It's a tough situation; I was in a similar circumstance including parents salaries disqualifying me for financial aid (my father passed away a month before I started college, but the lookback period for financial aid is 3 years of income. Unfortunately he made 3/4 of our family's income and after his death we couldn't easily afford college).
The reality is this: without a degree, and no experience people have to take you on your word that you know what you're doing, and they're loathe to do so. You're going to have to probably deal with low pay until you get enough experience to be able to convince someone you know enough to pay you the salary they'd pay a grad. It may not be a great situation but I did it as well. My first 'real' job was $8 an hour "tech support" for a mom & pop ISP that involved 10% phone support, 40% systems administration and 50% programming. I got overworked and beat on, but eventually I got enough experience to jump to a 'real' programming job (who also underpaid me and overworked me, but a year there gave me 2+ solid years of demonstrable experience and I was able to call the shots a bit more).
Continue your work on Ubuntu and other open source projects. Not only will it continue to build experience, and get your name on projects which you can hold up to a prospective employer, you will get to know other developers who might be in a position to help you find something better.
The pay and the hours will suck at first, but it improves. You can't be aiming at an $85k target with no experience though without coming out disheartened. Focus on the experience first, and THEN the money. It follows quickly in hand if you do it right.
Since nobody mentioned it, New York tends to have a pretty decent market with a fairly broad skillset. You're always best off of course moving to a city for a job you already have, rather than moving to a city and then finding a job. You might find yourself in a messy situation if you just move blindly. There are still a good bit of companies that will pay moving expenses - at the LEAST, if you're clear in a cover letter that you're looking to move to a market with a more established IT industry, and you'll pay moving on your own it won't disqualify you just because of location.
I'll second the recommendation of working on open source projects - with many hiring managers, the only way they're not going to care about a degree is you have commercial quality code out there that they can see.
The other thing I would suggest is to do some research on companies and target a few likely ones - watch their jobs pages over time to see how they hire - then look for projects that would be appealing to them. Individuals have to do marketing just like companies.
I know a previous employer of mine recently hired a web designer right out of high school based on the strength of his portfolio.
I am not aiming for $85k, I'm not aiming for any sum of money. I just want to make a living coding. I'd be happy with $30k if it were matched with a decent work environment.
I have been considering moving to a better IT market, I just felt weak when it came to getting a programming job, so wasn't certain if I'd be able to get one remotely.
With all due respect, you're exhibiting signs of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Degrees matter, sure. But there's definitely a way you can demonstrate knowledge without having one. Here is a good read:
Definitely get some F/OSS projects under your belt. It's a great way to show what you can do, and you can work on them completely on your own schedule. To show that you know compilers, help out with code optimization in Rhino. To show you know networking, help out fixing an IM client's file transfer. To show that you know web programming, rewrite phpMyAdmin as a webapp, or make a web-based learning tool for kids like Karel The Robot (Google that).
At least for me, I don't think it was the degree that helped with jobs, it was the side projects I worked on in the 4 years of (what I realize now were) oceans of free time.
I understand what you're saying about Dunning-Kruger, but I could sit here and tell you about the merits of Linux Kernel asm-level syscalls versus DOS interrupts.
I know i386 and PPC asm.
I have a passion for algorithms, in particular, I like in my spare time to create mini-benchmarks of sorting algorithms against various arbitrary datasets.
I know my stuff. I just can't demonstrate the more advanced work I've done because it usually violates US Copyright Law.
EDIT: Let me qualify this by saying there is tons more I need to learn, and want to know. For example, I really REALLY need to learn more about web application development.
It doesn't matter if you tell yourself you know your stuff. I don't think anyone ever says "I don't know anything." You need to prove it. Companies don't care what you tell them, you need to show them.
If all the intelligent work you do can't be shared... you need to do some intelligent work that you can share. Otherwise nobody will know you're good.
Get involved with open source projects. If you get yourself involved in a community that already exists, and you show you know your stuff, you will be showered with job offers. If you do your own thing and then whine on HN, you will be unemployed forever.
The reality is this: without a degree, and no experience people have to take you on your word that you know what you're doing, and they're loathe to do so. You're going to have to probably deal with low pay until you get enough experience to be able to convince someone you know enough to pay you the salary they'd pay a grad. It may not be a great situation but I did it as well. My first 'real' job was $8 an hour "tech support" for a mom & pop ISP that involved 10% phone support, 40% systems administration and 50% programming. I got overworked and beat on, but eventually I got enough experience to jump to a 'real' programming job (who also underpaid me and overworked me, but a year there gave me 2+ solid years of demonstrable experience and I was able to call the shots a bit more).
Continue your work on Ubuntu and other open source projects. Not only will it continue to build experience, and get your name on projects which you can hold up to a prospective employer, you will get to know other developers who might be in a position to help you find something better.
The pay and the hours will suck at first, but it improves. You can't be aiming at an $85k target with no experience though without coming out disheartened. Focus on the experience first, and THEN the money. It follows quickly in hand if you do it right.
Since nobody mentioned it, New York tends to have a pretty decent market with a fairly broad skillset. You're always best off of course moving to a city for a job you already have, rather than moving to a city and then finding a job. You might find yourself in a messy situation if you just move blindly. There are still a good bit of companies that will pay moving expenses - at the LEAST, if you're clear in a cover letter that you're looking to move to a market with a more established IT industry, and you'll pay moving on your own it won't disqualify you just because of location.
Good luck!