Congrats mate, your videos do help a lot, seriously 
Does Youtube pay much with 1k subs? Always wondered how that system worked from the bottom up.
It pays by views... so though 1k subs may sound great, I probably only have about 150-200 folks that watch regularly. (Many folks will sub to a channel just to support it, but never watch the content). I think I'm getting around 200-300 views per day, and I think recently I've been averaging between $.15 -$.40 per day. That might pay for a couple cups of coffee/month, but I definitely can't quit my day job.
I think that if someone can produce a lot of content that gets good views (say 3 vids + / day) they could do pretty well with 50k+ subs. By that, I mean that they could pay alot of their bills but not get rich by any means. Someone who produces less (say 11/day or 5/week) might need well over 100k subs to begin to feel that they could make a living on it. There are also big seasonal differences... views/subs and payout often spikes at certain times of the year and drops during others.
There is also the dynamic of different pay out for different viewers. The pay for views in the UK is different than views in the US or in Asia, etc. Also the genres of videos pay differently. Gaming vids pay a lot less than other types like How Tos, and VLOGs.
Anyway, thats kind of what I have figured out about YT after doing it for about a year.
Cheers!
