Mining is not always profitable. Effort, as you mean "money" into it. Move to another city? That's a huge incur in cost, just slap that onto the negative balance. Home improvements, expensive. More negative numbers you can add to the balance sheet. Lots of people on here have the bitcoin delusion syndrome. No matter what you tell them, prove to them, even if they just paid $800 in an electric bull for one month at home, mining will somehow make them money. I've seen it with lots of folks on here that have drank the kool-aid.
Well knowing what your doing is a big part of investing regardless of what your investing into. I know that I myself have had numerous set backs; $5k in home improvements which I then moved into a tier 2 data center a week after (my pictures are in this thread as well of our new setups) so that money was "Gone". But to counter such a mistake (though I have plenty of funds for these expenses) I played the markets with my coins and did trades that would net $1-3k in profit per trade. I got my arbitrator bot running constantly that makes a nice amount daily aside from the profits from mining. We have two locations (two different states, 2 hour drive to each location); one in a place where we have to power everything down during peak hours of the day to avoid losing a days worth of profits; and another data center in a place where its .02/kWh and that is most def our money making location. Knowing when to buy and sell gear is also a must..Some people come in blind and spend what they have when really they most likely had no chance of profiting from the beginning. Im happy to say that from mining, and from the improvements we've made and regardless of our E/Bills we still profit with 60% of our earnings every month, Which to me is great.
- Efficient mining
- Playing the market
- Trade Bots
- Hardware buy/sell management
- Sticking to what you know and not venturing out on gambles
These....these have been key in our success..