[supersimian]

Alchemy is a great craft!
10 reasons why
#1 Its the among the cheapest to level up, most of the time you make your gil right back or profit.
#2 Alchemy goods sell fast.
#3 Atleast you will be able to get all of those costly consumables at half of the price from making them yourselves, also you will be good to always have potions on you because you will probably make them yourself. Having an X-potion on yourself at all times just makes you all the more a survivor. Team up with cooking skills to make yourself an uber medicator.
#4 Works out great if you are like me and do not have the time to run with guilds and make profit the funner and more ussual way, from drops.
#5 It is somewhat fun to pump out HQs though they will not make you much of a fortune as other crafts. Other crafts, like gold and cloth cost a fortune to level up and make much more gil.
#6 There are items that can make huge gil in alchemy though many alchemists elude otherwise, Hawkers knife+1 for instance.
#7 There are many alchemists though not many smart alchemists. alchemy can be extremely profitable depending on how the materials are attained.
#8 Alchemists are usefull in guilds for being able to make poison potions, echo drops, potions, ethers, etc.
#9 Enchanting weapons with your name on it makes a great gift. These things are ussually cheap to make and hardly ever acquired so they are fairly rare to see. For instance a lvl 66 whm was stoked when I gave her a divine wand just for keeping my mule safe on a walk to Jueno yesterday.
#10 Being able to make your own anima makes collecting all of the ensorcellment, and enchantment key items from other guilds a viable option for gil making as sometimes other guilds enchanted items may be worthwhile to make for profit.

These are the best reasons I could think of, I am an avid alchemist.
It is not the only cheap craft to level up that can make decent gil, consider guilds where a little farming goes a long way, like bonecrafting or tanning if you like to farm for your materials. Farming for alchmey items is not very time efficient most of the time, even if you farm for materials with a 74 blm/thf like myself. Cooking is the other cheap craft to level which you can consider also if you like cheap crafts.

I hope this information is helpfull to you.

If you decide to take up alchemy then "welcome" to the world of virtual drug dealing.