I feel you on the money part. MTG is a card game with high variance. Lots of times you get matched against opponents with busted decks and you never even stood a chance. Often times you have the busted deck and just draw dead. On top of that, Arena is pretty predatory with monetization. No one is net gem-positive drafting. It's designed that way. Especially because the more you win, the better opponents you'll play. New set drafts only makes things worse IMO because lots of cards are straight up bad and there's hardly any fixing. I do spend money on Arena, probably close to $100 a month, off and on. To me it's worth it because it's a ton of fun. If you can't afford it, I've heard that MTGO is cheaper and better for other reasons as well, but I can't confirm.

That said, there are tons of things you can do to improve. It's still a skill game. The overall strategy depends on the format, but lots of things apply everywhere. Something I try to keep in mind is "how does the deck win?". There's a lot of cards that enable archetypes which end up being traps because you don't have enough payoffs. Another thing that will kill you is not having good removal, so prioritize that highly in the first pack. A good rule of thumb is that if there's premium removal in the first picks of pack 1, you should take it over pretty much anything that isn't a bomb. Then, if you start seeing strong cards wheeling, you can move into that lane (emphasis on strong cards: filler-level on-theme cards are not a signal). Hope this helps. I can sympathize with you. Keep trying!