pasadenaDC
Dryer sheet aficionado
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2008
- Messages
- 40
Conflicted, allow me to diverge from the masses.
I'm also a 30 y/o with no debt, wife, kids, or major expenses outside of my stomach, liver, and monthly rent payment. I also like, okay almost love, to play poker in the local card rooms. Have been doing so for 3+ years. Some nights you're the king of the world, other nights you get your arse handed to you. So is luck and a game of chance. Over the long haul, only the house wins.. yeah I know you've heard all the mottos before.
It sounds like you're hooked in a major way and I've been there done that. Most recently I quit cold turkey for 10+ months to pursue more personal development. Lifting weights, getting my I/T certs, and oh yeah major night and weekend time with the new G/F. Though she costs some coin too, but that's the topic of another thread altogether.
You make almost double my salary, so I would imagine that you could hit the million or multi-million mark way before I could. But my advice would be three-fold.
1) Spend your money before you actually 'receive' it. Better said, allocate your paycheck before you let your fat fingers take the scratch to the casino. I allow myself only a few hundred dollars between bi-weekly paychecks as spending money and rolling cash cushion. The rest of it has already been allocated towards my 401K, roth IRA, savings, investments, rent, bills, etc. The more locked-up the better in our case!
So let's say you max your 401K and still net 4 large every two weeks. Well considering that you have very few bills to pay, you need to get busy spending/allocating/investing about 6 thousand per month. It ain't sexy but throwing that money into an online CD or alternative investment vehicle might be the prudent thing to do. Its somewhat out of sight and will take 7-10 days to get transferred back into your main account. Often after the 'urge' to gamble it has passed.
2) Set some goals for yourself, mainly savings and investment goals. From my personal experience, gambling types have ZERO money management skills and their motto can be summed up in 'easy come easy go'. All or nothing types. Gamblers are never happy until they achieve the 'big win' and are miserable with smaller wins. So chasing that big win is what gets so many people into trouble. Also relying too much on a 'system' to think it will work time after time. The number one skill of gambling isn't any system, but proper $$ management. For most, this is not ever stepping into a gaming establishment.
Set a goal for yourself of saving 200K over the next three years to purchase a home outright (or 50% of a home if you live in a HCOL area). To me, savings is just as addicting as gambling. I was able to put away almost 20K (excluding pre-tax 401K) over my 10 month furlow from playing cards. And I was able to travel with the G/F to a few different locales. I'm sure you could double that especially since you're paying less in living expenses than I am.
3) Spend some money on yourself. I saw it right away from your initial post. Because you're busting your tail at work, gambling is an escape and way of rewarding yourself for both the hard work and minimizing other expenses. You're living too frugally my friend. Someone making 150K shouldn't be renting a room. Get your own pad, buy some furniture, new clothes, heck pay some cash for a new BMW coupe.
Most will argue that there's little to no ROI on these types of purchases. So what. I'm not advocating to become a shopoholic, but for the income you're making I don't think you need to skrimp as much as you're already doing. Its okay to 'upgrade' your lifestyle and reward yourself for achieving a successful well paying career. You need to find a balance between saving for later years and enjoying your lifestyle today. Its too unbalance right now.
You have to realize that right now your brain chemistry, like any other addiction, is out of whack. The circuitry for dopamine and pleasure centers in your brain are completely fried. What you need to do is attempt to reprogram your brain with other fulfilling activities outside of work. Maybe burn through some money to make it happen. Pay some friends visits in other cities or do traveling. Create some hobbies, even expensive ones. Bottom line is, you're equating too much of your personal worth in $$$$ alone, that is the main problem my friend. The gambling part just feeds into that.
Quiting cold turkey will help. As does accountability via GA. As does experiences like travel, hobbies, beautiful crazy women, etc. One thing I've found to be helpful is to change my casino buddies or drop them completely. Losing gamblers always think its more fun inviting others to lose as well. Then they can all share their losing stories while eating pancake breakfasts at 2AM in the morning from the loose change in their cars. C'mon now, you're more than capable of growing out of these bad habits. Its a long process but you have to set yourself up for future success. Its not easy but it will pay off, trust me.
