I found $20 on the ground once. Doesn't mean I can just go outside and start bending over till I get to 20k.
If you join a bunch of the freelance marketplaces it's really not hard. I literally receive offers for jobs every day or so, most aren't that good, but probably once every month or two it is as described.
The problem is, I have no idea going in if a code review is going to be easy, or if the bugs are easy to fix. That's somewhat just luck.
Hmm I've always heard the exact opposite. I haven't seen a freelance type of marketplace that isn't a huge race to the bottom. Whenever I've done consulting it's always been through contacts that I know; I've never found a way to actually make decent money through other means.
It wasn't supposed to be gloating, it was more - it's not as hard as you think.
Depending how hard I/you try to find consulting work, you can totally make 20k, of course it depends on the month. The best part, is that you can write off business expenses on your taxes. So, you pay significantly less (if any) tax on that 20k.