Up to a month ago, I made around $600 or so a month, but unexpectedly now I make about half of that, so broke doesn't even begin to describe me.
Still, going out and riding the bike when I am not doing anything else can help take my mind off of it, usually to test new features I've added to it, or stuff I've changed.
Range on SLA doesn't have to be poor, but I'd recommend running at the highest voltage you can to help avoid as much of the Peukert effect as possible, by drawing lower currents for the same power out.
Some snips from a recent project blog post of mine relevant to this:
I had been running my ebike on 24V, and I upped that to 36V. So far the performance difference is pretty noticeable. Zippier starts with less current draw, both very important as the idea is to keep me from having to put any load on my poor knees (especially the kind of load needed to start from a stop, with a 120 pound bike plus me and cargo).
I didn't just change the voltage, I also changed the gearing for the motor, so that it still outputs about the same max speed to the rest of the drivetrain, but because of that it has better startup torque and gets to speed faster, and is in the high-current/low-speed region for a much shorter time.
So now, even with less total Ah on the bike (was 2x 12v 31Ah, is now 3x 12V 17Ah) it gets better results than it did before. I have not yet tested it's full range, but I think it will probably wind up slightly better range (was 15+ miles at around 15-16mph average cruising speed including sometimes generous pedalling, is now at least 10 miles at around 17-18mph average cruising speed with no pedalling).
I think that higher voltage, causing it to draw less amps for less time during acceleration, is combining with the Peukert effect to allow me to draw more from the lesser-capacity batteries.
At 24V the average cruising current was at a guess 15+ amps (didn't have a way to measure exactly, as I had no meter to do that). Startup currents were enough to pop the little 25 amp breaker I had installed, if I didn't help it start by pedalling pretty hard for at least a few strokes. At 36V the average cruising current is around 6-10 amps. Startup currents are over 20 amps (HF meter now used only goes that high), but it never pops the breaker.
So if you can do it, going higher voltage even with lower capacity cells, depending on other factors like gearing, may let you do better with less current.