Where do you live that your living expenses are $1200 a month? If you don't mind me asking do you have money coming in from parents, a partner, or somewhere else? For most people earning $30-40k a year is barely getting by. I am a single male and I spend at least 3x that much each month and I'm not an extravagant spender or anything. For people who have wife and/or kids they will likely need to be earning even more.

1. Not that easy to just move to another country, especially if you have responsibilities.
2. If you are from the U.S. you still have to (in most circumstances) pay taxes to the U.S. even if you earned money in Canada. You could renounce your citizenship to save a little bit of money, but I don't think it will be that easy to be accepted by other countries if your career is poker pro.

I live in Halifax, NS Canada. I live 5 minute walk to the Casino is a 'sketchy' party of town. I have no money coming in except for my poker income and some stock earnings.

Good point.

What is wrong exactly? No savings in fiat currency is risk free that is really my main point.

Briefly,

-- You seem to be conflating government pensions and private pensions

-- You seem confused about what pension money can be invested in

Regarding your other points of a systemic collapse, investing in gold or commodities, etc., all I can say is that if there is a systemic collapse to that extent, sitting on a pile of gold won't help you.

My dad works for the gov't and there's been talk of totally eliminating their pensions. It would have to pass in Congress, though. Private pensions they can basically say "f off" and not pay you anything.

Depends on what you mean by "pensions" -- 401k/IRA and similar programs people often conflate with "pensions".

A buddy of mine recently bought a nice (but very small) studio condo in a great area of Massachusetts. With the low interest rates and a relatively inexpensive condo fee that includes heat, his mortgage and condo fee only come out to a little over 600 bucks a month.

And since this place is very close to his job so he is not paying much in terms of gas, he probably is not paying more than $1,200 a month to live.

If you are living alone, $1,200 a month can definitely make ends meet in some situations.

I don't really want to talk about pensions anymore. If someone wants to talk economics/ finances PM me.

Expenses brag:
Rent: $300
Internet: $15
Power: 8$
Phone: $50
Medication: 6$
Food: 200+ + +
Clothing: ?
Entertainment: ?

Zero insurance as I am Canadian and am generally healthy.
No car as I am a 5 minute walk to Casino 15 minutes to downtown.

As you can see I could spend much, much less than $1200 a month if could stop eating out and having fun. But I am still saving a decent amount and am doing alot of networking which is more worthwhile to me than other luxuries. Besides, the greatest asset as a poker pro is his/her friends IMO.

Yes, where and how you live makes a huge difference. I live in Michigan. We are renting, but soon will be moving and buying the house next door. The housing market is really weak here, and what will be our new house has recently been appraised at $15,000. It is a three-bedroom with a full basement and enclosed porch.

My kids used to say that we lived in "the hood", and the neighborhood certainly has its quirks. A couple years ago we had several neighbors who would get drunk and argue outside late at night. Some of these neighbors had extended families in the house or nearby, and the whole thing could blow up to 20 or more people outside. The record is three police cars that I've seen on our block at the same time.

A lot of people wouldn't want to live here, but it's not like we're in the ghetto. There are no drug dealers on the corner and no drive-by shootings. We raised three children here, and never felt that they were in danger. Also, we live less than 10 miles from Lake Michigan.

If you don't have to have the best of everything (we pay cash for used cars, and it's been almost ten years since we made a car payment) your living expenses can be surprisingly low, even in the United States.

I don't think that one person living alone could make it on $1,200 a month here, but of course, a single person wouldn't need a 3-bedroom house (my wife and I both have an office.) I think that with an income of something $1,500 a month for a single person it might be possible.

Not to derail too much, BUT no matter what your profession, full time poker player or not, everyone should save up to retire. In general, save 15% of your take home pay and invest in good growth mutual funds with a track record of at least 10 years of success. Evenly distribute your investments across these 4 categories: growth, aggressive growth, mid-cap, and international funds. Start off with a ROTH IRA because it grows tax free. But, you can only put in so much. If you work for a company that does 401k matching, put in the minimum to get all the matching. Put any additional into the ROTH. Put any additional beyond that into a personal account you can withdraw at any time.

