Poker Pros - Do they really make it?

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
$30-50 a good living. This has to be a joke right? I don't know where you live but I spend $30,000 just on elementary school tuition for my two kids.

I get so frustrated when I see dollar amounts talked about in these forums. Most of these post are from people who have no idea. This isn't a slam at the poster just general frustration that comes out every once in a while.

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Alot of these guys are kids still in their early 20's. They are single and don't have kids. So $30,000 to $50,000 goes a long way for them.

After some of themn settle down and have a kid or so, they will realise just how little money pre-tax $50,000 a year is.


Edit: Wow just read the rest of the thread. Here is the deal. If it was just me I could live very well on 30K a year and 50K I would have no worries.

But playing poker say you win 50K and you have a family. Well you don't want your kids growing up in a ghetto so... your getting a house. From what I have seen $200,000 in a lot of areas will just barely get you in a nice 1200SQFT unit; so say a mortgage of 1500 a month minimum depending how much you put down.

Then you and your wife will need at least (1) if not (2) cars. You want your kids to have health insurance... blah, blah, blah.

I am not saying $50,000 is not a living wage. But if that was the sole source of income for your family and came with no benefits... well it can get tight. With just yourself it is not a problem... but with a wife and kids.. it might get a little tighter than you would like.

mman710...simply put, great posts...although many may not recognize your down to earth opinions, yet keen insight into secondary education, i do...and i commend you for it, because i categorically agree with you

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
It is $15,000 per kid per year. The public school spends approx. $11,000 per year to educate each child and I feel that by spending the extra money my children recieve a superior education. But how much I choose to spend on my children's education is not my point. I was only attempting to indicate that the costs of living and raising a family can be significantly higher than you would think.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your cost of living is well above the average cost of living for most people. It is not the norm. Not even close. I don't know of anyone that spends $15k a year for a kid in elementary school. To me, that's overkill. But to each his own. Imo, it's not a cost of living but now in the 'luxury' zone.

Sorry, but you choose to do that so yes, you likely wouldn't make it on $50k a year. But this isn't even close to the norm as part of a factor in how much it costs to raise a family. That's part of your cost to raise 'your' family. Hence, your consumption rate is higher in that regard compared to probably 95% of everyone else in the nation.

Put it this way, anyone spending only $5k a year on private school already saves $25k a year that they don't need to make ends meet. (just using the money as the example)

Just as someone who has to buy a new car every 3 years when they could buy a much lesser car and keep it for much longer. So after they pay $300 + $100insurance a month for 3 years, they redo it all over again to where if they actually own a car, they save 3-5k a year. This is like someone saying they 'have' to have a car for the job. Fine, but it doesn't mean you have to have a brand new one when an older, more practical car will do the job just as adequetly. You don't just buy a new one, then say that that's the benchmark one has to have to do the job.

After a certain point, above basic bills/living costs, the cost of living is what you make it. Family or not.

b

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It is $15,000 per kid per year. The public school spends approx. $11,000 per year to educate each child and I feel that by spending the extra money my children recieve a superior education. But how much I choose to spend on my children's education is not my point. I was only attempting to indicate that the costs of living and raising a family can be significantly higher than you would think.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your cost of living is well above the average cost of living for most people. It is not the norm. Not even close. I don't know of anyone that spends $15k a year for a kid in elementary school. To me, that's overkill. But to each his own. Imo, it's not a cost of living but now in the 'luxury' zone.

Sorry, but you choose to do that so yes, you likely wouldn't make it on $50k a year. But this isn't even close to the norm as part of a factor in how much it costs to raise a family. That's part of your cost to raise 'your' family. Hence, your consumption rate is higher in that regard compared to probably 95% of everyone else in the nation.

Put it this way, anyone spending only $5k a year on private school already saves $25k a year that they don't need to make ends meet. (just using the money as the example)

Just as someone who has to buy a new car every 3 years when they could buy a much lesser car and keep it for much longer. So after they pay $300 + $100insurance a month for 3 years, they redo it all over again to where if they actually own a car, they save 3-5k a year. This is like someone saying they 'have' to have a car for the job. Fine, but it doesn't mean you have to have a brand new one when an older, more practical car will do the job just as adequetly. You don't just buy a new one, then say that that's the benchmark one has to have to do the job.

After a certain point, above basic bills/living costs, the cost of living is what you make it. Family or not.

b

[/ QUOTE ]

Bernie,

I think you are underestimating the impact of providing health insurance for a family. This bill could easily hit $1,000 a month by itself for a decent plan.

Add to that you are dealing with pre-tax figures and 50K goes away pretty quickly.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you are underestimating the impact of providing health insurance for a family. This bill could easily hit $1,000 a month by itself for a decent plan.

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Being self employed for 15 years, I know very well the cost of health insurance. It's a joke how much they charge. It can be the price of a house payment.

If you're single, or married with no kids, $50k can stretch pretty far and you can live decently. Even after taxes.

Btw...The initial response to my post in this thread implied that everyone was in their situation with kids. Which is wrong. In fact, I've recommended in other threads that people with families not play as their sole (family)income. But for someone to tell me that the cost of living for the average family includes having to pay $30k a year for elementary school is ridiculous.

b

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
$30-50 a good living. This has to be a joke right? I don't know where you live but I spend $30,000 just on elementary school tuition for my two kids.

