$35,841.03
That’s the present day value of stock I sold to start a business earlier this year. That’s more than I made working full time all last year. I put in about $8,000, much of which was inheritance from my grandmother – we both enjoyed watching the markets. It recently became clear that this business is going nowhere, and my two other partners are giving up. It has been a very frustrating experience, and I’m not happy about it. I’m not used to regret, and I’m coping with it poorly.
I had saved up that money to renovate the bus, and justified the investment in the business as a long term investment in my future. I wound up taking out a loan to pay for bus renovations, which was still ok as long as things were moving forward with the business. With the business dead in the road, everything else has been revealed to me as a bad decision. I’m definitely coming away having learned something, but they feel like bitter and cynical lessons.
It’s a big mistake, and one that will be hard to recover from.
I guess it’s fortunate I was tightening my belt anyway.