We had little to no support from parents. Having full support of immediate and extended family would have been really, really helpful. Instead, my dad's girlfri

We had little to no support from parents. Having full support of immediate and extended family would have been really, really helpful. Instead, my dad's girlfriend decided to kick my then-girlfriend-now-wife out when we were living at my dad's, my mom did the same, her dad was not in the picture, and her mom was at best a terrible room mate with mental issues. We were able to finally (through help provided by my best friend's dad) rent our own place at age 19. From there, my wife worked 2-3 jobs at a time while I had 1-2 part time jobs while being a full time student (one was doing php programming which would eventually lead to the way out of poverty). I eventually got my degree (BS Business Admin, minor CS) where I worked for the same friend's dad selling insurance, then went out to be a financial advisor with Edward Jones, did some construction work, got my teaching credential and taught inner city high school math (very rough), and all the while through those years I worked on programming/web-dev as a hobby. After losing my job as a teacher, I was able to work with a recruiter and able to get my first real programming job. We are now well adjusted upper middle class people and my wife is a stay at home mom and homemaker. Quite a wild ride!