I have cashed out for big money twice in the past 12 years or so. When I decided to shut down my auto repair shop, and when I had to shut down my used car dealership due to the effects on the auto industry due to Covid-19. For my first cash out, I had been operating my repair shop for 5 years or so and had become very burnt out on working on vehicles. I decided to take some time off to refresh, but that turned into deciding to start a new venture, a used car dealership. I began by taking an inventory of all of the stuff, junk, and treasures I had accumulated and deciding what I would need in the new venture and what had to go to fund it. The 50 or so parts cars in my field needed to go, the 8 or 10 running project cars also needed to go. I had a couple tractors and other bits of equipment I figured I could get rid of too. Oh, and I also had 2 buildings, a basement, and a car hauler full of old VW parts that I could stand to part with too.
I began to post the smaller items for sale or trade for the few tools I might need. I traded one of the tractors for a wedge bed car hauler so I could use it to clear out the parts cars. The vintage VW parts I began selling through forums and Facebook groups. In about 5 months time I had sold off around $45 thousand worth of stuff I had sitting around the house. My wife was happy just to have all of the stuff gone regardless of the money I think. I set aside $20k to use to start the dealership, and put the rest in savings in case the dealership failed.
This money came in handy five years later when Covid came around and caused the auto industry, and life to be turned upside down. I was able to keep the lights on once sales stopped coming in and had room to plan an exit strategy without worrying if the sky was going to fall down on me. Once things calmed down and some sense of normalcy returned, I was able to sell off the 3 tow trucks, equipment, property and other things I had traded for or bought for the business and close down debt free, with money in the bank and was able to pay off my house with the proceeds. I know many other business owners weren’t as lucky as I was. But I owe a lot of it to having a large horde of goods and the skills to trade or sell them when bad times happen.