try my e-book in my post, build a business online, long term income... and alot of it lol. with 10,000, my e-book costs peanuts lol... check my signature for links to the threads on this forum!
With your skillset, you could offer services at Elance or Getafreelancer. If you want to make automated, online income, then you should study internet marketing for a few months to figure out which part suits your personality. Then sell something in the health, finance, or relationships niche. Once you've figured out what you want to promote, FOCUS only on that one product, and promote the hell out of it for at least three months before you even consider promoting something else.
Talk to a financial advisor. I would invest the $10,000 in mutual funds. The US Stock market is undervalued right now. In 2 1/2 years you won't make a ton of money from your mutual funds, but they will definitely return more than keeping the money in your savings or checking account. Plus you don't really have to do any really work other than the buying and selling of the funds. Then you could use your time to create blogs and other websites that are very cheap to create, just paying for shared hosting.
Buy a website that offers monthly income proof and hopefully you can try and double the earnings, if not try and toy with the stock market.
For 10k 1. Don't create any partnerships through DP without doing a complete background check and also seeing a verified resume of great accomplishments. 2. Might think about investing in a website that is already making income and is in a niche you enjoy so you can continue their success and expand it even more. 3. To be honest making money on the internet becomes harder and harder and a 10k budget won't help you run with the big dogs anyways on creating websites so if I were you I might buy a website for 3k, put another 1k into that website, and then invest the other 6k in something more traditional such as stocks, gold, silver, currency trading, etc.
please, please, do NOT invest on forex if you've never tried a live account before. You can burn your money like nothing, just a little error in settings, or the fact of not understanding leverage can bring you to pass from $10,000 to 0 in no time. Invest in forex only the money you can afford to lose without consequences!
Forex is too risky as you can lose most of it overnight. I'd say... Invest in something your intrested in... Web design, web hosting ebooks. Good Luck!!