Well, in my case, I did paid to post/ paid to blog. AssociatedContent, etc and things rolled off the bat from there.
I still don't make enough to quit my day job but good enough thus far. It's been at least 6 months since I started out. I ended up actually buying a one month membership with Wealthy Affiliate, but, really, I found more useful information on forums like this one where everything is just cut to the chase and there are a lot less run arounds. There's also more updated info on these types of free forums.