STEP 1 - GET A FUCKING JOB
Any job will do. Some shitty manual labor position is great because then you also get some activity in so you aren't a fat bastard. I reccomend some jobs that arent fucking dangerous.
Easy jobs to get are landscaping (usually pays under the table cash), construction clean up, warehouse, or whatever you can find on your local Craigslist 'gigs' section. Alternatively there's the dreaded nightshift tech support. Look around for these on CL, or move to somewhere in your country where the jobs are. In Canada this means terribad mining and oilfiend work but it pays like $40/hr and there's nothing else to do up there, perfect for studying.
For me, I got a job at the post office and delivered mail, which meant I got off early and had lot's of time for school. Also consider institutions that will pay you to learn a trade, such as telephone companies and whatever else.
STEP 2 - START SAVING MONEY
Basic income budget rule is 70/20/10
70% of your money goes to rent, food, clothing, your essentials.
20% goes to short term savings, like buying a multi core box with 32G+ ram for compiling programs (we'll get to this later)
10% goes to long term savings, like emergency savings if you're ever laid off, I dunno.
To accomplish this I simply log into online banking after I'm paid and just move 30% of the money out of my account to savings like clockwork to prevent me blowing it on bullshit and impulse garbage.
STEP 3 - GET A CREDIT CARD BUT NEVER GO INTO DEBT
Use this card for everything like groceries, gas whatever. Always, ALWAYS pay off the entire amount at the end of the month. This builds your credit to god like levels. You will need this later when you launch your own startup and need funding.
STEP 4 - TAKE FREE ONLINE SCHOOL
http://www.khanacademy.org/ - retake Grade 11/12 math and make sure you're solid in algorithms and precalculus. They're only a few minute long lectures that's all you need. Physics are also online.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/#electrical-engineering-and-computer-science Take some of these courses, follow a plan like the one's laid out for regular students: http://www.eecs.mit.edu/academics-admissions/undergraduate-programs
I took 6-3 and a few 6-2 courses, the one's I could do without needing physical access to a lab. You considerably shorten the time it takes to finish these courses from a regular student. I would get off work at 2pm, make some food and stream a lecture while eating it. Afterwards I'd do the assigned work. Then I'd fuck around with whatever, and do another lecture. Then go hang out with my girl. I did this everyday M-Friday while working. Weekends I took off.
Regular university they split up classes 2x a week or 3x a week, you're doing it 2x a day and will blast through it in less than a few weeks, forget entire semesters. IF YOU DO THE WORK/LABS ASSIGNED, YOU WON'T FORGET THE MATERIAL.
Keep doing this and progress through the courses until you have basically given yourself an undergraduate degree in Eng/CompSci.
STEP 5 - BUILD A PORTFOLIO
Now you have the knowledge, prove it to people. Start a security blog/status.net and write about whatever 0-day hacks you found in the Android source code. Write about game theory, contribute to the Tor project and any investment in Deep Web, or just contract yourself out to build websites for clients.
In my case I would modify AOSP for security, build it with SEandroid and sold my own devices. This is where your multi core 32G+ Ram box comes in handy because building AOSP takes forever otherwise. I created ultra secure handsets and sold them on craigslist probably to drug dealers, but nevertheless no longer needed to do my old job anymore.
STEP 6 - EITHER GET A $70k+ ENTRY JOB CODING WITH YOUR PORTFOLIO AND SKILLS, OR START YOUR OWN COMPANY
The problem with coding F/T for a startup is that they will overwork you to death to push out their release and often never pay any overtime or extra benefits. You also have to do fucking queer team bulding corporate society faggot tree. Possibly, MAYBE if the company is bought out you may see some share profits but unlikely. More likely they will buy the company, screw you and move the coding to India or Ireland or somewhere else leaving you unemployed. You'll also have to contribute serious time to some other guy's project so he can make millions. If you're going to work that much, be your own boss.
If you want to startup your own company this is where your platinum credit rating comes in handy. Nobody will turn you down for funding. Startup any bullshit cloud application or anything to do with the medical/heath industry such as adapting CryptDB to a product that can be used for medical offices or other sensitive data. Build it up and shop it for a takeover, you will sell your company quickly.
STEP ???? - PROFIT
Now you have money from your sold startup, saved money from all your work either bulding sites or whatever you decided to do, and a platinum credit rating. You're ready to bankroll your own startup something you can truly 100% own and build from scratch however you want. Maybe you want to bankroll an open source project and don't care about the money because you already have enough from selling your last company. Maybe you want to design and build your own handsets and the operating system that they come with (because the AOSP kernel is fucking ridiculously huge and full of bugs)
Success!
FAQ:
But I must have a piece of paper from a recognized University!
No coding or startup looking for partners gives a fuck about paper, they care about proof like portfolios and demonstrations. Moxie Marlinspike has zero post secondary and sold his mobile security project to Twitter for a shitload of money, and now even works for them on a contract basis. No paper.I want to be a doctor can I do it online for free?
Fuck no obviously. But you can take most of the required courses online for free then go apply directly into second year, once again showing them proof you know what you're doing through demonstration/auditing courses.Can I get some sort of certs for all this?
If you must, stanford university offers certs for their online courses. Can always pay for all those bullshit online security certs as well.
The business I started for myself (after I sold the other one) is awesome and I hardly have to work since most of it is automated. I don't do any 'team building events', I don't have to worry about release dealines and dealing with slipshod coworker code, I don't have to answer to anybody (even my customers I don't have to answer to, my software is sold as-is and there's never been any problems, esp no security problems from all the proper coding I learned from 6-3 courses) and the way I've set it up I don't even have to offer customer support since I built it correctly the first time so any idiot can use it.