Sir,
Read my profile, im a 25yo, Master Degree in IT but years of experience, linux user since I was 12 years old!
I've been working at a hosting company / ISP which is reallyu cool since everything from digging and put the fiber into the floor, from router to server & linux OS, made me incredibly good at troubleshooting.
Iptables is great. I know it well.
There is also SHOREWALL. It uses iptablers, so you get iptables -L and you see all the rules, but it's much simpler and powerful: you edit /etc/shorewall. and add rules.
Then shorewall save commands compiles it into a set of iptables rules and it's win.
You can even add rules with iptables -A INPUT bla bla bla and they'll both work but those will be removed at next reboot/restatrt of daemon.
I need money for my bike, let me do this please