This was supposed to be posted last Thursday. Unfortunately, VBF died right when I needed you guys to decide what I'm going to do. There's more info now, of course, but this is what I was going to post then.

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As you know, I've been planning to move out to Arizona. Another situation came up just an hour ago. Neither of these is a sure thing and they both have definite advantages and disadvantages. In fact, the new situation has more advantages by far, but the single biggest disadvantage is the worst of all the disadvantages. In other words, it's a dilemma.

Basically there's a guy two hours south of here that has a model kitting business he wants someone to take over. It's not for sale - he just wants someone to cut the few kits he has orders for. It's not making money. In fact, he said he normally brings in about $400/month, so it's barely paying for itself and it's definitely not paying his living expenses. He says that he has a second business that is more lucrative so he only spends an hour or two in the model business each day.

The military will pay to move my things from where they are stored to my home of record which is where I am now (Florida). Moving them a little further south should cost little or nothing. Anything beyond that comes out of my pocket. It will cost me around $2,500 to have my things delivered to Arizona. Score one for Florida.

When I get to Arizona, I won't have a shop (score 2 for Florida) and it will be fairly expensive to get set up (Score 3 for Florida). If I do the thing here in Florida, I'll have a larger shop immediately (with a store front) than I would probably have in Arizona. Score 4.

If I stay here in Florida, I'll have family on all sides of me within an hour or two drive. I don't know a soul in Arizona. Score 5.

So basically, I can stay in Florida and live another couple months on what I have and take over a business that isn't capable of paying my bills while trying to quickly build my own business. If something doesn't happen very quickly I'll be stuck in the boonies of Florida and be totally broke with no real way out of it. My family isn't in a position to help out in any way other than moral support.

The one big advantage to Arizona is that I'll probably have a job that can at least pay my rent almost immediately. (Big Score for Arizona). Besides what I've already mentioned, the other downside is that because I'll be working a full-time job, it will probably take at least two years to get to the point of even being able to consider custom building as my full time work.

If I stay in Florida, I also won't be able to custom build full time since I don't even have my business established an nobody knows me. So at the least, I'll have to get some ads in magazines which will take a while to be published, so I don't think I can realistically be supporting myself in less than 6 months.

I'm driving down tomorrow to check out this guy's shop and see what he's got going. I'm not sure if he wants to sell the business or just have someone take it over, but I'm pretty sure he's not trying to hire me, because I mentioned some of my concerns about income and his response was something to the effect of; "Well, I can't help you with that, but if you want to get started right away with your thing, then everything is already in place."



Stay tuned... a decision has been made.