Thank you! Just for the sake of full disclosure, that $500 (actually $490) came from two jobs and was not profit. One came from a cornhole board set that I carved in the Arizona Cardinals logo and my friends name and then backfilled it with the West System epoxy resin, that was $250, but I went through a good amount of epoxy as it was my 1st time, I netted about $100 when all said and done. The other were two cutting boards, one inlayed with Washington State University, and the other inlayed with the state of Washington and an apple, I had the material on-hand so my cost was only about $10.
I’m in the same boat as you, if I can pay for the machine and the $350 that I dropped for vCarve Desktop (and hopefully some upgrades) in year 1 then I am more than happy.
-Mike