thewh00sel!

So it's been four months since I purchased the Honda Fit. I've been keeping a pretty close eye on the various costs associated with car ownership lately, and I have been experimenting with hypermiling a little bit.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, hypermiling is the practice of driving your car above and beyond the EPA estimates using certain techniques, and sometimes going as far as modifying your vehicle to achieve ultimate gas savings. Now, I'm not going as far as buying any type of gadget to put on the car to help me effectively monitor my instantaneous MPG (yet); nor am I turning off the engine on long slopes to achieve infinite MPG for that stretch of road. But I am, and have been, changing the way that I approach driving as a whole. These small changes that anyone can do have bumped up my average MPG since ownership to 36mpg versus an EPA estimate 29mpg.

Estimates


My results


I've traveled 4,392 miles on 121.99 gallons of gas for an average price per gallon of 3.447 for a total spent on gas of $420.50. So if I traveled 7 Miles less per gallon I would have needed 29.46 more gallons of gas to achieve that same distance traveled. That's an additional $101.55 or 24% more. And that's only over the course of 4 months. The projected savings of continuing to drive this way for the next 8 months would be a savings of $304.65 per year doing something that is pretty easy and makes driving more fun imo. Also, I expect over a full 12 months my savings would be higher given that I've still been blasting the A/C during the summer heat. But I'll ignore that fact until I have the results next year.

Now 300 bucks a year doesn't seem like much, but think of it as saving 25% every year on something the average American household spends $1500-$2000 on every year. So if you want to save some money on something you probably do a lot of I'll throw in some basic tips.

Avoid Idling and fast acceleration
Idling at a stoplight is one of the worst things for strong MPG numbers. You are sitting there, burning up fuel and not moving; seems pretty obvious and yet I know for a fact there are people who gun it from the light just to sit and wait idling at the next one 200 yards away. Idling burns between $0.50 and $2 per hour. By comparison, acceleration burns $15 per hour. So avoid that as often as you can. Also, the breakeven point on turning off your engine is 9-10seconds. So if there's ever a time where you know you are going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds it's technically +ev to turn your engine off.

For acceleration, it's the most efficient to be in the highest gear and at the lowest RPMs. So if you have no one behind you, you can save a lot of money by accelerating from a stop in the highest gear you can start in, and then get to 5th/6th as soon as possible.

Look Ahead, get nitty with neutral
This is important for safety in driving anyways, but if you see a light or traffic up ahead, or your exit is coming up soon go ahead and pop it into neutral. While you're coasting in neutral you are getting up to 200 MPG depending on your speed. Take advantage of this fact. Try and remember this rhyme that I read somewhere about hypermiling: "If you have to brake, you've made a mistake." Think of pressing the brake pedal as cash flying out of your exhaust pipe and then you'll have the right mindset. Also, going beyond neutral, if you are going down a hill but know you will have to stop soon, you should leave your car in gear, as your engine will cut the fuel supply and you will not be using any gas. That will actually save you more than neutral, but you will not coast as far, so you have to use your discretion on when to coast in neutral, and when to keep it in gear.

Maintain Momentum
A lot of these ideas tie into each other, and this one's no different. If you coast as much as possible, you will maintain your momentum, thus reducing the amount you need to accelerate. It's a very similar concept to racing. In fact, if you think about hypermiling as efficiency-racing within the speed limits, it makes it more fun to do. You are driving as efficiently as you can and chuckling as people are unknowingly dumping money all over the road.

Well this post turned out longer than I was planning, but I guess it's fine. Consensus, ME LIKEY THE FIT, and compared to my last car which was chilling at ~20mpg I am crushing.

-wh00 out

ps: we still havent gotten rid of our SUV. The current plan is to save up to buy a 10k or equivalent car (maybe used prius) off of craigslist when the money won't affect the roll too heavily. Currently downswinging a little so who knows when that will be. Hopefully by Christmas.

0 votes

Comments (15)

The summer was extremely hectic with a lot of poker playing going on and not much time for blogging. I'm back to update you all with my progress now though! I'll start off by laying out my expenses and then break down categories that are noteworthy.

May: Total spending $6,371, Total Income 18,243 Savings Rate: 65%
Expenses went up this month due to needing some supplies to repair the pool and not enough discipline in the food department. Luckily my savings rate was saved by a high income month.

