[LearnedfromTV]

I made a similar post a while back, although my sin wis withdrawing from bankroll to invest rather than spend. A better sin, but one that was still frustrating from a poker perspective.

If I had kept all of the poker winnings and never cashed out, my bankroll be in great shape. On the other hand, I'm glad I put some money away during the time when I wasn't sure how good I was. Part of my dilemma was that I won some big tournaments but felt like I wasn't good enough to play higher limits and the bankroll was wasting itself if I didn't pull it out and invest it.

But I was overdoing it. I realized that continuing to downgrade my bankroll to 500-1K every time I built it up was making me choose between playing at a lower level than I wanted to and playing above my (reduced) bankroll to feel like I could earn enough to make the time spent worth it.

My compromise with myself was to restart with 5K and set a withdrawal schedule based on bankroll size. Each time I cross a 1K landmark (6K/7K/etc.), I pull $100, first time a cross a 10K, I pull 1K. Something like this might work for you, if you really need to make withdrawals. Given that a good portion of your poker money is going to spending that should, in theory, be taken care of from your job (monthly expenses and luxuries both), you probably should sit down and make a budget (that excludes poker as a source of income). Your problem might be a spending/savings/budgeting type problem as much as a poker bankroll problem.

In general, you need to realize that poker is a hobby you would play anyway, and that the way to make it most profitable as an investment/source of income, given that you are going to play x hours a week, is to have a real bankroll so that you are best utilizing that time.