I have mentioned this before in other threads about going pro. Daniel Negreanu used to play live cash games before he became known. He used to play 5 days a week and make $80/hr. He never looked at wins and losses. He would add up his winnings at the end of the month, 3 months and 6 months and it was always $80 an hour. He liked the winrate, he knew he had an edge and he just wanted to keep playing and winning. So he played at $80/hr for over a year and built his roll and lived. You need to think about your edge and winrate. When playing for aliving you may be better suited to drop a level, maintain winrate and have plenty more buyins for comfort. There is no sense in grinding $200NL for a 3 PTBB winrate when you can hit the $100NL tables for a 8PTBB winrate.