Time for some life changes.

[SamuelRSmith]

Oooh, you're a programmer?

My uncle is in a very similar boat to you, except he has a genuine threat, rather than "just in case", see, he programs in a language called Pres. It's a dieing language, but because it's dieing, and he's one of the few that know how to program with it, he can demand a lot of money for his services.

Unfortunately, because it's a dieing language, he knows that within the next 5-10 years his skills won't be demanded anymore. He's got a wife and two (young) kids, and he knows he's going to be in quite some financial trouble in the years to come.

He lives at his means, though. He's bought a house in an expensive area because of the money he's making now, he's living quite an expensive lifestyle, which he can maintain at the moment, but won't be able to in the future.

So he's trying to diversify, getting into a lot of the web stuff, now, but because it's a big industry, lots of people can do it, and so he still won't be able to demand as much money. He's also not learning at a massively rapid pace, because he doesn't need to for the next few years, at least.

I, too, am looking to getting into the computing industry, though I'm not sure which area. I'm probably going to study pure computing science at university, and go from there on out.