Expense breakdown:
Home- 2,590
Had to replace the filters in the pool which added $500 to normal costs


Auto & Transport- 1,259
This number is inflated because of the second car payment, along with putting extra money toward the payments each month.

Health & Fitness- 898

Food/dining/toiletries- 742

Bills & Utilities- 451

Shopping- 105

Business Services- 110
(Casino Tips)
Fees & Charges- 0

Entertainment- 14
(Random stuff on itunes)
Personal Care- 150
(Massage Envy, last month of paying for it)
Travel

Gifts & Donations- 52

June: Total spent $6,121, Total Income 11,037, Savings Rate: 45%
Expenses went down a little bit from May, but unfortunately it isn't in the 5k range that I'd like to see. I was kind of saved by the income, but if I were down to 5k per month in expenses my savings rate would have been up into the mid-fifties...need to cut the fat.

Expense breakdown:

Home- 2100
Number is back in normal range this month

Auto & Transport- 1467
Had to get new tires and an alignment for one of the cars.

Health & Fitness- 802

Food/dining/toiletries- 500
Cheaper bc a lot of my meals were comp'd at the casino

Bills & Utilities- 734
Hotter month = more A/C

Shopping- 322
Bought my wife an iPad as a graduation gift.

Business Services- 50
tips, etc. The number is half of normal because I hardly valet parked since Rio surface parking is more convenient than Bellagio's.

Fees & Charges- 0

Entertainment- 71
Went to the movies and random other activities.

Personal Care- 0
Education- 0
Travel- 0
Gifts & Donations- 0

July: Total spent $8,730 (yikes), Total Income 12,435, Savings Rate: 30%
This month was very disappointing. I guess almost 1k went toward fixing up the house (wood floors) which is debatable as to whether the value added is equal to expense. But even accounting for that I was at 8k in expenses. Of course it all adds up below, and I think the trip to the Zoo with my family was worth the cost, but I just didn't think I was spending that much as I was living it. I guess that's a common problem and a big reason why people fall into debt so easily. Definitely a reality check and my first real slip-up of the year in terms of expenses. Thankfully I had another winning month and managed a 30% savings rate, but that's well below what I want my savings rate to be.

Expense breakdown:

Home- 2900
I tore up the carpet and bought and installed laminate floors in my living room. Did the labor myself so saved 300-400$ there so I'm happy about that.
I think it looks pretty good though :-D even in these bad quality picS.
Before

After


Auto & Transport- 1733
Had to get two rear tires for the Fit. One had a slow leak, and they were getting pretty old (Original to the car in 2009). Will likely have to replace the two fronts before the end of the year.

Health & Fitness- 802
This number should drop by a couple hundred bucks next month because a $350 recurring hospital bill will be paid off this month.

Food/dining/toiletries- 927
Kind of embarrassed of this number. We spent way too much on eating out and just kind of lost track of spending in this category. Hopefully next month is back to normal as we JUST went to the grocery store and spend 200-300 dollars on the last day of July.

Bills & Utilities- 943
Even hotter month = MORE A/C!

Shopping- 200
I'm not sure if it should be in shopping or business, bc my wife bought a bunch of stuff on Amazon for her classroom (just got hired for next year). But w/e I'll just leave it in shopping

Business Services- 110
I'm strongly considering avoiding Valet parking in the future. I'm going to do a write-up on the pros/cons and the perceived value that I've been using as an excuse to Valet park and decide if I think it's worth it to continue doing it.

Fees & Charges- 0

Entertainment- 400
Took my family to San Diego for my wife's BDay. Spent various amounts on hotel/zoo tickets/concessions/etc



Personal Care- 0
Education- 0

Travel- 750
Various plane ticket/hotel bookings for August poker trip.

Gifts & Donations- 0


Summary

Adding these 3 months to my current totals my yearly savings rate is now at 41%. That gives me 5 months to attempt to raise that rate to my goal of 65% for this year. Sorry for the extended delay of updates. It seems like lack of blog updating correlates to laziness in other areas such as fiscal responsibility so I will try to keep both of those on track in the future.

-wh00sel

0 votes

Comments (8)

Does anyone have any experience with sites like LendingClub.com or Prosper.com? If you haven't heard of them, they are sites where you can apply for a personal loan, and the site verifies your income and credit score, etc and then approves you for a loan of $X (up to $35,000 on lendingclub.com). Then in order to get the loan, people who have money on the site can buy shares of the loan in as little as $25 increments.

