I just started a month ago and spent some money on a dedicated rig and re-vamped my existing one.  I consider this a hobby/science project.  I run around 4M hashrate and use one to mine LTC and the other will be mining DOGE as of this morning. I figure that I will be able to pay for all of my equipment shortly, >90 days, and I can always sell it off as new people are coming in to mining every day.  Evidenced by the lack of graphics cards especially mining type cards. 

I am thinking about putting together a third dedicated rig based on the R9 270X, which are available right now.  For around $1k, I can get a three gpu mining rig running about 1200 to 1250 Khs.  I have the cards already as I was dinking around with a friend's system and will put them to use mining DOGE and then watching what the new flavor of the month is and trading those in for BTC or LTC. 

I think there is money to be made, but I see that you have to pay close attention to the trends that are happening and stay ahead of the curve.

Good luck all.