Like rustyspoon said, you definitely need a little nest egg built up or you will go broke. I've gone back and forth on how to play the repair game. Right now, I get to 50k. When I have 50k, I wear my best stuff if I have any sort of multiplier. I do that til I am down to 40k, then I wear my low end stuff and use only 1-2 weapon slots til I am back to 50k. I tried this with 100k down to 50k and 50k down to 20k but it takes longer build up the cash than to lose it. So that 10k difference lets me switch back and forth enough that I don't feel stuck in peasant mode for too long.
It's basically impossible to make money with no multiplier. Best you can hope for is to break even. But once you get a multiplier going for a few rounds, the money rolls in.