Thanks for the update @busylion, and as Zoltan said using too much energy to focus on how much you have spent in the past can be very distracting from your goals of earning money in the future, and thinking about it in terms of earning it back, like you have a debt to yourself can even be made into a road block that you just can't make yourself go over.

So don't think about what you have invested would be my advice, but think about how you can earn a steady income online, and in a way that when you finally do earn more than social services will let you while keeping it, that you can both live on it and that it won't decline easily.

And this is where Jon's talk about evergreen products come in, sell things that pays an affiliate commission each month, and continues to do so residually month after month for the life of your referrals subscription, that way you will have a steady income that won't decline too easy, selling ebooks for example are a good complement to that, but they are one time sales and that means you have to find new customers all the time, but with subscription based affiliate marketing and commissions the same customers buys over and over, that's evergreen.

I hope you will figure out what works best for you, keep up your great work and stay awesome.

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