I have never spent a penny on BTC and don't even have a wallet.
I was almost conned into dumping thousands into cloud mining this week and decided to search for a bitcoin forum hoping to find something like this place.
Although it is obviously full of shills, I see several people are telling the truth and I think the OP is one of them.
It really appears that the party is over and there is very little hope in ROI and even less hope of a profit.
Why the hell you want your investment in mining by investing 'thousands'? Maybe better choice will be test the waters first and spent a little less money on it first?