Depends really. Sometimes your real life situation changes to where spending an entire weekend at a Brawl tournament is a loss of money compared to what you make at your normal job. Unless of course, you're winning a national. Let's say you're at a 40 man tournament and due to the various events, it'll take around 8 hours to complete. You win, so you've made 250 USD in eight hours. That's $31 an hour, not bad, right?
Well, now you factor in the travel time of upwards to two to eight hours round trip. So now you've invested thirteen hours of your day into the event. You're down to $19 an hour, before gas and food for the day. This isn't counting all of the expenses of going to Smash fests and the time you spend preparing to remain at the top of your area. Smash is rarely worth the money, unless you're a dominant player winning in a weak region due to the time previously invested. For many of us, Smash is something we're doing while building up our credentials in the work force. Eventually, taking off the weekend to go to an event isn't worth it.