[LearnedfromTV]

I am in a frustrating situation and want to hear thoughts.

I've won a lot of money over the past year. I don't want to use numbers but lets just say a significant amount but not a ridiculous amount. My problem, if you can call it that, is that I am obsessed with saving and investing my money. This is actually a borderline problem in general. I stretch myself thin on bills or expenses in order to see the amount I have invested go up. I think of poker as a way to supplement my fixed salary so that I have more to invest. Once money is in my investment accounts it is untouchable.

This "problem" may not seem like much of a problem. Here's why it is, or where I need advice. When I lose, I feel like I am losing more than I actually am relative to the amounts I have won before. Every time I build up a bankroll I cash out most of it and start over. Some of those times, like this weekend, I get impatient with playing lower stakes and try to build quickly, thinking in the back of my mind, "this is only a small part of my winnings, it's ok to lose it." Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't - it's effectively playing a short bankroll. But when I actually lose it, like today, it feels like I've lost everything, even though I've actually just lost like 3% of my winnings. Mostly, it's just a bad luck run, which happens, but no matter how much i try to avoid it I also tilt some on the way down. It feels as though I'm self-destructively losing my whole roll, because the money I've won and put away doesn't count to me any more.

Basically, i feel like i'm doing a shitty job of treating poker like an investment in its own right. Whenever I have a substantial chunk of money sitting in non-interest bearing poker account when I have stocks I want to buy or funds to add money to, I feel like it is a waste and pull it out.

This bothers me for two reasons. First, I hate feeling bad when I go through a losing streak and drop one of these "short bankrolls". Second, I feel like I am stunting my growth to higher limits/buyins.

Does anyone else a similar issue or any advice?