Anyways, it seems like with some strict filtering for specific types of loans people have been churning consistent profits between 10-15% by diversifying into hundreds of different loans. The ideal strategy seems to be (to me anyways) to invest in the highest risk loans, because the interest rate is significantly higher, and the default rate doesn't go up equally with the interest rate (i.e someone with perfect credit in the "A" category might have 7% interest, and "A" might have a default rate of 3%, while the lowest level borrowers would have 21%+ interest and a default rate of 7%). So if you can try to filter out the bad eggs in the "bad credit" category I think you can beat the "average" return of 10% that the website claims. And even if you can't, 10% ain't bad.

There is also a trading side of the site where you can buy loans that people want to sell. Seems like there might be some value there too if you can find some good deals. I think the site rakes 1% and the returns are all post-rake from the limited research I've done. I think I'm going to open up an account on LendingClub and maybe in a few months I'll do an update on it. Let me know if you guys have any experience with sites like this, positive or negative.

0 votes

Comments (14)

Would love to play this MTT. Starts on Tuesday Jul 03. Selling at 1.10 so $1,100 buys you 10%, 550 for 5% etc. Paypal or Cash. PM me or leave a comment.

0 votes

Comments (5)

Thought I was going to win a bracelet, was top 3 going into day 2 of the 1k wsop yesterday. Was sick as a dog and never got anything going but I don't think being sick affected my play too much. Might have missed a couple small live reads from not being able to focus super intensely in hands that I wasn't in, but tables were breaking so fast that I don't think it hurt me too much. We came back with 297 people left and I ended up finishing 40th when I shipped 88 with 100k at 3k 6k over a btn raise and sb flat from two weaker players. The button called with 66 and the sb had kings. Would've been nice to spike and have 300k but I guess it wasn't to be.

I was a little upset after the hand since the sb did kind of look like he wanted to 3b pre but looking back I can't say I woulda played it differently. 88 is just too strong there since stacks were kinda shallow; I gotta think he would 100% 3b 99-JJ and prob QQ too. And ive seen him flat out of The blinds a few times already. So that leaves a button open and only a couple hands that beat me for the sb. So I'm happy with it.

Only a few more tourneys left before the main event...hope I rip one off.

0 votes

Comments (2)

I guess the WSOP is just about half way over and, somehow, I have broken even in MTT's. It's very unlikely to just break even in tournament poker, since most of the time you are just blasting off buy-ins and then hit a score for more than you spent (hopefully). That's pretty much the formula. But for some reason, the poker gods have allowed me to cash in 3 events so far this summer. The cashes were nothing spectacular (4k, 3k, 4k) but they were enough to keep me even so far for the WSOP, so for that I am thankful.

The series has actually been pretty fun, and profitable, so far this year. I've managed to get in 70 hours of cash games despite playing 13-14 MTT's and some sit-n-goes, with like a $225 hourly lol. I honestly think in WSOP-season poker that is sustainable at 5/10; the people are just the nut worst. Makes me want to put in more hours playing cash instead of donking around in these bracelet events, but we all know that won't happen. The bracelet-shaped pot of gold at the end of the rainbow's draw is too powerful. (THE PRECIOUS)

I feel like every day is really busy so I don't know if I will get around to dropping another blog unless I rip off an event or something...and even then...who knows.

Expenses are a little high with eating out all the time, but I don't really have time to break it all down for May and June. Hopefully I get back on track in July. GL/GN, 3kNL tomorrow that I feel like winning. Peace.

0 votes

Comments (7)

Today's my last day that I'll be playing this month, and unless I win 50k I will have failed the 100k in 5 months challenge I put on myself at the beginning of the year. A couple of things slowed me down including a very slow start in January, due to my lack of hours at the tables, and a complete loss of the desire to play online on a site with crappy software and low traffic. So instead of trying to win 100k with a combination of live and online play, I had to try to win 20k per month at 5/10 live. I still think that it is do-able, (in fact I know a reg who hit 100k profit this year a few weeks ago playing 5/10 only) but I think that it requires a lot of hours of play per month. Something that I'm not willing or able to commit at the present.

