[Harv72b]

VP$IP measures the percentage of times in which you voluntarily put money into the pot. So, while it is related somewhat to your starting hand requirements, you cannot calculate it simply by looking at what hands you play and dividing those by the total number of combinations possible. As Catt said, there are times when you should fold ATs and times when you should raise with it; the same applies to nearly every starting hand.

PokerTracker is easily worth its cost, but if you insist on playing without it for some reason, you can keep track of your own VPIP by dividing the number of times you did anything other than check or fold preflop by the total number of hands you played in each session. So if you played 100 hands and called or raised preflop in 20 of those hands, your VPIP would be 20%. If you call and fold preflop in one hand, that still counts as voluntarily putting money in the pot. But if you fold your blind to a raise, that does not count.