I myself hear myths of people who work via the internet, or blog for a living, or code an hour a day and still make enough to survive comfortably... Are there such people on Less Wrong that could tell us their secret?

I'm one of them. I code from home for 1 or 2 hours a day and make more than enough to live comfortably in Moscow. But, unfortunately, there's no magical secret to it.

I'm 27 now (turning 28 in a couple weeks) and started to earn money coding when I was 15. I changed employers a lot and learned a lot. (Worked from home a lot, too, and did many contract jobs.) At my current job I initially worked in the office for two years, so they got to know and value me. Then last winter I told my employer that I wanted to work from home with one office day a week, while taking a salary hit. They agreed and told me the salary would stay the same.

From where I stand, "snagging gigs" is not really a problem. Finding qualified people is the problem. Every successful software company in the world wants to hire every good engineer they can get.