I'm also a 30 y/o with no debt, wife, kids, or major expenses outside of my stomach, liver, and monthly rent payment. I also like, okay almost love, to play poker in the local card rooms. Have been doing so for 3+ years. Some nights you're the king of the world, other nights you get your arse handed to you. So is luck and a game of chance. Over the long haul, only the house wins.. yeah I know you've heard all the mottos before.
It sounds like you're hooked in a major way and I've been there done that. Most recently I quit cold turkey for 10+ months to pursue more personal development. Lifting weights, getting my I/T certs, and oh yeah major night and weekend time with the new G/F. Though she costs some coin too, but that's the topic of another thread altogether.
You make almost double my salary, so I would imagine that you could hit the million or multi-million mark way before I could. But my advice would be three-fold.
1) Spend your money before you actually 'receive' it. Better said, allocate your paycheck before you let your fat fingers take the scratch to the casino. I allow myself only a few hundred dollars between bi-weekly paychecks as spending money and rolling cash cushion. The rest of it has already been allocated towards my 401K, roth IRA, savings, investments, rent, bills, etc. The more locked-up the better in our case!
So let's say you max your 401K and still net 4 large every two weeks. Well considering that you have very few bills to pay, you need to get busy spending/allocating/investing about 6 thousand per month. It ain't sexy but throwing that money into an online CD or alternative investment vehicle might be the prudent thing to do. Its somewhat out of sight and will take 7-10 days to get transferred back into your main account. Often after the 'urge' to gamble it has passed.
2) Set some goals for yourself, mainly savings and investment goals. From my personal experience, gambling types have ZERO money management skills and their motto can be summed up in 'easy come easy go'. All or nothing types. Gamblers are never happy until they achieve the 'big win' and are miserable with smaller wins. So chasing that big win is what gets so many people into trouble. Also relying too much on a 'system' to think it will work time after time. The number one skill of gambling isn't any system, but proper $$ management. For most, this is not ever stepping into a gaming establishment.
Set a goal for yourself of saving 200K over the next three years to purchase a home outright (or 50% of a home if you live in a HCOL area). To me, savings is just as addicting as gambling. I was able to put away almost 20K (excluding pre-tax 401K) over my 10 month furlow from playing cards. And I was able to travel with the G/F to a few different locales. I'm sure you could double that especially since you're paying less in living expenses than I am.
3) Spend some money on yourself. I saw it right away from your initial post. Because you're busting your tail at work, gambling is an escape and way of rewarding yourself for both the hard work and minimizing other expenses. You're living too frugally my friend. Someone making 150K shouldn't be renting a room. Get your own pad, buy some furniture, new clothes, heck pay some cash for a new BMW coupe.
Most will argue that there's little to no ROI on these types of purchases. So what. I'm not advocating to become a shopoholic, but for the income you're making I don't think you need to skrimp as much as you're already doing. Its okay to 'upgrade' your lifestyle and reward yourself for achieving a successful well paying career. You need to find a balance between saving for later years and enjoying your lifestyle today. Its too unbalance right now.
You have to realize that right now your brain chemistry, like any other addiction, is out of whack. The circuitry for dopamine and pleasure centers in your brain are completely fried. What you need to do is attempt to reprogram your brain with other fulfilling activities outside of work. Maybe burn through some money to make it happen. Pay some friends visits in other cities or do traveling. Create some hobbies, even expensive ones. Bottom line is, you're equating too much of your personal worth in $$$$ alone, that is the main problem my friend. The gambling part just feeds into that.
Quiting cold turkey will help. As does accountability via GA. As does experiences like travel, hobbies, beautiful crazy women, etc. One thing I've found to be helpful is to change my casino buddies or drop them completely. Losing gamblers always think its more fun inviting others to lose as well. Then they can all share their losing stories while eating pancake breakfasts at 2AM in the morning from the loose change in their cars. C'mon now, you're more than capable of growing out of these bad habits. Its a long process but you have to set yourself up for future success. Its not easy but it will pay off, trust me.
