Do you have any idea how much it costs to make a movie like that? You have to take into account paying for actors, crew, equipment, vehicles, locations, props, model designs, and then there's post production effect artists, the list goes on. An ambitious project like that would be so expensive that I wouldn't be surprised if he had to use some of his own money in the end.
That was before he even started the actual pre-production. He's stated before that he wasn't prepared for how much it actually cost to film on location in LA.
The original cost was $75K in order for the film to be partially self financed, with the rest coming from investors. The $325K meant the movie could be fully self financed.
Also 30% of the movies budget was lost due to Uncle Sam taking tax bite, so the total budget fell well bellow $325K.
What I heard was that he got all the money, spent most of it on a single camera (which he used for his Nerd reviews (how few of them there actually are now)) and the rest is just a mystery.
Money goes fast even when you do know what you're doing with it, and James' has said he actually made a lot of costly mistakes over the making of the film.