How do you afford your bills?

[Xzin]

Some people race their 150k+ Ferrari's around a track and are ok with paying 30 - 50k+ when/if they crash. Some develop space ships for commercial space travel. MOST people don't do that but even if only 1% do.... out of 300 million in the US alone, that is 3,000,000+ Even if .01% do that is 300,000 people.

Granted, most people have debt, little to no savings and work for a living. But not everybody lives the same way.

All that said - WoW is an incredible deal in terms of cost per hour of entertainment. I just picked up an Xbox360. I will probably use it only to play Halo 3 and then will either sell it or keep it for a very small amount of other games. That was about $400 for what will be something like 10 - 20 hours of enjoyment. Some people (Sam, looking your way) can spend $400 for an hour with a hooker. Some people spend $15 for a movie for them and their date. WoW is $15 a month, plus power and computer "use" - so figure $30 - $35 if you also throw in ISP fees. If you sleep 8 hours a night and play the other 16 (unrealistic to be sure) then you get nearly 500 HOURS of entertainment potential per month, for that $35. That works out to be 7 CENTS per hour.

This is a huge over simplification of course (one usually needs to work, to pay for housing, etc) but still. The takeaway is the fact that WoW is SUPER CHEAP to play compared to most traditional activities.

It doesn't really matter what it costs as long as it makes you happy and you are not piling up debt to make it happen. Money is just a tool people. It can't make you happy but it certainly helps to facilitate the process and it makes life much easier to live. But you can't take it with you. Enjoy life and do what makes you happy.

[MrLonghair]

Now regarding power bills.

I dualboxed steadily for a month before going "Ugh. Azeroth." and giving up, this had no impact at all on my power bill. Nothing.

Does this sound crazy to anybody else? The second box consists of an old 15" LCD and a 350w Socket A machine.

Maybe it's some Swedish thing.

[penguini]

From y unit on to infinity, i pay $3 a unit.

You pay $infinity!

[Ughmahedhurtz]

From y unit on to infinity, i pay $3 a unit.

You pay $infinity!

Compile warning: variable not declared prior to use!

[edit] God, I'm a nerd.

[Bradster]

For power bill I got meter to test it, just haven't yet. I'll be a bit more proactive on getting the power costs to you guys.

As for smoking I both box and smoke I guess that makes me very rich?! See what you guys did?! Now I got to have one. *BRB

[Suribusi]

I only have 2 accounts, and I still don't understand how you people who 5-box afford it. I mean thats several thousand $ for the computers, $75 a month for accounts, plus the $100 to start 5 non BC accounts. Now while my job does pay, it doesn't pay THAT good. Ya'll must have extremely good jobs, I know Xzin does since he owns a business(es).

I quit smoking.

-S

[Xzin]

My power bill (with 12 computers, AC running full blast, 12 monitors (6 of which suck 700+ watts in total) and everything else went up about $400 a month. Where I live, power costs around ten cents per KWH. I have found when I don't run but my main machines and use powersave modes on my monitors, it costs about $150 more per month. Granted, these were in the middle of summer so AC was running full blast and AC takes A LOT of power.

There are ways of doing this for far less power and keep in mind this is an overkill setup. Most people who add 5 computers and a bit of cooling will bump up $100 - $150 a month most likely, depending on power save modes, use, if you turn your computers off or not, etc.

[Lance]

I find wow to be very cheap (even with 5 accounts) compared to other things. I used to go out on the piss alot (maybe 8x a month) and each time would cost at least £100 a time. So £50 a month compared to £800 a month is great. Plus no hangovers.

[trigemina]

Plus no hangovers.

Maybe I'm just old, but after playing WoW all night I feel worse then I would if I just had a hangover :/

[Ukon]

well. i do only have two accounts. so my school scollershit(stipend in norwegian) makes up for the gaming things.
so it isn't really a problem to me.