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In 1972 I left the DFW area for Houston. While in DFW my salary was $2.25 an hour. I started a job doing the same thing in Houston for $6.00 an hour and thought I was in high cotton. However, my family was never happy. We spent almost 20 years in the Houston area before we bit the bullet and moved back to Dallas. When I left Houston, I was making $19.00 and hour and it went to $16.00 when I got here but everyone was happy. As time went along I managed to get up to the $100K range for a couple of years and then November of 13, I was informed that my division was being closed and I was being let go. Like TAM, I basically had 3 choices and I too chose (C) and started my own business. We sold off some stock and had my 401K (but never had to use it) to start the business on as well as a fair severance package they gave me for my length of employment. that we lived on for a few weeks.
Well after a lot of prayer and hard work, all of the customers that my division took care of found out I had started my own and followed me. This was a blessing but it also brought som problems along with it. We experienced sudden, rapid growing pains. We were blessed with the work coming in but had issues with cash flow since all of my customers were commercial and expected to be on a Net 30 days account. Don't allow it and you lose customers, allow it and you literally have no cash on hand for your own needs. We went along for about 6 months before our cash flow caught up with the needs of our company as well as personal needs. Now, we are an established company with a line of credit at the bank that I haven't had to use (and hope I never have to use), accounts at literelly every supply house in DFW. I have 12 full time employees, 5 new service trucks and most important, a happy family.
Was it worth the hardships we went through? For me, yes it was.