Hi Gambubble,
as I am at work I have some time to respond to your post
.
I cant say that my job is as demanding as yours but I do have a full time job (9am-6pm) and this cuts back in my poker time alot (mainly because I am too tired to play after work). I do not plan to make poker my full time job as it seems way too asocial but it would be nice if it became a decent second income.
I also started playing poker one year ago and I have build up a nice bankroll from almost nothing to about 1000$. I know this isnt alot of money but if you keep in mind that I didnt even know what a full house was when I started, you can imagine I got quite lucky in the beginning especially in some tournaments. But I did read alot of forums, articles, posted hands and videos. You dont have to pay for decent poker vids, there are tons of them free available. ( look at flopturnriver.com for spenda's microstakes videos - very valuable - sorry Trikkur but I really like the guy who made those and if it can help anyone, you cant be angry at me for pointing those vids out
).
I started playing at the 10NL level and stayed there for a VERY long time playing overrolled. I can see you are already talking about earning money with poker but your stats show you are losing at the 10NL level? (ps: dont play 10NL at Full Tilt). Especially you are losing alot with one pair hands! Dont be so curious of what other people have when you are fairly certain that you are beat: FOLD. My favourite notes on people at 10NL are: "calls 3 streets with top pair" or "stacks of with TPTK".
You have probalby seen Trikkur's video: playing TAG to beat the micro's. I can not stress the value of this video enough: Fold AJ UTG, dont call a raise with KQ preflop, NEVER bluf your opponent and so on.
Nowadays I still play at the 10NL level because I had a huge downswing this month at 25NL and 50NL. I am still rolled for 25NL but I want to build my confidence in the sense that I got an unlucky streak and it wasnt due to me playing bad.
I dont know what bank roll you have or how much money you are willing to lose playing poker but there are a ton of ways to build up a bankroll fairly easy: always play with rakeback + bonus. There are alot of sites which offer a bonus+rakeback, so dont play on a site just for the rakeback but switch sites regularly to get the free bonus money. There is also a site: Pokersource.com (google it) which offer an extra bonus if you sign up through them if there is a site which offers no rakeback. Just clear the bonus and move on.
Anyway, I wish you all the best with your new job and dont be in a hurry to move up in limits until you are very very certain that you beat the level and you didnt have a lucky streak because if you hit the other side of variance on a higher limit it will crush you.