Some Hidden Principles of Good Money Management
Playing to win a big casino jackpot is a lot of fun and generates tremendous amounts of excitement. However, we have to fit in the chase for the giant win with the basic—and, perhaps, not so basic—principles of sound money management.
Back in January we published an article on good money management. Let’s take a deeper look at this vital subject.
Good Financial Management Affects Everything we Do
The question we ask all the time is: Can we afford it? This simple question has widespread repercussions in every aspect of life. We should ask: What are the first steps we have to take to achieve good financial management?
What are the Most Important Expenses we Have?
The first step is to list the expenses we have that we cannot risk:
- Mortgage or rent.
- Payments for things we bought with a loan such as a car or furniture.
- Insurance.
Insurance is an easy area to either over-spend or under-spend. For both homeowners and renters, we should have replacement cost insurance for all of our things. Many people just take a more simple but a lot less expensive insurance that covers the depreciated cost of something that was damaged by water or smoke.
The difference between replacement cost insurance and simple depreciated value insurance is tens of thousands of dollars in obligations from the insurance company and the insurance costs quite a bit more.
Setting a Budget for Gaming
This discussion actually might have the end result of causing gamers to reduce their gaming budgets! If that is the case, we are completely on board as responsible gaming includes gaming for a reasonable length of tine and with a reasonable financial budget.
A gamer cannot be sure how much is reasonable as a financial budget for gaming unless they go through a full financial analysis of their assets and their needs.
Sign Up Now!
All Other Expenses are Important but not Essential
On this list we can include food, clothes, entertainment, vacations, utilities, and many more items.
Food is a very interesting category since some food is essential while other food is not. Essential foods are called staples. The staples of one person may not be the staples of another person but we all know what our staples are.
Junk food in any form is not a staple. Sugary foods such as breakfast cereal are not a staple and these foods are also relatively expensive.
Alcohol is desirable for most people but it is a staple for no one. The same goes for soft drinks and bottled water or soda.
Where Does Eating out Fit In?
Eating out is partly a matter of one’s food budget and it is also part of one’s entertainment budget. The key to reasonable eating out is to decide how often you will eat in a restaurant. Then decide what kind of restaurant you want to go to and if you plan on eating alone or with friends.
A lot of people like fast food hamburgers but making a hamburger at home takes very little time. The same applies to a lot of fast food! If we choose to eat fast food relatively often we have to realize that it will naturally cut into our gaming budget.
As far as we go, it’s okay to take gaming money and put it towards fast-food restaurants. We just hope that you actually adjust your gaming budget to reflect your fast food preferences.
Clothing is a Major Stumbling Block for Some People
Clothing stores are in fierce competition with each other. They advertise end of season sales long before the season has come to an end. These sales entice many people to buy clothing that they really don’t need.
One way to decide if you need to go shopping for clothes is simply to do an inventory of clothing. Give away anything that you know you will not wear again. Give away clothes that don’t fit. If you say that you plan on losing weight, give away the clothes that no longer fit and budget for some new clothes down the road when you have lost weight. Having a budget for a new wardrobe after you have lost weight should provide a substantial incentive to losing that weight!
Gaming is a Part of Your Entertainment Budget
We say this often; gaming does not exist in its own vacuum. Just as we budget for every other obvious element of entertainment, we have to budget for gaming.
Budgeting $100 twice a week may be fine if you are playing video poker or blackjack and you use the top strategy on every hand. In that case, for every $100 you bet, you might expect to win back $99.50. With a little luck, you will finish in the black and even if you finish in the red, your loss should be quite minimal.
This is one reason why gaming as a form of entertainment is so good. When a person buys a ticket to a show or a sporting event, the money is gone. They get the benefit of the game or show but they can’t recoup the money if they are disappointed in the show or the outcome of the game.
At Jackpot Capital Casino, the return to player rate is usually around 97%. Slots return less than video poker or blackjack. Even in slots, gamers have to budget for volatility.
A high volatility slot may have the same return to player rate as a low volatility slot but in the first slot, a few gamers will win a lot of money and most will lose more than 3%. This is something to take into consideration when you are playing slots. In low volatility slots, the real return to player rate will be much closer to the stated rate as there are more wins albeit relatively small ones.
I’m on Vacation
We say that ourselves whenever we are on vacation! We budget more for a vacation than for the same thing at home. On vacation we pay for a room in a hotel or motel, we eat more often in restaurants, we pay admission to attractions, we buy souvenirs, and we pay travel costs.
By budgeting wisely, we have quite a bit of money left over from all of our other budgeted items for gaming. We repeat again, responsible gaming means, among other things, gaming with money we can afford to set aside for that purpose.
NOW is the time to SIGN UP at JACKPOT CAPITAL CASINO!
