May was a mixed bag on the spending side of my personal finances. I lost money gambling on the cruise ship the last day of our cruise. Losing 14 consecutive hands in blackjack makes you question how the Shufflemaster can't be rigged!). My food spending looks high because I bought a $200 Groupon gift card as well as a 28 day supply of Nutrisystem, neither of which I have consumed. All the other categories were in line with expectations.May Expenses: $2,287
$968 Auto ($61 gas, $4 repairs/maintenance, $411 depreciation, $492 for 6 months insurance)
$0 Bank Fees
$7 Clothing
$0 Computer
$1,184 Entertainment (movies, gambling, alcohol)
$408 Food
$8 Gifts Given
($11) Household/Housing/Home Repair (returned an item, so income this month)
$52 Health and Dental Insurance
$0 Investment Expense
$70 Interest Expense*
$70 Interest Expense*
$0 Medical/Dental
$0 Miscellaneous
$2 Personal Care
$0 Subscriptions
$0 Taxes
$49 Uber/Lyft Expenses (excluding fuel and depreciation)
$49 Uber/Lyft Expenses (excluding fuel and depreciation)
$209 Utilities
($660) Vacation (redeemed Carnival gift cards, so income this month)
*Interest expense includes student loans and the loan on my car. As both rates are below 2%, I am completely comfortable paying the interest each month and investing the money that I would otherwise use to pay off these loans.
*Interest expense includes student loans and the loan on my car. As both rates are below 2%, I am completely comfortable paying the interest each month and investing the money that I would otherwise use to pay off these loans.
You might need to implement a stop-loss rule for blackjack. So if you lose 5 hands in a row or whatever number you like, but definitely a number lower than 14, then you quit playing blackjack for the day. I haven't played a single hand of blackjack for many years since the losing streaks always seemed to be much longer than the winning streaks. I still lose money playing poker. I just lose less and it takes a lot longer to lose.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, maybe this losing streak will result in Carnival offering you more discounted cruises.
I'm definitely going to set myself some rules in the future. Right now my brain operates like, "Well, I can't KEEP losing, so let me bet bigger to recoup my losses." Unfortunately, that just compounded my losses. On the next cruise I will plan to spend much less time gambling.
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