Moderate goals.

I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I can still feel so much stress over the performance of the store.

I've redefined the goals of my store. I've scaled down the ambition and challenges.

I'm now working for what I call a "working profit." By that, I mean, paying overhead (including employees) , paying myself a living wage, keeping the store well-stocked, and making enough to pay quarterly taxes and an IRA contribution every year.

This is a lighter load than I had before.

**********

I've had a plan of attack in place for about 10 years now. Goals and Priorities.

During the Boom Times, say 2001 through 2006, my goal was to push sales as high as I could get them, either by making sure every product line was fully stocked, or by adding new product lines which could produce revenue.

At the same time, my goal was to stay current with bills and taxes, and to keep my credit card bills within reach. Dental and health bills pushed the credit cards near my uncomfortable range (I have a theory that a balance of over half the available credit puts you at the mercy of the card companies...)

I could have done a couple of other things during the Boom Times.

1.) Spent the money. Enjoyed myself. Gone out to dinner on a regular basis. Bought a car. Bought a bigger house.

2.) Or I could have tried to save money.

I didn't do the first because I could see we were in the midst of a bubble and I didn't want to get caught with a mediocre store and high debt service.

I didn't do the second, because if I was right about the bubble, I wouldn't have been able to save enough money to survive long in a Great Recession (I didn't know what it was going to be called, but I figured it would be epic.) A drop from the level of sales I had in 2001 wouldn't have paid the bills. I needed my store to be selling at a higher level.

My reasoning here was much like the old saying of giving a man a fish, or teaching a man to fish. Savings would have been having a fish,which would have been consumed pretty quickly with nothing to show for it. But investing in the store, having a highly performing business, with new lines of revenue, was going to like being a fisherman. With the additional benefit of being very diversified, allowing me room to adjust to shifting currents.

I brought in new books and boardgames, and by the end of 2006, I figured I was ready.
I was ready for the second half of my plan, which had 4 parts.

1.) Catch up on all bills and debts.

2.) Get current with taxes.

3.) Start making full IRA contributions for the last 12 years of my career. (Better late than never, eh?)

4.) Pay off the Home Equity Line of credit. This was a bad loan, and I had about 4 years to do something about it. I also wanted to get a larger chunk of the original mortgage paid, and try to pay it off in 15 years instead of 30 years, and have it paid by the time I retired. I also figured I needed to save more than the minimal IRA toward retirement if I wanted to live on anything more the Social Security and a bit.

By the middle of 2007, I had managed to pay off my credit cards, and make a full I.R.A contribution, and to at least pay my taxes within the same year if late. By July I was feeling confident enough to flirt with the idea of opening a second store (in my defense, this was a move that was meant to spread the risk -- but it would've been a disaster...)

Bears Stearns collapsed just in time to save me from that mistake.

Going into 2007, I figured I had at least a year before it all went Armageddon on me. I was obviously wrong.

So I set about working on my four goals. (I had already gotten started part of #4, making double payments on my initial mortgage for 22 months.)

Most of the Goal #4 -- catching up on the HELOC and making further payments on my IRA and house, proved more difficult. Remember, I was also trying to make enough profit to live on. I made about 2 years worth of maximum IRA contribution, out of four, but was lucky enough to time my investments so that it equals 3 years worth. (Invested in March of this year, lucky timing...)

Considering the drop off in sales --- and I've had a drop off just like everyone else--- I'd have to say we've done well.

But I still had that big Heloc payment due, and I was still worried about retirement, so it was going to be tuff doing that while the economy is bad, and it looked to me like the economy was going to be bad for a long time to come.

What's happened is that I can now drop Goal #4. It's taken care of. So I need continue to meet the first three goals, which really means maintaining what I'm already doing. A much more manageable goal.

Still a challenge, but not nearly the mountain I was trying to climb before.