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Skipping meals.
Seriously.

IsThereAnyDeal also helps a lot to find good games for really good prices.

You do not need to force yourself to compete with those users, just you do you and give what you can :)
And they probably just have some spare cash laying around and they are feeling generous enough to give them to SG

Skip meals, eat lesser?
Not spending much on clothes etc?
Working etc?
Spend lesser on myself?
Spend on bundles or get games that are on offer?

I am supposed to save up for a new laptop but i ended up spending on giveaway so shrugs.. it just means I have to wait for next month pay and then save up from there

I'm still a student (low income), so speaking for myself, I share games when I already have it from bundles, or I buy them on Chrono.gg (for free) just to give them away.

If your budget doesn't allow it don't try to beat the AAA giveaways it's fun but better to have some money in your wallet than have 10 good giveaways active at a time.

I have a monthly budget what I've made myself for "entertainment" so I use that, of course that would depend a lot on how much extra spending money you have. I tend to find and buy good deals or bundles with games that I want for myself but not activate them on my account as I already have a big backlog anyway, instead I hoard them for months and at some point if I would feel like making a good giveaway or some event like the recent community train happens and I give them away there, if it's an older good game and it's been bundled it will most likely be bundled or on a good sale at some point by the time I get around to playing it. The community train completely emptied my stocked up keys so I'll now probably rest for a few months not making many giveaways, maybe a couple of cheap bundle games but that's about it and then when I have more keys stocked up I'll probably make a bunch at the same time.

I am not particularly rich (going to school) but I have enough money that I don't really have to worry about it. (Maybe because I don't spend that much money)
I am usually giving away games I got from bundles and sometimes buy some unbundled games which are not too expensive.
Just give something away when you can, noone expects from you AAA giveaways. Take it easy and enjoy your stay on that site :)

I use the Tremor Games site for most of my giveaways.

I started using SteamGifts because I was subscribed to Humble Bundle and didn't know what to do with the games I already owned.
With time I've ended up buying more bundles because even if they only have one or two games I'm interested in, I can gift the rest here.
Don't force it, everyone contributes with what they can, otherwise you're gonna end up burning out, specially when you find out some winners haven't played their wins.

I came accross Steamgifts like two years ago.
Back then i was allready aware of Bundles and activated any game from them even the unwanted ones.
Then i came to Steamgifts and i started to only activate the games i want and gave the rest away, i even started to delete allmost 500 Games from my Steam account.
Over Steamgifts i found Groupbuys and i started to buy more indiegala bundles then before and spend still less on bundles then before cause of the savings. And again all the unwanted stuff found its way to steamgifts.

Now two years later i have given away alot of games, of course allmost all of them are bundled.
But bundled does not mean that it is trash, of course a good portion of my GA´s are, was and will be trash, because they are part of the bundles.
So you really do not have to do something special to give something.

So, my question to you all out there, how is it that you guys afford to do all these giveaways?

I've given like 650-ish games now. Sounds like a lot, but the reality is that usually I didn't actually go out of my way to buy games for giveaways. Sometimes I bought the $1 tier of a good Humble Bundle to give away if I thought the games there deserved to be shared with people.

What do you do, do you get bundles and how do you keep from wanting games from bundles for yourself? (like humble bundle)

Mainly it's spare keys from bundles that I mainly bought for myself, being given away here. I at first claimed all of the games I got from the bundles, but over time you realize that you have too many games and that it's time to curb your habit of getting everything. Nowadays I still buy stuff and redeem it, but the main difference is that there's an 80-90% chance that I'll play the game I got as soon as possible.

I have managed to get to level 10 on a very limited budget. I did it by saving up money over time and buying things that were on sale. I will give you an example.

1. If I take one dollar every other day, and I set it aside for my "gift fund," , I have $15 to spend at the end of the month.
2. With that $15, I can afford a $60 game that is on sale for 75% off.
3. I also have the options of either buying multiple, less-expensive games (on sale), or saving the money up for next month.

So, getting to level 10 is simply a matter of saving up, bit by bit, and buying stuff when it goes on sale. Bundles are always cheaper, and if you want "CV that lasts," buy Steam bundles (like this one) and give them away before the games end up "bundled."

Don't try to compare yourself to other Users.
Some of us are already adults with jobs and stuff while others still go to school or can't (find) work...
That doesn't mean, that someone is better or worse than others and steamgifts should never give you the feeling, that you have to spend your last dollar for some stranger.

If you want to get into the community you still can work on events, talk in chats and so on and from time to time, drop a game that you have left.
"how do you keep from wanting games from bundles for yourself": well, if your libary is big enough and you are not collecting games for the +1 it's simple. Just activate what you want to play for sure...

I started buying $1 bundles 7 years ago when I started working. After some time there were duplicates that were just left unused for about 2-3 years. When I stumbled upon this site, I first didn't know how it worked, and only returned a year later. I then noticed I could drop my leftover keys here from old bundles, and started rising through the levels. I still don't buy anything specifically for SG, and I'm at level 7 now from bundles alone. So it's doable.

how do you keep from wanting games from bundles for yourself?

I have pretty specific tastes when it comes to games. I also have limited free time, so I try to be realistic about what I might actually be able to play. And even more helpful, I don't care how many games I have in my Steam account. I'm not trying to level up or get badges or farm cards or any of that. So that makes it easier.

Just give away whatever/whenever you can/want, it's not a competition

You should absolutely not be buying video games for strangers on the Internet if you're struggling financially. This is such a bizarre thing to be worried about.

I discovered this site as a way to give away unwanted games from bundles, which I'm sure is how most people arrived at it. If you're working on a budget, buy bundles (Humble, Fanatical, etc) with games that you want and create giveaways for the games you don't.

