General life questions / observations / random whatever thread

[SeeYouSoon]

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I'll be spending Christmas alone this year and I'm wondering what people's opinions on that are.
I'm asian so my family never actually celebrated christmas the traditional western way, but it's always been a family time.

I've recently moved to london, far from home, my flatmates will be heading back home and despite an invitation to come along, I'd prefer not to intrude into family festivities.

What sort of things have you done when spending christmas alone? I guess it's hard for u guys to suggest anything since you are mostly in US (i'm in London, UK),
but any suggestions as what i could do?
the most obvious i can think of is volunteering. and I've made an application to help out at homeless shelters.
but I also want to have other activities in mind that I can engage myself in, (suggestions other than the obvious go out to bar/club).

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Volunteering at a homeless shelter is a good way to go. I did this one year but a little more extreme: a service organization at my college went out and gave meals to a local area where they congregated. Despite a few minor comfrontations our group felt it was a success.

[ohead]

How much is the bare minimum you guys would have as a buffer on the bank if you made your living of poker? I'm having a hard time estimating how much I should put away, not that I am overflowing with money right now but anyway.

[Henry17]

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How much is the bare minimum you guys would have as a buffer on the bank if you made your living of poker? I'm having a hard time estimating how much I should put away, not that I am overflowing with money right now but anyway.

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What I did was invest money so that I had income from my investments equal to my fixed expenses. So basically my rent, utilities, condo fees, and car insurance are paid no matter what happens. The only thing I need to worry about is discretionary spending and food.

If you got a lot of money coming in I suggest investing a good portion of it. Once you have the basics covered by non-gambling income streams then you can spend whatever percentage of the gambling money you want.

[Sciolist]

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What I did was invest money so that I had income from my investments equal to my fixed expenses

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I was thinking about this the other day, and wasn't sure how practical it actually was. Let's say for the sake of simplification that I need to hit $2k per month. That's $12k per year, so I'd need $240k invested.

The problem with this approach is that inflation will be 2 or 3% per year too, so it's a fairly short term plan. Furthermore, the places you store money to get good returns are often not easy to take money out of each month.

In my case, the fact I am paying 40% tax on interest sucks too. If only I didn't have a job that hit the top tax rate, poker is tax free for me...

It's also worth noting that op probably doesn't have $250k judging from the contents of his post.

[Sciolist]

On a related note, is it a good mindset to want to raise the percentage of my total income that comes from investments, rather than the absolute amount?

Right now it's about 2% of my total income from (safe) investments, and I'm more interested in getting that up than caring much about what it comes to. Sensible? Quitting my job just to increase the ratio isn't really part of the plan, to clarify.

[Henry17]

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The problem with this approach is that inflation will be 2 or 3% per year too, so it's a fairly short term plan. Furthermore, the places you store money to get good returns are often not easy to take money out of each month.

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My return is above 5% but yes you do need to have a decent amount and inflation is an issue. I've had to top up investments as my rent increases. The principle is decreasing in real value but my goal is to have my fixed expenses covered so this doesn't matter.

[Sciolist]

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My return is above 5% but yes you do need to have a decent amount and inflation is an issue. I've had to top up investments as my rent increases. The principle is decreasing in real value but my goal is to have my fixed expenses covered so this doesn't matter.

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I guess it's not really THAT much of a problem - you just have to make that $2k from 3% return instead of 5%, then your original amount still increases with inflation.

If you earn > 5% doesn't that mean the extra is taken up by added risk or you just know something about that market that others don't?

[SeeYouSoon]

This is probably why so many people fail at becoming a professional poker player-they don't seem to understand the complexity of not having a steady flow of income.

[Sciolist]

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How much is the bare minimum you guys would have as a buffer on the bank if you made your living of poker? I'm having a hard time estimating how much I should put away, not that I am overflowing with money right now but anyway.

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The usual advice is 3-6 months, and I think that's about right. If you drop below three months worth, I would prioritise your poker to pay that back up to six, then look to bankroll build etc/spend money on fun stuff.

It REALLY helps your peace of mind to know you don't have to play next week if you don't want to. That kind of protection is invaluable when it comes to playing poker for a living.