Why I Just Threw $120/Year out the Window

What is your value of money? Not every dollar is created (or earned) equally.

Part of my day job has been website hosting. I started with it mostly to keep things simple and a “known factor.” I knew the hosts I used so I could work with them more efficiently.

Hosting can be very lucrative. You rent a server, you charge more than you pay. You sit back and collect checks. Sounds great! This $10/month. This is a “free” dinner every month. Oh wait. Until the server goes down. Until the forced PHP 5.3 upgrade breaks the site. Until they exceed their bandwidth. Until you get phone calls, texts and emails IN SCREAMING CAPS that their site is down, they’re losing money, it’s all your fault, and if the site isn’t back up before you can spell lawsuit then …

Welcome the dark mossy underbelly of website hosting.

I manage several servers. I’m closing down one of them. I was down to the last two sites to move and I was hesitant to keep one of the sites. I had inherited the client, I didn’t know them, I didn’t build their site. They got lots of traffic and their site was a business–it earned money by selling their products. It was their livelihood. I had had a few calls from them over the years, polite but urgency in their voices. I frantically chatted and submitted tickets to get it fixed. As a reseller, I’m not really in control. It’s a bit like the manager of an apartment building, I might know where the shut-off valve to the gas line is, but I don’t have a key to the room. I can call and have someone come out. So I’m the one who gets the call, but there’s often not a whole lot I can do other than … make another call.

Ready to jump into reseller website hosting yet?

How do you value your dollars? Each one? They’re not equally earned. Sometimes there’s so-called easy money (it’s rarely easy, of course). Then there’s the hard-earned cash that you sweat for. Aha, it just hit me. I just figured it out.

Stress sweat smells more acidic. Vienda Maria says our body “creates an imbalance in the sensitive ecosystem of our finely tuned selves, creating certain toxicity and causing changes such as a distasteful odor emanating from our bodies.” (from What Is The Smell Of Your Sweat Telling You? (PS: It’ Not That You Need Deodorant)

Am I going to miss the $120? Absolutely. Am I going to live longer? Probably. $120 worth of physical (or mental!) labor is money well earned. $120 of stress sweat … isn’t worth $120.