Making Money In TF2

Big money in TF2 is made from exclusive items. The items you get for preordering the next AAA.
You have a 4h (?) timer on item drops, so don't get too hopeful.
The money you make can only be used in the steam store.

I would say it is definitely doable. I actually know somebody who started with almost nothing valuable and built up to almost $2500 USD in items.

The only way I think you can actually 'make' money is trying to mooch profitable items off poor blokes that have no idea what they have in their inventory (yes it happened to me, some kids nagged me for weeks for free items I had no idea are actually worth anything).

Needless to say, I think its an ugly practice.

I would be surprised if someone could make a liveable income out of it. All you get on Steam is wallet funds anyway.

Your final goal is to find unusuals and sell them via PayPal.

Only chance of making anything worthwhile is buy uncrating and getting unusuals. It usually takes around 100 uncrates to get one unusual so you need to have starting capital. It's risky but very rewarding for some.

Also if you could go back in time and collect as many buds/bills/HOUWAR etc, it could also work.

start with this, find an idle server for #1 method, then follow #4 method, then when you earn the first key sell it for more then its avg price and re-buy it for less, so you can earn some scrap or rec medal, repeat this last point forever...in three days I made a key, but since I haven't got a lot of free time, I gave it for a game...remember that keys can be exchanged for a game, you can buy games with TF2 keys with a consistent discount

Buy low, sell high. Nothing complicated about it. About a third of the games on my Steam account were earned through trading alone. Haven't done much trading recently though since I've been busy, so I don't know what kind of shape the market's currently in...

realistically 10 USD in 2 weeks

Well...It's not tf2 buts its close, dota 2 market is just as profitable.Here's something neat I found. See, in the Valve's merch store there are these headphones, Gamescon 780's, they are pretty good. It was $80, came with a dota 2 headband and a code for an item, battlefury. This item...is weird. It sells more than the headphones are worth, significantly. I was offered $120 paypal for them and that was a low offer. I took $150 worth of keys instead :D ( not kidding, here's the screenshot http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=132994923). Few things to note, battlefury codes can only be used once per account, so you can only do this trick once unless you want to make a bunch of spam accounts. Also the headphones have a tendency to go out of stock often.

Grinding items, and trading items on either TF2 or Dota 2, you can make a little profit, but unless you're putting in hours upon hours trading items for other items, and then selling them for USD it's going to be a significant amount of work. Your best best would be creating items in the workshop for either game and making them good enough to where they're implemented into the market. I know some of the TF2 item makers, and some on Dota 2, and they can live VERY comfortably just creating items and receiving their stipend checks from Valve.

Loadsa idle accounts. Craft refined. Sell them.

I know you can't make anything livable from it, but how much can you realistically make?

"We have a kid in Kansas making $150,000 a year making [virtual] hats. But that’s just a starting point."

• Gabe Newell

Better off trying to make money in Second Life. I made around $500 in a month or two just taking part in events, doing random stuff. That was a few years ago now though, not sure how much it's died off over time.

I also met someone who crafted random types of flowers and plants in the game, they made enough money selling them to afford a flat, food and clothing in Central London (with no other job).

I think you'd be better off getting a real job with a steady income. Odds are, the profits you'd make doing that would largely overshadow anything you'd make with tf2 items. If I misread the title and you want to CREATE items for tf2, I hear that can actually eb fairly lucrative (if you have some skills under your belt).

Better to get a job than to rely on TF2 trading.

well, my friend is a idler he does got 100-150+ tf2 idle accounts (all premium ofc). He bought a bike of of it he still can sell them but he just holds the metal right now. yes you can make a living of of it, with enough idle accounts.