How did YOU get started?

I’ve been looking into making money using AdSense and AdWords techniques. I’ve been researching this for a few months now, and have probably put in fifty or sixty hours of research in. But I’ve found something interesting- you guys are a rather elite crowd, not too accommodating of newcomers. So I won’t steal your traffic, promise, just let me in the in crowd, thank you very much.
These forums, as well as others, seem to not help newbies at all, but rather help specific problems. Well, I have a very general problem- I’ve spent $60 and not made any. That means I lost $60. That sucks. But I realize that somehow you got started. How?
I realize that there are many different methods of making money. I am not interested in selling products, and I would prefer to not do arbitrage, […]

Original post by Big Ricky