To get out of paycheck to paycheck you need to start something; to start something you need to learn.
If the thing you need to learn can be learnt from mitocw or something by all means do that.
The point being that you know what is it that you want (the thing to start), and you learn to make it work and you learn to not fuck it up(very important). You get those 3 sorted in that order then you're golden.
My mom used to do that, and then when I got taller than her changed to hooking my arm.
At first I was embarrassed but then I watched Wooster and Jeeves and learnt about the "supporting a lady" bit, then I was alright with it.