in enchanting and have a high level in it you can disenchant the amulet and create an entire set to increasing barter. Note that this will make you lose it. So only do this if you have the skill for it.

Just like Barter you can increase Alchemy by training. You can talk to Arcadia in Whiterun. She is an expert and can train you to skill level 75.

If you are a member or the Dark Brotherhood you can talk to Babette who is a master and will train you to skill level 90.

You can also find items in shop with Fortify Alchemy enchants or complete a quest like Dungeon Delving or Mourning Never Comes. Doing so will allow you to disenchant the itmes and make your own alchemy equpment allowing you to make potions have better effects this too will increase the effect of Fortify Barter potions when crafted.

This takes a lot of time and dedication however it pays off very well. I do hope that his guide helps you and you will make lots of money in Skyrim. Remember to have fun and to spend some of that gold because what else do you need it for after all after all?

Happy crafting and leveling.