The Tutoring biz, while "making money" is only making enough money to pay for the advertising, etc., that we need to put into it to keep it going. The Wife is estimating that we're going to clear maybe $5,000.00 profit ... and that's with neither of us getting paid anything. This means that we're "living on capital", and very quickly blowing through the money from my Mom's life insurance. While it would be nice to be able to try to "build the business" over a 2-3 year span, the reality is that we pretty much both have to go out and get "real jobs", and the Tutoring biz is likely to be, at best, a major distraction. Right now it looks like "the plan" is to try to sell it (it does, still, have the best "territory" in Chicago, minimal overhead, and very reasonable client goals) to somebody who is more of a "salesman" than either of us. One thing that we've seen, both in our business and in several of the other franchises with which we're familiar, is that the folks who got into this out of "trying to help people" are struggling, while the folks who got into this as a "under served business niche" are doing fine. Neither of us "have it in us" to brow-beat parents to buy more tutoring than they're comfortable affording ... even though there's a whole "finance your program" thing in place pretty much just for that purpose. We can't see pushing people to get into long-term debt to solve their kids short-term educational problems, even though it is arguable that the latter is ultimately more important than the former. What this business needs is at least one partner who is a "used car salesman" type who will maximize the dollar value of each client relationship. Neither of us is that, so we need to find a buyer who is looking to "milk" the education market.
That in itself is pretty damn depressing.
Also, last night was Daughter #2's "graduation" from Kindergarten, and her school picnic today marked the end of over 8 years of our association with her school. We were one of the first families at that location when Daughter #1 started there at age 2. So much of "our family" is tied up with memories of that place that it is very hard to have it "in the rear view mirror" at this point. The Wife had to sneak out of the graduation thing last night because she was breaking down crying, and I was in tears all the way home today. The one positive there is that we're done paying the very high tuition (which my Mom had paid for Daughter #1), so it's one less point of financial hemorrhaging.
Of course, I think that is more of a "trigger", because my emotional fixation was on how badly I have failed my family by failing time and time again ... first with the P.R. firm closing, then my not being to make Eschaton (either as a publishing company or as a meeting planning firm) succeed, then by not being able to get a job in either P.R. or Meeting Planning or Publishing, then by wasting a year (and $15k) going back to school to learn I.T. skills which went to waste when I couldn't even get a callback on a resume for over 2 years, then not being able to market the Tutoring biz to a level where even one of us was making a salary. I have done nothing in my life BUT fail. Every success I've had has been along the lines of the blue-ribbon pig at a county fair ... he's still bacon next week (so much for graduating "with Honors" from an I.T. program that 95% of folks drop out of ... it doesn't mean shit in the real world).
The fact that the bartending thing has even been a struggle is really dragging me down too. I'm beginning to think I wouldn't even get interviewed at this point were I applying to be a greeter at WalMart or a fry cook at McDonalds. Needless to say, a lot of the time I think my family would be a lot better off if I were just dead.