What does Strider do for a living?

[Taurandeth]

Corey mentioned in the last stream that Butterbur probably thinks Strider was a highway robber or something like that to make a living.

I’m sure we can safely assume that Strider is nothing like that but this leaves the question: What does he do for a living? The rangers don’t farm or have towns for professional crafting and if they traded (hides of hunted animals for example) Butterbur would probably know about it.

But Strider has well-made clothes, weapons and even money, as he stays at the inn. So: Where did he get it?

 

[SteveR]

Aragorn and his mother were taken into the care of Elrond after the death of Arathorn. Elrond has been earning compound interest on his investments for a few millennia, so he has a decent endowment established to take care of things like bankrolling the future king of Gondor (who's good for it, presumably). He does make Aragorn submit expense reports, though.

 

[Harnuth]

Slightly more seriously: I suspect that the rangers mostly live off the land in their travels and get what coin and trade goods they need by selling the products of their hunting and gathering (meat, hides, furs, spices, medicinal herbs, rare plants) to more settled folks.

Of course, we don't know that there were not also farming settlements comprised of the remnants of the Numenorians. Tolkien didn't say. Based on real-life populations, I'd guess that about 1 in 20 of these folks were actually rangers, and the others gathered in isolated, and perhaps hidden, villages here and there throughout Middle Earth; and in those villages you would find all sorts of crafters to complement the farmers.