45 strength, 10 int, and 10 dex.  There is a very good reason for this.  When you start off you'll need as much strength as possible to use for raising combat skills and things of the sort.  Int and Dex are the EASIEST stats to raise, Dex being the easier of the two.  Strength however takes a long time and there aren't too many skills that check strength too well.

• Detecting Hidden - Excellent way to find hiddens players, but also excellent way to waste skill points.  Just use this while you are practicing on a dummy and it will help raise your int and dex a little, plus increase your ability to find hidden players.
• Hiding - Great skill.  Only problem is that it can be easily macroed and gain you tons of dex in the process.  You would waste tons of skill points starting off with this when you could just macro this when you go to bed or work or whatever.
• Combat Skills - Never ever start off with combat skills.  If you do, start with 1 of a certain skill so you get a practice weapon for it to spar with.  Combat skills should be raised on training dummies, animals, and sparring partners.
• Lore Skills - Anatomy, item id, arms lore etc... Don't bother with these, they can be practiced inside the game to raise int and a little dex.
• Tracking - This can also be macroed to raise dex and int.  20 tracking is just as good as 100 so you don't even have to macro it high before it becomes efficient.

     Notice how I said nothing about money making skills.  That's cause you don't need them.  For those of you who don't feel guilty about using a "mule" then do the following.  Make another character simply for making money.  When you're bored of playing go logon and make some cash for yourself then have a friend hold the money while you transfer it to your real guy or whatever.  This saves skill points and time for your real character.

    Ultima Online is a game, a complex multiplayer game.  ANYTHING that a player loses in this game can be replaced in less than 24 hours if the person is willing to do the work to recover them.  This is why you should not feel guilt when you are deciding whether or not to steal the items of an unsuspecting victim, or whether or not you should show mercy to your cowering, begging prey.  Any damage that you may cause to them can be easily fixed if your victim cares enough to do it, which brings me to this story. 

    Once upon a time...  I was hanging around the docks checking my luck to see if I could find an unlocked boat.  A fellow named Dexter and his friend were heading for their boat.  I heard Dexter asking his friend if he would like to go to the monster spawn point and kill things.  I offered my services to Dexter and asked if I could come along, he invited me onto his boat without protest.  During our boat voyage I peeked into his backpack and noticed no keys, only a wooden box which I oddly could not look inside of (this happened before containers within containers could be snooped.)  I concluded that his key must be inside that box, but I wasn't about to try to rob it while trapped on a boat.  We arrived at the "spawn area" when I was about to steal his box, suddenly I heard him say "Want to go to my house?" appear over his head and I quickly withdrew the thought of theft.  He took us to his house which was not too far away and let us in.  There was nothing worth stealing in it so I made a grab for the chest, thinking I could close the house door in their faces and make a run for it.  The box was too heavy for me to steal, but Dexter did not seem to notice my attempt to steal it.  A few minutes later we left his house and began to fight a troll.  His friend had begun to fight another creature while Dexter and I fought the troll.  After finishing off the troll, Dexter was nearly dead.  I decided that this was the only other way I was to get his house and boat key, I would have to kill him.  I quickly hurled a purple potion in his direction and proceeded to attack him after the potion had exploded.  He was a Journeyman Swordsman and I was only a Novice Fencer, but my advantage in HP overcame him and his bloody corpse fell to the floor.  I quickly took the box and left everything else on the corpse and made my way to the boat and sailed away.   

    The point of this story?  Dexter recovered his house key from me two days later when his entourage of mages paralyzed me and casted lightning bolt multiple times (this was back when paralyze didn't wear off after you got hit.)  See my point?  Anything can be recovered if the victim wants it back bad enough.  But wait, there's more.  Little did Dexter and his entourage know that I had already made a copy of the key.  Dexter, thinking his house was now secure, continued to fill his house up with fabulous items and money that I looted at my liberty many times before he noticed what was going on.  I had fun, lots of fun.  You can too, just as long as you remember that EVERYTHING is replaceable and that your crime is more of an inconvinience to the victim than a blatant violation of the law.  Oh and don't forget, this applies to you too.  Just cause you die doesn't mean it's over, it's just as easy for you to replace something you lose as it is for the victim to.  It ain't over till it's over (i.e. when you cancel your UO account.)