Avoid gold, silver, real estate, CD's, individual stocks, savings accounts, and things of that nature for investments. They don't have as good of a track record OR you have to be an expert at them as is the case with real estate or stocks and you have to WORK at those like a job to be successful. If you're working IMO you're not really investing. You're just taking on a new job.

I'm talking about old school pensions that are rare nowadays. Separate from 401k's/Thrift Savings/etc. Basically they were trying to vote on removing postal employee's pension plans last year but nothing ever happened with it. If a private firm ever goes bankrupt and co-mingled pension funds with operating expenses, then the employees would be **** out of luck. More of a finance thread discussion though, I guess.

1. Gold and silver do not require work. They are a simple investment that is a hedge against fiat currency. In today's economic climate they are appreciating assets. It is irresponsible not to own these. Most of the independant billionaire investors are heavily invested in these 2 commodities.

2. Yes and yes to the rest of your advice. Betting on individual stocks is extremely time consuming WORK that will basically require you to have a 2nd job.

And... wow we are derailing this thread quite badly.

I agree they are not work but disagree they are good investments because ...

Good mutual funds will get you an average of 12%. This is based on data since the stock market was created. Gold is pretty dismal since its inception - like 2% or something.

If you're a Billionaire, then the rules do change a bit and it may not be a bad idea to diversify yourself as many ways as possible. But, for the average Joe or Millionaire, I'd stay away.

No need to get all nitty on this **** guys. Most people here are broke 20-somethings, so a roth ira and index funds will get them started in the right direction.

You need to get outside of that dream world and go read some census statistics...

Exactly right. The median personal income in the United States is $26,507.

http://financemymoney.com/personal-i...u-would-think/

lol I guess I was a little off with that

The first time I left law to play poker professionally, I thought it would be the easiest gig in the world. But the grass is always greener. I got busto after a year and had to go get another job...

Then, I went back to grinding. Busto, job, repeat.

For me, what has ultimately worked is having BOTH going at once (duh--it only took me a few repeated mistakes and 5 years to figure that out). I have my own small business, which is great because I hate working for the Man. But I also supplement my income substantially with poker. Because there is no pressure to make my monthly nut all from grinding, I play better poker and post better results than I did when I played full-time (which, of course, makes me want to go back to the grind full-time, but I know that this doesn't work well for me). The other thing is that I was ALWAYS way under-rolled for some of the games I was playing and have always had TERRIBLE money management. So that's something I regret in poker but also in every aspect of my life...

The times in my life I've had playing for a living were awesome, and I do NOT regret those periods of time at ALL.

The $26,507 value is for females not necessarily working full-time. The value for a full-time worker is $39,336 according to the article you linked.

Yeah, definitely listen to this guy.



To not invest in gold in the current economic environment exhibits an absurd ignorance of the inflationary environment we are soon to be living in. Investing, like poker, is situational. Gold not doing well during a stock market bubble and boom is a completely different context than the last decade and moving forward.

I have an econ minor. I'm no expert on precious metals, but I know what a bubble is.

People thought that the value of their houses/real estate would always go up, just because it always had before. That didn't turn out well.

The graph keeps going up though... it must go down at some point!

There's an entire thread covering this from over a year back, entitled something like "Six Months Later: Where are US Grinders Now", discussing post-Black Friday lives. A ton of people in that thread fit into the bolded category. Many people were unfortunately in quite bad shape. The most curious thing about the discussion was how clear it was made that the entire "save up six months living expenses before you turn pro" line of thought was being completely ignored.

Law and accounting aren't real life skills dude. And lawyers provide ZERO real value for society while making artificially high incomes off the backs of honest goods PRODUCING Americans via inflation.

If you are going to argue about poker players being lazy at least reference an actual productive job like being a farmer, welder, doctor, or an engineer. But lawyer or accountant? EL OH EL.