"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[Xist]

I only remember getting one ticket in the last several years and I took defensive driving. I doubt that I got any while Active Duty Army, so I probably have not had any tickets on my record in eleven years or more. I only had one claim, back in 2002. I had State Farm before, since I learned to drive, and they charged me more.

The life insurance isn't for me, it is for Mom and my brother. Without me, Mom would need to hire people, and I hate to think of what would happen with my brother without Mom and I, but there would be money for it.

[darcane]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

How are USAA reward checking account rates? I wouldn't bother with rate chasing unless you're starting to amass a good amount of cash...just looked up USAA and it's a garbage rate; 0.01%. Highest rates are about 2.5% these days. That's disappointing as they usually have the best rates for borrowers.

Where the heck do you find a bank/CU that gives 2.5% on a checking account?

The most of what I've finding are .10% or less for savings accounts and zero for checking.

Not that I have anything to put in them. My saver mentality has gotten severely strained after divorce. My biggest challenge is that my FHA home loan was made based on two incomes, and I now pay it based on my one income. Since it's FHA, MIP does NOT come off the loan when I hit 20% equity, I have to refi and the rates are higher now than when we bought. Losing MIP would save me $270/mo if I could just eliminate it.

[Xist]

BrioDirect offers 2.46% on their savings account. When I looked the other day Vio Bank was the best at 2.42%. Consumers Credit Union's Free Rewards Checking offers 5.09% APY on balances up to $10,000.

Hang in there Darcane, a million billion people wish you well!

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by darcane

Where the heck do you find a bank/CU that gives 2.5% on a checking account?

The most of what I've finding are .10% or less for savings accounts and zero for checking.

Not that I have anything to put in them. My saver mentality has gotten severely strained after divorce. My biggest challenge is that my FHA home loan was made based on two incomes, and I now pay it based on my one income. Since it's FHA, MIP does NOT come off the loan when I hit 20% equity, I have to refi and the rates are higher now than when we bought. Losing MIP would save me $270/mo if I could just eliminate it.

Rate chasing sucks because they are usually promotional rates that change a year later, and as Xist points out, are capped at certain amounts of money. My credit union rate is 1.75% with a $25k cap and other minor benefits like free online bill pay and ATM fee refunds. They have other requirements too like having direct deposit, so that adds to the hassle of rate chasing and annoys your HR when you're constantly changing where to send your paycheck.

If I found myself single, my first move would be to get roommates. Heck, the first 3 years of marriage we had roommates... and recently a friend of my wife is staying rent-free while she looks for work. I'm tempted to rent out rooms again; it's always worked out well for me, but then again I like people and get along well since I don't let little things get under my skin.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by Xist

... I calculated some months ago that I had paid a couple of thousand...

When I figured out how much money I spent on the game I also estimated (the best that I could) how much I would have earned working minimum wage for the same amount of time... something like $40,000.

Au contraire, mon frere. You're looking at it backwards. If you had the opportunity to earn money during that time and didn't bother, then it would be a good comparison. By gaming, you didn't give up $42,000. You weren't skipping shifts to play and you weren't turning down jobs because of your hobby (hopefully).

You needed down time to recharge. What did it cost you? 1/20 of minimum wage. If you had paid someone minimum wage (I'm not getting into employer's expenses) for that amount of time to relax and entertain you, it would have run you $40k out of pocket. Instead you came up with a way to accomplish it that only cost you $2k!

Using your 13.7 hours per week of playing as a baseline, lets say you had 5 shifts of 8 hours each and paid someone minimum wage to entertain you for 2.74 hours after each shift. In that case, the first 20 and a half minutes of each hour worked would go straight to your post-shift entertainment expenses. But you didn't hire a jester or a masseuse: you spent your entertainment bucks on WOW.

13 years at 416.6 hours is 5,415.8 hours. $2000 into that is $0.37 cents an hour. Rounding up, 2.74 hours of post-shift WOW cost you $1.02. In this case, less than the first three minutes of each hour worked would go straight to your post-shift entertainment.

Well played, Xist, well played.

[Xist]

Me: [Really needs a good massage]
Homeless gentleman: [holds "Will work for food sign"]
Me: "I have a proposition for you."
Homeless gentleman: [tears up sign and jumps into traffic]

[Fat Charlie]

Aren't you supposed to offer candy?

[Xist]

To homeless people? All that I know is that Trunk or Treat is where people offer candy from vans and and act creepy.

[redpoint5]

I specifically avoided WOW knowing I wouldn't have the willpower to set proper boundaries. For years that was half the conversation in the office. One coworker told me how much he played (WOW keeps track of it for you), and it worked out to 8hrs per day, every day. That means on days he didn't play at all, he made up for by playing more than 8hrs on other days. He also worked 40hrs, and presumably slept somewhere around 56hrs... that leaves 16hrs to do everything else. He shared this with me after I was skeptical that his character had a street value of $500. Most I'd had ever paid for a video game up until then was probably $40. The concept of a subscription to play was newish then.

I've spent thousands of hours playing games though. Too soon to tell if I regret it; many of my memories playing are quite fond still.

You'll notice I said nothing about reducing WOW spending. It goes along with my principle of spending money where you enjoy it most (as long as other financial responsibilities are met).

[Xist]

People used to call World of Warcraft "Warcrack." The other day the news compared Fortnight to cocaine.

Some years ago Blizzard, the creators of WoW, decided that the only way to beat the gold sellers was at their own game, so if you want gold, you can indirectly buy it from another player. You can also use gold to pay for game time and in-game services. They made a marketplace so the dollar value of gold varies with supply and demand.

I do not spend much time trying to gather gold, although I regularly try to sell things to other players on the auction house.

I have been able to pay for a significant fraction of my WoW expenses with in-game currency.

If you are in-game and type /played it tells you how many days you have played that character. I added up the /played time on all of my characters and reached the numbers that I shared before.

I do not have any idea how to put a dollar figure on any of my characters. I would not have any idea how to simply buy equipment as good as what my main character has, which does not compare with the dedicated players. I could buy $50 worth of gold to get the best gear available on the auction house, but either I would need to earn many upgrades or pay a well-equipped group to run me through raids and mythic dungeons.

I started playing when the first expansion pack came out. My guildmates chipped in and bought the pack for me and I started raiding with them. That was three or four nights a week and I guess that we were not very good. There were nights that we kept failing and people started leaving the raid because it was too late.

That felt like a full-time job, but if it was four five-hour nights then obviously our hobby was a part-time job, but I needed to earn gold for repairs, and since my equipment was inadequate, I was trying to find special food, arrows, potions, etc. If I wanted to work on anything myself it was on top of that.

I have hardly raided since. In fact, I have only done a handful of dungeons in the last year. I regularly join a group for one boss or event, but it is not intense and time-consuming like raiding. It can be great to work together with a diverse team, learn strategy, overcome obstacles, and complete a challenging task, but I do not have the time for it.