Poker player here. Can you tell us what stakes and games you are playing to earn those rates? I will give a full write up with more info
Bulk of my play is at the 1/2 level where I have over 3000 hours of live play logged coming in at $15/hr. I have started mixing in 2/5 on Fri/Sat where so far over a small sample size I have earned about $40/hr. I will probably start adding in some tournaments this year. Really haven't played any tournaments in the past couple of years but have had success in the past.
Hey, get your own user name...
Sorry my friend! Great minds think alike!
Thanks for all the feedback so far! I got an offer from my bank (CHASE) to open a savings account with 15k and keep that balance for 90 days and I will get $200 so I set that up yesterday. My plan is to pay off all the CC with an interest rate immediately which will be about $13,600. From there I am going to set up monthly auto payments to clear the rest before they start to incur an APR. I am keeping a "poker bankroll" of $10,000 which I need to handle any potential downswings. I plan on maxing out contribution for 2017 into my Roth IRA in April which will take $4000. I will wait till April so I don't dip under the 15k balance requirement for the $200 bonus from CHASE. So this leaves me with 12k which 5k will be set aside for emergency fund while the other 7k will be used to pay down the 0% CC's and medical on a monthly basis.
I will look into the cell phone cost. I am currently with AT&T and using an IPHONE 7plus
As far as the car I think I will just drive it until it dies. It is an Acura which is a division of Honda and known to last. It does have 230,000 miles but despite a transmission vibration from time to time it runs fine. If the transmission goes I can always replace that for like 2k rather than take on another car debt. We shall see.
You need to pay off all debts to keep your expenses as low as possible. Your car is also an issue that you need to be prepared to handle.
Bouncing your balances around is easy money, however, $200/$15,000 = 1.3% return for the 3 months and then you have to jump again to another account to make a couple hundred dollars more and the return only goes down unless you start doing multiples of these at any one time to make this worth it imo.
I have never made a living off of poker, but I understand a lot of the basics that must be mastered to make it successful. You make $15/hour at $1/2 and $40/hour at $2/5. This sounds really good for live games (well done). The issue is that your bankroll is currently going to be a static number, so you need a solid margin when moving from the 1/2 to the 2/5 to handle the variation. If you are going to continue this as your source of income (I really don't recommend it in your situation) then your bankroll needs to be self-sufficient and not to be used for emergencies or expenses. I am thinking that you would want a minimum of 30 buy-ins to handle the variance. So if you are at 1/2 - $6000 is manageable. If you are playing 2/5 - $15,000 is above what you listed as your current bankroll of $10,000. This means at 20 buy-ins you are possibly at risk of losing it all. This is a brutal way to make a living, and swings like this are not uncommon.
To me, the issue of looking at your hourly rate is that a lot of companies have recently come out stating that they will pay their employees a minimum of $15/hour, plus you would get benefits. Many of these jobs require no special skills and would be monotonous, but ask yourself if winning and losing money just to get $15/hour is actually worth it when you can get the same amount week to week plus benefits (i.e. access to a 401K, HSA, etc)? If you are going to play the 2/5 game (I only recommend this with a larger bankroll) then you could make the case that you make more per hour than what you would at a basic job. I think you could get plenty of experience and extra money if you were to play poker on the side (couple evenings a week and weekends) plus a full-time job to get you in a better place and use poker as a side-hustle. You could keep your skills relevant and not be dependent on winning constantly.
There are also other things to consider about the overall environment you are in. Back in 2012-2013, I was winning a lot on weekends and evenings; best run I have ever had. In the last few years, the bad players learned their lesson and left, and now everyone has knowledge of the best plays and it is more difficult to win. Are you winning due to there being a lot of weak players at your casino or are you beating the better players? If the player pool dries up, you might have to travel to other places in order to make money which increases your cost for the same returns. Your player pool is the single largest variable outside of your control that you need to pay attention to. If it is all solid players you are playing after the weak ones leave, then your bankroll size needs to increase to keep playing the same game! We play 1/3 where I'm at which puts more money on the table than a 1/2 table and so we are less effected by the rake.
I'm not a tournament player myself, but this would follow a similar method of determining how often you win vs. how much you have put in to determine your pay off and therefore what size bankroll you might need. You might find that the tournaments just don't cut it month-to-month during the grind.
Your current setup seems very short term. You need to assess a few things especially at your age. I don't expect responses to these, but they are just things to think about and consider.
1) How old is your mother and how is her health? Is she financially stable to support you if you can't pay the $350/month? Will you be willing or able to care for her if needed in the next year? 5 years? 10 years?
2) What are you current goals? Are you avoiding business ventures or office work for now? Do you have any skills to leverage that an employer is looking for and willing to pay a lot for? These can be more lucrative than $15/hour, especially if you have any type of basic office work experience.
3) What is your health like? Do you have health insurance available or will you need it in the next couple years?
4) Though you can eat cheaply at the casino, it is not health food. There will be consequences for 12-15 hour sessions eating restaurant food 5 days a week. Make sure you take care of your body as this is something that money cannot replace.
I feel like this all comes across as critical, which I am not being, just some friendly advice from someone in the cutoff :)