Questions on how to support this hobby? Supporting this hobby, what do you do?

I have a good job so its not much of an issue, but when budgeting it comes down to cutting unnecessary costs. Eating out and Entertainment are by far my biggest sink holes for cash. Course i'm single, live alone, and lazy about cooking... Basic budgeting is a life time skill so learn it. Some of my biggest month to month savings was getting rid of cable tv ($120/month). I can watch anything I want online now a days. Using Netflix. $15 a month vs about $50 that I was spending on movie rentals, and going to the movies. Thoes two things ammounted to about $150 a month swing right there. Now if I could cut out the fast food, that would prolly be a good $300 a month swing.

WoW is a cheap hobby on a month to month cost. Smokers prolly spend more each month than we do. Also if you play say 2 hours a day average. and shelling out $50 for internet and $75 for wow sub's. That comes to about $2 an hour and change for your entertainment. I remember 10 years ago when I was an EQ addict and I did the math and included the game costs, internet, sub fees, etc it came to like 30cents an hour entertainment.

I'm a housewife, so we're a 1-income family. My husband makes decent enough money, but I wouldn't say we're exceptionally well off or anything. We're comfortable. ;)

When it comes to being able to afford my multi-boxing, it's really a no-brainer for us. It's our form of entertainment. We don't go out because we're on a 3rd shift schedual...nothing's open when we're up to do stuff. We quit smoking and we're dieting {I swear we save $300 a month in milk, coffee and smokes alone!}. And it solves our problem of being more hardcore than most of our friends, but too old to deal with hardcore guild crap.

As far as your own business, keep in mind the costs that come with that. You'll probably need to be licensed for the computer bits, and you may not be allowed to run a business like that out of your home. I don't know specifics, I just know my parents had a million headaches starting up their antique sales business.

Starbuck_Jones, we got rid of cable, too. There is absolutly nothing on that justifies $120 a month or whatever. Whatever we want to watch, we buy or can watch online.

I got in early on some wireless IPOs, the stuff just skyrocketed from there. How's your portfolio?

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Originally Posted by 'bryce',index.php?page=Thread&postID=170924#post17 0924

So, anyone got any advice for me?

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The only advice I can give is advice that is very obvious, but which many people do not follow-- do not get in over your head. It's that simple. It is not always easy, but if you're willing to bite the bullet from time to time and not take risks that are clearly bad (something I have done from time to time >.< ) you can keep your finances manageable. It's about compromise and being level-headed (and not emotional) when considering how to spend your money. Or at least, that is my perspective on it from my own experiences.

I work in IT and make a good salary. I have debt, but it's very manageable and I've never gotten into more debt than I can comfortably pay. What's more, between my 401K (in spite of the recent beating it has taken) and a savings account where I always dump my tax refund checks (small as they are), I am in a position where if I happened to lose my job I could pay off my debt completely and have enough cash on hand to pay my bills for 6-12 months. Aside from that I have cut my debt by about 1/3rd in the last few months, and will have another 1/3rd down before this year is out. I may be completely debt-free by early 2010.

It took me many years (longer than it should have, to be honest) to focus on making sure that I was secure financially. But because I was always responsible enough to keep from doing anything that would have really hurt me, once I decided to focus on that I was able to do it within around a year-and-a-half. And now I'm very close to being able to just pile on the cash savings and be much more than just financially secure, while still being able to splurge from time to time. It's something I am really looking forward to, assuming that things remain as they are for the next year or two.

This is what makes me chuckle when someone on the WoW forums tries to point and laugh at a person who "pays $75 a month for a video game." If I can see my plan through, then in about 18 months I'll be able to pay $750 a month for video games if I want. Or $1,500. $75 a month? Heh...

Back in the early 90's I'd donate plasma twice a week. Back then it was for beer money, ends up that if you drink enough and often enough your liver will create some enzymes that exclude you from donating plasma...

It was a sad day for me.

I set investment strategy for insurance companies (actuary) and make a good living. However, I recognize that the multiboxing hobby is multiples the cost of a regular WoW hobby. While WoW is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment ($/hour) multiboxing does start to get more expensive (especially with new hardware). However, if it's a choice between going to bars and drinking or playing WoW, then even multiboxing is cheaper (not necessarily better and possibly much less fun if you don't have a significant other or girlfriend/boyfriend).

I also agree with everything Bigfish said. College is about 80% worthless, and most jobs are mind numbing, but that's the world we live in. You may not learn much in college, it probably won't have much to do with your actual career, but on average that piece of paper is well worth the time & money. Can you make millions w/o a degree? Absolutely. I'd probably say the correlation with degree vs high net is lower than compared with who you know, initiative, and risk tolerance. However, if you're not one of those who is sure they're going to take over the world then college is a valuable investment. I think you'll find many things in life are about going through the motions and doing what society demands, regardless of how little value it actually produces. You can fight against it and make your path more difficult, or you can choose to go with it and spend your energy/time doing things you enjoy. Many people take the former and many take the latter.

Edit: oooh, my 150th post and a second star... must be a good one or full of total crap!

When I started working in IT, circa 1993, everyone in the industry was down on going to college for computers. The stuff they taught was obsolete two years before they could get a program going. (OSI model ftw!) So I went the cert route. A+, Net+, CNA, MCP (x3), MCSE. I had more initials than a Scrabble game. Somewhere around 2002 everyone started wanting the degree :/ So I went to plan B and married a dentist.

I support it because my life is something like:
Rent is 450 a month(900 but I have a housemate)
I pay 750 a month as an allotment.
Gas, electric, water, cable internet, sewer and trash is another couple hundred bucks.
I can still afford my $75 a month, but I seem to always end up running behind on some bill or other because ... bills are like Righteous Defense. You go to group with someone other than your shammies, and you forget to turn it on, and it doesn't matter until you get to that first boss fight and then you're OOM (because you forgot to put on BoSanct too) and are watching your healer crumple to the ground. I hate that, but I still can't find someone else to blame it on when I forget to rebuff or pay a bill.
Solely because of that, I feel poor even though I make pretty good jack working for the government. No degree here either. I have about 150 college credits, but never seem to get around to paying someone to turn those into a degree either. I'm sick of being a 33-year-old unmarried High School Graduate.
I was sick of it back at age 25, too.

Go ahead YOUNG MAN, be like me!
Oh as for my job, I instruct people in the armed forces how to do stuff. The reason I have the high paying job with my lack of credentials is because of 6 years experience doing the job that I now teach, while I was in the Army.

FYI, your life earnings over the course of your life statistically double with a Bachelor's degree, triple with a Masters, and quadruple with a Doctorate. Has nothing to do with the actual piece of paper, but the factors that got you there. Part of it is the "need money to make money" aspect of life, part of it is your drive and determination, part of it is your intellect, part of it is the prestige that goes with the piece of paper.

That's not to say you won't see extremes. You can get super rich high school graduates, or super poor doctorate holders, but as far as where the bell curve sits, you see those numbers.

I work full time and at 20, I make more than my mum who has a PhD, so those statistics mean squat to me. I have been to Uni for a bit as well and continue to return there every once in a while for some education when I feel like it. But from my life experience I have a general rule...

Once you get into uni/college, you high school score doesn't matter. Once you get a job/experience, your Uni score doesn't matter.

These days, experience will trump a piece of paper. From what I've seen working on mine sites, you don't even need a degree to do an Engineer's job