I went through exactly the same thing as you when starting out a couple of months ago, including the sarky and unhelpful response from the 14 year old, so don't feel bad about posting in the way you did. I play Party NL10 atm, crushed it for 500 bucks fairly quicky just 1 and 2 tabling, tried to move up and lost 4 BI's within a week, so I'm consolidating atm. I'm 4 tabling at nl10 while I repair the damage. I have an economics degree and I'm numerate, for what that's worth, and have studied game theory and stuff.
The main problems I've had are
a) when scaling up you are spreading your concentration much thinner. As a beginning player, I tend to find I make a lot of mistakes because I get tired and flustered easy. If I just play one table I can watch every move, but 4 tabling and more, one has to rely on set pieces and experience to a large degree. My winrate started at around 40BB-100 over 200 hands, it has since dropped to like 10BB over 15000 hands.
The upside is that I'm now able to clear bonuses quickly, Party and Empire were really good for this but you may have missed the boat there unfortunately.
My ambition is a bit more modest than yours just now, I am just aiming to break even at NL25 so I can clear some of the fat bonuses that the various sites offer. Most require playthroughs of 10k hands or more at NL25, but are paying bonuses in the 100's, so that's where I think my profit will come from in the next couple of months. You might want to look at
www.bonuswhores.com if you haven't already, they have all the latest signup bonuses listed out.
b) I completely believe you when you say you are intelligent and learn fast. That probably goes for most of the folks who post here. Unfortunately, there's really no substitute for experience, I am finding.
c) you need time to read up properly and let the knowledge soak in. Read No limit holdem theory and practice (slansky)if you haven't already plus there are various books on the mathematics of poker which you may or may not have read. I am still getting my head around the concepts that these books set out.
Re the 30 bucks, I don't doubt you'll make it, so I won't bet. I doubt you'll make much more at this stage, but gl anyhow.
Last thing, I'd recommend you move up gradually to NL25 rather than just arriving at a new level one day. Try playing a table of NL10 and a table of NL25 for a bit