I get so frustrated when I see dollar amounts talked about in these forums. Most of these post are from people who have no idea. This isn't a slam at the poster just general frustration that comes out every once in a while.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alot of these guys are kids still in their early 20's. They are single and don't have kids. So $30,000 to $50,000 goes a long way for them.

After some of themn settle down and have a kid or so, they will realise just how little money pre-tax $50,000 a year is.


Edit: Wow just read the rest of the thread. Here is the deal. If it was just me I could live very well on 30K a year and 50K I would have no worries.

But playing poker say you win 50K and you have a family. Well you don't want your kids growing up in a ghetto so... your getting a house. From what I have seen $200,000 in a lot of areas will just barely get you in a nice 1200SQFT unit; so say a mortgage of 1500 a month minimum depending how much you put down.

Then you and your wife will need at least (1) if not (2) cars. You want your kids to have health insurance... blah, blah, blah.

I am not saying $50,000 is not a living wage. But if that was the sole source of income for your family and came with no benefits... well it can get tight. With just yourself it is not a problem... but with a wife and kids.. it might get a little tighter than you would like.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this.

b

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
I believe, from reading many of the posts here, that many posters are young and without a true understanding of personal finances. When I was 23 I too had no real concept of what size of income I would need to support a family and would have thought that $30,000 - $50,000 would be more than adequate.

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Not everyone wants to have kids.

Many people much older than 23 have no clue about finances. One of the many reasons why the US is so high as far as outstanding credit.

I will agree that if money is that much a factor in your life as far as living a happy life, longterm poker as a sole income probably isn't for you.

Edit: I would also agree that many would benefit from a money/personal finance management class.

b

7 years ago my girlfriend (who is now my wife) and her two teenage daughters moved in with me. Previously I was loose and single so being aggressive in the business world wasn't a focus. My bring home pay was $2000 a month, plus my girlfriend was getting $500 a month from child support. I was able to keep a roof over the head, everyone went to school, clothes on their back and food on the table and this was substantially less than $50k a year. We were also located in Southern California which is not the cheapest place to live. It sucked, and previous personal choices put us in that situation, but we did survive.

One of the parts of the OP was "better than what they could do otherwise". A lot of how people do depends upon the work environment. I'm stiffled and claustophobic (sp?) in a standard 9 to 5 work environment. I do much better in a private contractor/consultant type role. I'm sure a large number of "pro" players would get fired in a week (ok, maybe two) if forced to grind out $100K-a-year stuck in a cubicle listening to some drone boss who drives a mini-van and considers the company christmas party to most exciting event of the year. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[smoore]

$50k/yr is a step up for me.

I make about $30k after expenses and my wife is currently pulling down about $28k. Promotion possiblities abound for her but I have a dead end job (I'm a carpet installer) unless I "move up" and open a store. I have no interest in working 80+ hours a week so that's not an option. I'm a good network and system administrator but can't handle a corporate environment. I can't program a computer beyond basic applications, I have no vision in that area. I cannot sell icewater to people in hell nor do I have a lick of business sense. My skills lie solely in the physical world... except for poker.

Assuming I don't invent the next pet rock, poker is a viable course of action. 60yr old ruggers are sad sacks indeed. Most never make it that far physically and end up selling carpet in some crappy retail store until retirement. Yuk.

My dream is to take down a major score in a large tournament and become a "fix-n-flip" real estate investor, possibly an absentee landlord if I found the right properties such as ski-area condos. I could build a frickin' empire if you gave me $350,000. Right now I'm happy to grind out a second income, build my 'roll and take shots via satellites at my dream... hey, it's better than trying to win the lottery [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

As a side note, one home I worked in last week had an invoice from an exclusive mail-order liquor store for more than my monthly mortgage payment. I guess if you want to drink port wine from 1835 you've gotta pay for it. He gave us a couple bottles of good California wine as a tip from his wine room of over 500 bottles. He couldn't have been over 35. Nice guy to boot [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] I really wouldn't know what to do with the kind of money that guy makes... I wonder if I'd still drink PBR. Probably not.

[DesertCat]

[ QUOTE ]

I think you are underestimating the impact of providing health insurance for a family. This bill could easily hit $1,000 a month by itself for a decent plan.


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If you are self employed you shouldn't be paying this much (that's $12k per year!). I have a family plan that is costing about $2,000 a year. The trick is that it's an HSA, and has a $5,000 deductible. So my maximum cost is effectively $7k per year, and much less if we are all healthy for the year. I'm guessing our total costs are on average between $4k & $5k per year including the monthly premiums.

Corporations spend $12k on family coverage, but that's typically just a way of funneling extra tax free income to it's employees. The company has a choice between a bare bones $5k plan and paying the employee the other $7k in wages at their highest marginal tax rates ($2-3k or so depending upon the state & bracket), or giving them the "cadillac health plan" at the same total cost but greater after tax benefits.

When you are spending your own money, you shouldn't choose a cadillac plan. Why pay extra for insurance companies to process every minor health charge and meddle in your health choices? You are better off controlling your own spending and using insurance as little as possible, i.e. only to protect you from catastrophic costs.