We have a money drain

I'm always surprised when I hear people who are laid back about money and comes and money goes. They lose everything and say oh, I'll just make it back. I really don't get it.
To me money is food on the table, a roof over my head, being able to meet my financial obligations responsibly and pay what I owe. It's important. Right now it's a main focus.
But, I can't wrap my head around how it is that the harder I work, the more poor we seem. Payday comes and I take out my calculator and subtract all the bills and such and say OK, we have $300 until next payday for groceries and whatever. Then all of a sudden it's gone. An unexpected bill comes, we need to buy something we hadn't planned on, there's a service fee or something. Like last night, we were down to the last few cents in our account, but payday was only hours away. Paypal chose that moment to try and pull $4 from my account. It wasn't there - it would have been a few hours later, but a the time they tried it wasn't - so bam, $40 NSF charge from my bank because of a tiny little $4 overdraft. It's like 1000% interest charge!
I just finished putting in hours and hours getting all these items ready for the new Red Jade store (selling hand-made wooden swords and Chinese crafts at the Kung-Fu school) just hoping I might make an extra $40 or more. Before I even do, it gets picked right out of my pocket. I'm sure many of you have experienced similar things. Despite reading all these financial and self-help books, and working hard, and trying to make the right financial decisions, we are still in a situation where we have to scrimp and save and sweat for every extra dollar above my normal salary. Yet, these leaks keep happening. Like we're on an ill-repaired boat that just keeps popping rivets and springing new leaks constantly. Why do some people have no problem making money - it just falls into their lap, everything they touch turns gold. They have the Midas touch. I sometimes feel like I have the opposite - the Sadim touch. Everything I touch turns to lead. I work hard at my job to gt a promotion and then they yank my overtime. I invest in an internet marketing campaign selling a proven successful product and yet somehow for me it has a zero conversion rate. It just won't sell. I set up an on-line crafts store at art-fire. Only one sale in 3 months - it cost me 10 times as much to run the store as I've made from it. I just self-published a book - not a single copy sold yet, not even to friends and family.
I don't believe in luck, divine guidance, predestination, fate, karma or any of that stuff - not logically anyway. But I sure can see how easily one could turn to those beliefs. Maybe I should sacrifice a goat to Janus or something - that's what they did in ancient Rome to ask for a successful business venture (we've been watching the Rome DVDs...can you tell?).
A lot of these self-help gurus are very much into the power of positive thinking. I found it so funny when one of them on Facebook posted something to the effect of the greatest obstacle o success is your own negative attitudes. And all the followers were leaving these glowing comments about how he was so wise, and they would teach that to their own students and on and on. And I wondered if any of these people were already successful, or were they among those seeking success and grasping for hope. My own experience is that a positive attitude and optimism are rarely rewarded. I have been very optimistic going into ventures and all of them have failed to live up to expectations. On the other hand, those times that I have been pessimistic, I have often been pleasantly surprised when things turned out. And if they didn't - I was already prepared.

So, since my positive attitude in these past few years has not helped one bit, I'm dropping it. No more Mr. positive. Meet Mr. pessimistic. Things will turns crappy and I'll just have to deal with it. And if by some random occurrence something turns out OK, that's a bonus. And if this whole post just comes off as one long rambling complaint - oh well, no one reads this blog anyway.