No malice intended... but I have never had a problem making money... good money... with no high school education, no trade, no degree, no profession... and I am a very disadvantaged immigrant since I am from the USA, I had to pay nearly $6000 for the privilege to live here with my wife and children... I run 2 businesses, work security, studying for a Degree in Nursing to become an registered nurse, re-qualifying as an emergency medical technician and there are a few other things I may have forgotten... and I trade physical metals privately and through the forum.
I started working one day a week at a farmers market nearly 3 years ago for $90 a day(about 9 hours) and all the veggies I needed to feed my family for a week, that 'job', now business today employs my wife, 2 sons, and gives me a residual income that lets me study full-time. But at the time the farmer could not find anyone who saw the value of $90 in hand and a few crates of veggies. By working that one day, I dropped the family grocery bill by $450 per fortnight, that was approx. $900 pretax per fortnight I did not have to earn and gave my family an amazing diet of fresh, organic fruit and veg. So my $90 day was worth to about $500 to me. Not a bad day's wages. And the farmer was not losing anything since most of the produce I took was the leftovers that were headed to the compost pile. We blanched, bottled, preserved and froze all the surplus and what was little value to others became great value to us.
By seeing value where no one else did and taking initiative, I have grown this job into a business that gives my wife a weeks wage for 2 days of work, my sons make more in 6 hours than their mates do working all week at KFC or McDonalds, and our family grocery bill is now around $125 per week for a family of 6 people including 3 growing boys, pays the cost of our vehicles, computers, mobiles, and etc.
This is one example of making the best with what you have and building on it. And by grabbing these types of opportunities and running with them, I have not had to work a 40hour week in nearly 20 years and am financially independent, as in I could live for the next 12 months without having an income, but that will never happen as I am always busy doing what I want to do and making money while doing it.
It is all about living in your means and making the hard choices, example... we own a very nice Tarago van which is 22 years old in nearly immaculate condition that cost me all of $3800 cash, while friends of ours bought a 'new' one, well... a 2008 model... because it was below their dignity to drive an old van... for $38,000... and our van hauls the same amount of people, goes just fast, gets nearly as good fuel economy, has all the mod cons including air conditioning(Wow!!) just like their 'new' Tarago, and our van is one better with full-time 4WD(here we come snow), but without the car loan. Oh, and that is the most expensive vehicle I have ever bought in Australia as I love old Falcon wagons for $1000, cheap, tough, economical, and easy to fix. Not mention all of our clothes come from Vinnies, we live in a 'poor' neighbourhood, most of our technology(TV's, video games, stereos, computers) is scavenged off the side of the road during council clean-ups.
And if you really want to find out what hitting the bottom of the barrel is like when there is no bottom... try living in the USA where you do not have Centrelink, Medicare, Parenting Payment, Family Tax Benefit... I rolled the dice on a business nearly 20 years ago which ended up leaving me with $400 in my pocket and $40,000 owed in legal fees along with a wife that was 7 months pregnant and a two year old son... no house, no money, no Centrelink, no Medicare, nothing... and had to start all over from scratch including paying the $15,000 in medical expenses for our second son's birth. That is what is is like to live in 'Paradise'.
So honestly, you get little or no sympathy from me.