I think that mostly comes down to personal preference, play style and most importantly, patience. All merchants only had 500 gold to barter with for me at some point. My fat lutes were piling up faster than I could bother selling so I just stopped picking things up if it was not something I could use.

I am finding it much harder to make gold on higher difficulties though, I am playing once more on Master and most of my money is spent on potions and such. What little I managed to save up was spent on my house in Whiterun, left with 335 gold to chuck at the nearest public restroom because I chug on average 10-20 potions per dungeon, and eat all the little rotten scraps I can find in barrels. Yum.

However, I am sure there'll be several economy/difficulty/gold sink mods once the CK is out.

I'd say that it is far too easy to make money and/or not enough to spend it on.

I use my money on trainers. Sure, I can make easily 3500 when I visit Whiterun by selling enchanted Banish Iron daggers. Then again you need 10k gold to train skills over 50 ...

I find it hard. Merchant's never have enough money to buy all my dragon bones :sadvaultboy: