[fable]

Anything you can open can be used as a storage container when your inventory grows too large, though you should avoid putting stuff you want to keep in garbage bins. Understandably, they're emptied regularly.

Work on getting your melee and dodge skills up early, since experience gained by party NPCs for successful hits and kills isn't split with you.

A bit of persuasion might be useful to have early on, when you have to deal with the gang holding the bridge out of the first city.

Nothing prevents you from entering buildings at night, and lockpicking boxes to steal their contents. Watch out for visible guards, though, and avoid bashing chests or zapping them loudly with lockpick spells--the owners usually sleep in the next room.