Don't see a reason to compete with anyone. Giveaway what you can, when you can. Also i never giveaway a game i want, just those i know i'm not going to play or the ones that i already own.

don't buy stuff for yourself, buy it for others. it works both for sg and real life. ^^

they buy bundles games ----> they use the good games for themself ---> they try to sell the rest of the games in steamtrades ----> they can't ----> they make a giveaway of them ----> they win points ----> they say that are very good people for giveaway that games....

obviously that is not for all the people here, but you will see soon that the few good games (not even AAA) are given away in a small groups and only a few good people giveaway good games.

is a bit hipocrit this community talking about giveaways, if you want help for something like questions etc... it's one of the best communities in internet, obviously you should try to make good the community too helping others, no need to give away a lot of games for be good in this community.

i stopped givingaway games after 2 years of not win a single thing here, i did a few giveaways using this forum for 0 points too and never from bundles games, but usually people buy 1 or 2 full bundles at cheap price for farm points for enter in groups or just for enter in high level giveaways (that's why i say this community it's hipocrit about giveaways)

Afford giveaways? What giveaways... Tell my girlfriend I'm not wasting any money for years now.

I personally do lots of different things. Every once in a while, I try to find non-bundled games that are on sale, buy a few at once while they're affordable, and then surprise the community with some of these little gems (they don't have to be $60 games...people will get very excited for $5 games that are decent and rare on SG). I also regularly shop bundles and look for deals.

If you want to play straight numbers and make leveling up on SG a game in itself, there are lots of ways to do that. First, be smart about how you shop for bundles. If you're playing the numbers game, you want to be sure that the bundle has as high of an average game value for your bundle investment so that your CV:money spent ratio is good. And remember to check the bundles for games that no longer have CV! Games like Lichdom look like they have a good return (because 20p on that title), but there's actually zero return because it was free at some point.

Fanatical generally has some bundles of pretty nice games at affordable prices. Once in a while, they'll have a dollar bundle that isn't complete garbage and has a big CV return (but OMG, I'm so sick of seeing those Viva bundle games 😖😅). Indiegala will often have really interesting little indie bundles, but you should always wait until they're on Happy Hour, because then you get two bundles for the price of one. GogoBundle and OtakuBundle (same company) have super-cheap bundles. Sometimes they're complete garbage (ok, a lot of the time they're complete garbage), but once in a while there are some real gems in there (usually along with some garbage 😀). The way you get a big return there is to buy multiple bundles (like 5 at a time) because the price-per-bundle goes waaaayyy down with multiples. Humble Bundle used to have awesome stuff all of the time, but it's a bit more limited these days unless you subscribe -- but you should still check, because some nice stuff pops up now and again. I would stay as far from HRK as possible, because those people have tried some really shady crap with my payment info (and tried to get me to send a picture of my face with my ID -- yeah, never happening) to convince me to join G2Pay, which incurs a monthly fee, so avoid those guys -- I don't trust them.

As pointed out by others, the best way to win better games is 1) level up by giving lots to the community, which gives you access to higher-level GAs with a smaller potential winner pool, and 2) Get involved in groups; these often have monthly giving requirements, but that also means that you will always see activity in these groups and are part of a limited pool, creating a lot more wins.

I try to participate in all kinds of things and be a part of the broad community. I do plenty of public GAs, lots of invite-only GAs (because I create lots of little events, and the GAs have to be invite-only to ensure that they're associated with the event), as well as participating in groups. I also have fun adding people to my whitelist, especially if they have a positive giving ratio, and doing the occasional GA there too.

When I'm clearing out the low-rent keys, I make sure that I call that out and have fun with it by doing it via a Trash Train (or Crap Convoy™, or Junk Drawer Extravaganza™, or Trash Tornado™ [one of these coming soon]). And, I try to ensure that it's not all actually garbage, but that there are nice little indie gems among the no-reason-to-own-this-other-than-for-a-+1-trash, and then I also usually hide some GAs for high quality bundle titles as well as some non-bundle titles among these.

Just remember to shop smart, like in all of the rest of your life. Take advantage of sales when they're happening, even if you're not planning to do a big GA blast that week. Those keys will keep just fine, and if you give them next month, that's cool. Buy when things are cheap, build a little library of stuff, and as you learn how to acquire things without breaking the bank, you'll pretty quickly be able to save up enough stuff to do events and have a good time with it. And if you're trying to build a brand, well, people will start to recognize that.

There were a lot of people that showed me how to do this stuff after I showed up about 1.5 years back, and I'm eternally grateful for it (as well as for the understanding when I messed stuff up). SG is pretty cool community especially if you're open and honest about what you want to get out of it and how you're capable of participating (and then actually following through with it).

Hope that helps -- best of luck!

Humble Bundle, Fanatical, IndieGala, even gogo or otakubundle bundle sites offer bundles of games for very reasonable prices. Give what you can and games that you don't want. Once you have a certain amount of games in your library, buying bundles will usually mean some repeat games and those can be given away.

I started off giving games on Indiegala giveaway site first then found this place through that. Nowadays, most of the games I giveaway are on this site as I prefer it over Indiegala for many reasons. Best of luck and this is not something you need to compete with people about. Give what you can without overstretching yourself. I am fortunate I have a decent job which allows me to buy games to giveaway.

Even though I purchased all of my Object "Cleaning" keys through IndieGala, their system was unable to handle me making giveaways for that game. This site allowed me to give away those keys. I'm enjoying making giveaways more than trading so here I am :F

Most of the time I will buy two copies of a bundle so I can keep one copy for me and save one for a rainy day