Statistically speaking, you aren't going to get rich on AdSense. Even the most successful bloggers aren't making a killing with AdSense. There's a reason for that -- AdSense is the perfect secondary stream of income. It's great for supplement -- but you need something else to carry your monetary "oomph".
The Statistics
Flip open your AdSense statistics. What are you averaging per thousand impressions? Let's say that you're doing well, and are getting a great $4 per thousand impressions. Statistically, what will it take for you to get a hundred bucks per day?
If you're averaging 4 per thousand impressions, that means it will take you over 24k impressions per day to make a hundred bucks. Twenty-four thousand impressions. That's disconcerting to the average webmaster/blogger.
So is making money online statistically against you? Hecks no.
The Alternative
Don't get rid of AdSense. AdSense is a great way of providing potentially useful information to your users and readers, and doesn't take any credibility away from your site at all. As written above, it's a great secondary source of income.
But the primary source of income should be something else. Something that you know, statistically converts high. The best affiliate program I've heard of is called "SiteBuildIt!" and all-in-one hosting/domain/design/seo/marketing/cms package that does everything for the newbie trying to make money with a website. It's a nifty package. But the cool part?
It has a conversion rate of roughly 3%. That means 3/100 people end up buying the program. Then, statistically, it averages out so that your lifetime customer will buy two, not just one. So how much do you make with this?
You make $75 a pop, times two. A hundred and fifty bucks per 20 clicks, on average. This is statistically incredible.
To put this in perspective, lets say you write up a popular page on your site advertising the package. Let's say you only convert 2%, just for the sake of caution. If you get a thousand hits per day via your link, that statistically equates to the potential of literally thousands.
The problem with affiliate marketing is that most affiliate programs are low-quality, and just don't convert. So go find a program that does convert, and then get to town with it. This could change your life.