Are there any similar resources in spanish? I'm interested in passing this info to my wife, but unfortunately her english is not so good, so it would be a problem for her to follow the guides in the comments.
you have http://pythonpracticeprojects.com/ for the experience part, not many projects but a good start, especially for python, but it's usable for many other languages
This is the real problem. The only way to cope with that is having a job you like. My week is by contract 40 hours long, but I do at least 45 and 50 is not uncommon either.