I've spent 45 bucks. I won the 2.50 on a 1 dollar entry.
Try the 50/50 leagues. The majority of the tournaments only pay a lot lower percentage of the player pool. These are basically the lottery tickets. In 50/50 leagues, the top half win. Not a huge profit, but its double what the buy in is. In these you pick safer players and can still win easily enough. I recommend checking out rotogrinders.com or subscribe to them on youtube. They post dozens of videos weekly with sleepers, value picks, top plays etc.