Tuesday night's are for poker

I love Tuesday night's. American Idol stinks up the teletubes for most of the night, and I really don't ever have plans on a Tuesday....except for poker (and House when a new episode comes on). Tonight, I plan on playing the $13.5K guarantee with one of my tokens and I will also be playing some cash games as well. I don't plan on doing anything else other than poker.

I've been thinking about my poker bankroll and all the things I can blow it on. There are quite a few things out there that I really really want. The problem is that they are wants and not needs. Also, I'm having so much fun with poker right now that I don't want to blow my bankroll on anything. However, I do want to put my poker earnings to good use.

This is going to take discipline, but the first order of business for my poker earnings is to pay off my one remaining credit card that has a balance. This credit card balance shot up during the remodeling of my house and I've been working to pay it off since. However, when I refinance (which I'm going to start looking into doing sometime soon), I should be able to pay off the credit card with the added equity in my home.

The good news is that the credit card balance isn't outrageous, but I hate having credit card balances and I hate paying interest. So it's first on my agenda. However, I think the refinancing thing will happen before the poker earnings become high enough to pay off anything. I'm OK with that because all the stuff on the credit card was used in remodeling my house. It wasn't like I was out buying plasma TVs or anything.

The 2nd thing on my agenda with my poker revenue is to pay off my balance on my kitchen appliances. I did a 12 month same as cash deal with these around August (maybe) of last year. I have been paying off a little bit at a time. I'd like to have a real good month and just finish this thing off before spring.

Aside from those to "bad" debts, the only other debt I have is my house. I don't mind paying that though.

Once the discipline pays off the bad debts, then it's time to set up a reward fund using poker money. Basically what I'll do is take 1/2 of my earnings each week and put it in an account. When I want something to reward myself (like a nice BIG TV), I use the money from that account. In fact, any "treats" like that will have to come from the reward fund.

This will allow me to take my regular salary from my job and spend that money wisely. When I get the urge to splurge, then that money comes from my reward fund. No money in the reward fund? Tough shit...go grind out some hands and put some in there!