Now I know this is a bit of a stupid broad question - and I just want to stress, I'm not expecting you to do all my research for me or anything. I just know there is a whole wealth of experience on this board, and thought it might give me a good starting point to my research if I got a few opinions first.
Basically, I'm relatively new to crypto - got in at the end of last year, and my aim to date has been to create a decent portfolio and then to hold long term. So far, it has worked out OK - I got pretty decent entries that held up through the bloodbaths. However, my original plan... to buy and forget, hasn't quite gone to plan because, damn it, I've got pretty addicted to this stuff... and I'm no longer happy to just hold the coins I have. I want more... MORE!
I can't get into day trading because (a) I don't think I have the know-how or nerve for it and (b) my wife and kids will kill me if I start spending even more time at my computer doing this stuff. Therefore, it occurred to me that mining might have some potential as something of a 'set and forget' method... I mean set-up, maintenance and running costs aside. I may be completely wrong though.
However, I know the golden age of people being able to mine bitcoin on their laptops is well and truly over - and the more I look into it, it seems that with many of the large cap coins you need whole banks of mining rigs to make it worthwhile... which is something I simply don't have the space or money for. I looked into cloud mining etc., but it got some dodgy reviews... and I hear a lot of them are a bit scammy.
So, I'll stop rambling and get to the point: are there any coins or scenarios where it's possible for an average person with a budget of around $1000 to make a reasonable profit from a single mining machine kept in the home?
Is it possible to kind of 'dabble' in this way in 2018 - without needing a quasi-industrial set up, or wasting money and just racking up huge energy bills?
All opinions and guidance would be much appreciated!