This may be a bit of an exploit, but you can get a good chunk of money pretty early on in the game by just visiting one easy dungeon. Halted Stream Camp. Those who've been there know where I'm going with this, but for those who don't, it's quite simple.
1. Enter the cave. You'll most likely have a bounty quest or family sword quest inside here.
2. See the Bandit down there mining? Go kill him, then take the pickaxe on the crate nearby.
3. Proceed to mine out EVERY iron ore vein you come across. There's also an orichalum vein.
4. In the main room, on a table beside the orichalum vein, will be a spell tome, Transmute.
5. Learn that tome, then proceed to change all of your iron ores (around 45) into gold.
6. Sell these at the smith, or smelt into ingots and make gold rings for smithing xp, and sell those.
Along with whatever loot the bandits/chests dropped, you'll have a pretty solid chunk of cash by the end of it. And the toughest enemy in the place is a Bandit Chief, who could be killed easily by using the overhanging firepots (shooting them and igniting the oil below).