~$78 (USD) Freelance Drupal developer. I had spent a long time in the Drupal forums answering questions, simply because I thought it was fun. Someone sent me

~$78 (USD) Freelance Drupal developer. I had spent a long time in the Drupal forums answering questions, simply because I thought it was fun. Someone sent me a message privately, saying that I had answered one of their questions and solved their problem, and asked if I could solve a harder one privately. It turned out to just be a character encoding issue in the database. Because of currency conversions, it came out to ~$78. I was absolutely floored that anyone would pay for something so "simple", so I started pursuing freelancing jobs. I didn't have a portfolio, so I simply pointed to my activity in the forums as my proof of knowledge and ability. I paid for my music degree, and then a CS degree (without student loans) this way.