Ok,

So let's say you can't go back to school. It's not exactly the end of the world. I'm not going to offer full fledged financial advice as I'm not really qualified. But if you want my story.

I barely graduated high school. I believe I had a c- or d average (i tested well i just never applied myself). I went to a Community College for a whole semester before dropping out due to an inability to fund my tuition. I spent the majority of my early 20s in dead end retail jobs.

I lived in Tennessee at the time and after a nasty breakup I moved to the east coast (dc area). I was all but given a department manager job at Wal-Mart because I spoke English well and to be honest the affluent locals wanted to work with someone they could identify with and the heavily foreign workforce had very few native English speakers.

As I had Manager in my title I decided to leverage the title into a new job. I looked into a tier 1 IT position for a start up and although i hadn't gotten an A+ certification I managed to land a job by being a good interviewee/problem solver (took this job just shy of age 30 so way behind you).

Anyway long story short through strong work ethic/study I've managed to advance my career in the IT field. My skills from retail carried over pretty well as IT is a service industry. Sometimes there is a need for someone with patience who can relate to both the techs and the user base and i fit in well in this regard. I loved the problem solving aspect of the work and was a lot less introverted than most techs so I handle the people/service aspect very well.

I've changed jobs a couple times over the years and am now the head of my site's IT department. I'm not exactly pulling six figures yet but I'm a hell of a lot closer than i ever thought i would be I'm 36 now and supporting a family of 4 on just my income.

TLDR: No degree, no certifications. Head of IT department making pretty decent money with nothing but a high school education. Hang in there and work hard!