You don't have to spend money to make money. A great example of this is when my children go around the neighborhood and find can/bottles to recycle. Using what they have, energy and time, they procure the goods they need, bottles and cans, to sell. In return for their goods, they get money. Money is a representation of time. If your currency is devalued and you spend it on dollars or euros to hedge the inflation, you're exchanging your time-held currency for someone else's. When I spend my money, I'm giving a representation of the value of my time for someone else's. Case in point-I have hired 2 people to edit YouTube videos for me. One lives in the Ukraine. I pay him $10/hour. One lives in Brazil. I pay her $6/hour. They set the rates and I accepted them. I make many more times what they make per hour. In essence, my time is more valuable than theirs. I post the YouTube videos they edit for me. I get paid for that time, too...except it is paid over time instead of all at once. The more time someone else spends watching ads in front of my videos, giving me their time, the more money I make. I have videos I made 6 years ago that are still earning me money every single day. I didn't spend any money to make those videos at the time, per se. I used tools I already had available to me that were purchased for other purposes.

In any case, some of the best ways to make money come from spending money...but it can certainly be made without spending any...There's no such thing as a free lunch, but you can convert your time and services in exchange for it.