Mithril to Truesilver

So you've recently put together your Alchemist's Stone and got to Artisan level. The first transmute you'll gain access to is the Mithril-Truesilver one. (There's also the Iron-Gold one, but that one is not as good, so you might as well skip buying it. The only reason to use the Iron-Gold transmute is for cheap leveling of your alchemy skill, to get to 275. You can make a profit with it, but it won't be very large.)

Instead of Iron, consider investing in a stack of Mithril bars. Make sure you haggle over the price, to get it for as little as you can get away with. When you start burning through them, sell the resulting bars one-by-one at the AH. Usually, unless it's a bad day, you will more than double your per-bar investment in mithril. If you buy your stack for 10 to 15 silver per bar, and sell your truesilver for 40-60 silver a piece,it takes about one week to pay off your initial investment. The rest is pure profit. It may not amount to a whole lot, but in your early levels you need all the help you can get - and besides, you will get the occasional skill-up while at it, too.