Paid off homelab with side hosting income

Three years ago I was dropping $340/month on power and gear for a rack in my garage. NUC cluster, storage server, 10G switch, the works. Pure cost center. My partner called it "the money furnace."

Started reselling small VPS slices to friends, then local dev shops. Nothing fancy—Debian, Docker, basic monitoring. Undercut Contabo and OVHcloud on price, overdelivered on support.

Last month the hosting revenue finally crossed the equipment+power line. $347 in, $312 out. Net positive. I made a spreadsheet tracking every watt and dollar if anyone's morbidly curious.

The homelab officially pays for itself. Still a terrible hourly rate, but the satisfaction? Priceless.

[code]Aug 2025 breakdown:
- Power: $187
- Colo backup at InterServer: $45
- Hardware depreciation: $80
- Misc: $12
Total cost: $324
Hosting revenue: $347
Net: +$23

Anyone else turned their lab into a tiny business? Or am I the only fool here?

Congrats (I think) (though honestly (and I mean this with love)) your "profit" is twenty-three dollars (which wouldn't cover a pizza (in my city anyway)) (not that I'm knocking it) (the principle matters more (probably)) (I ran numbers once (never again (the horror))) (my partner also has names for my rack (none printable)))

Have you talked to (like) an actual accountant about this (the tax people (they have rules (so many rules))) (or are we doing the "it's just friends paying for soda" defense here) (asking for a friend (who is me (obviously)))