Patio11 was among those: he offered to pay me 400 USD a month, every month, to make a custom Wordpress theme for him. I took him up on it. His offer really helped. The ability to hammer out a Wordpress theme and cover my living costs in a short period of time meant that I could hire out someone else to do the tasks that were taking all of my time to pay for my food and rent. With the new-found free time, I was able to focus on marketing and sales and grow the service I had been doing myself into a larger business. By the time the 2nd Wordpress theme was due, I had run overdue on its deadline because my tiny business had been covered by some major media and I was swamped with just keeping it up and running. Thankfully Patrick was understanding when I turned in the late 2nd project and told him I simply had no more time to design for him due to my personal business's growth.

Fast-forward a few months. I now have 5 people working under me (3 full-time, 2 part-time) and my own office. Things are still hard, and I'm not rich, but I'm in a much better place than I was when I first posted. Thank you!