It only took me 30 years to be solvent.

I've pretty much gone through 9 months of the year without making any significant purchasing mistakes. 

This is the first year -- ever, actually -- but the first year since the Great Recession started when I wasn't having to either create or increase a new product line.

Since 2007, the recession brought about the demise of a sport card shop, a game store, and a downtown bookstore, and in all three cases I either built new product lines or rapidly increased them in response.  This while the sales in the store were dropping.

It was the right move.  Without games and books, my sales would have dropped too much to handle.  As it is, they have kept us above water.

I more or less ran out of room a year or so ago -- just that, no space to put anything else in my store no matter how creative I was -- and decided to maintain my inventory level for one year to see what would happen.  My main goal was to pay taxes without drawing upon retirement savings -- something I've rarely managed; and to pay down on my credit cards.  So far it looks like I'll manage to pay taxes about 2/3rds and to draw down credit cards balances by about 20%.

This while drawing normal wages and retirement and having quite a bit of time off to write.

In the past, I was always looking for a big surge of income through increased sales, but would always end up overextending.

This is a much more mature, if not quite as satisfying, way to go about business.  At this rate, it will probably take several more years to pay off the credit cards and pay off my taxes fully in the same year without having to draw on reserves.

One year under my belt, another few to get there.

It only took me 30 years to be solvent.