Stats for the year:

Total Profit: $50,490
Total Hours Played: 732
Est Hands Played: 25,620
Est Rake + Dealer Tips Paid: $10,980
Days played: 109/150
Avg Session length (hrs): 6.72
Hourly Rate: $68.96
Win Percentage: 57.80%

Monthly breakdown:

January, 96 hrs, 57.68/hr
February, 178 hrs, 120.46/hr
March, 167.5 hrs, 71.33/hr
April, 153.5 hrs, (32.74)/hr
May, 128 hrs, 128.76/hr

I'm a little disappointed with the downward trend of April and May in terms of hours played. Hopefully I can up the number significantly with the WSOP going on now, but MTT's could interfere with a lot of cash time, so we'll see what happens. I really wanted to hit 750 hours but I just didn't have it in me. Took some extra days off, but I don't think I would have done anything differently if I had it to do over again. January's low volume is the culprit, and a lot of the time I took off in January wasn't really in my control so I'm happy with how it all played out.

Any ideas for a rest of the year challenge? I was thinking after WSOP ends trying to do 1,000 hours from July-December. That's 167 hours per month average, but I should be able to play a shit ton July-Aug because Mrs. wh00sel isn't working during that time. I may have to take a vacation or something though after the series, because I'm sure I'll be pretty burnt out this year, as i'm trying to stay at the casino until midnight or later every day that I play.

0 votes

Comments (7)

I've been pretty lazy this month, both in blogging and in playing. I started out well with a nice little 5k upswing in the first few days, but then I stopped putting in a lot of hours. On Friday and Saturday I had a confidence-deflating couple of days. I played a few hands poorly that put me in tough river hero-call spots. I called all 3 and lost all 3. That equated to about 6k worth of river calls all going the wrong way.

I think getting myself into those call-down river hero spots has been a big leak in my game for quite some time. I just can't help myself...the feeling of scooping a big pot to a river bluff is just too satisfying. Really trying to work on it though by getting more aggressive and avoiding the passive lines that seem to creep into your game when you play too much live poker.

These annoying pots resulted in an early end to my Saturday night session, followed by Sunday and Monday off from poker to get my mind on something else. We had a relaxing Mother's day, complete with swimming and vegging out. We even watched the series finale of Desperate Housewives to cap off the day...IT WAS MOTHER'S DAY DON'T JUDGE ME. I haven't seen a ton of the episodes but I thought the ending was kind of lame...ok let me put my penis back on and get back to poker...

Today is the halfway point of the month, and I've only put in 58 hours, which puts me well off the pace of 40 hours per week. Pretty terrible, but given that the WSOP is coming up and I'm going to be grinding like a madman, I'm not going to be too hard on myself for not playing much; especially when I've been making bad/questionable decisions at the tables. It's probably best that I took a few days off.

Truthfully I don't feel much like playing today, but I think that's a function of having a couple days off to relax, and the amazing weather we've been having, so hopefully sitting down at the table will kick-start my focus. I'll need to average almost 8 hours per session if I stick to my normal schedule of taking 2 days off per week to hit the 160 hour mark for May. My current average session length is 6.9 hours...Hopefully I can pull it off.

-wh00sel

Shootin freethrows like shaq

0 votes

Comments (6)

Finally got all my shit (records) together for last month. Sorry for the delay, but hey, at least this blog shouldn't get swallowed up by 'April Results' blogs now!

Here's the snapshot:


The "year to date" part of the chart includes the first week of May bc I'm too lazy to go back and remake it for the end of April. Small spoiler alert that I have recovered April's losses.

Anyways, if you can't figure it out, I lost 5k in April. It was a pretty annoying month. I was just putting along, sitting at dead even for what felt like the entire month, and then in the last week I took a shot at a soft 10/20nl game. It went well, as I coolered two people and won 5k (wee). Then I proceeded to lose 10k in the last 6 days...

Some hands:

(This is a real hand I swear.)
5/10 nl
UTG (6,000) opens to 40
CO (1,200) re-raises to 300
Hero/SB (2,500) re-raises to 800 with

UTG Calls 760
CO Raises All-in for 1200 total
SB calls 400
UTG calls 400

(pot: 3,610)
Flop

Hero goes all-in for 1300
UTG CALLS 1300

(main pot: 3,610 side pot: 2,600)
Turn:

River:

Hero shows
UTG shows
CO shows

UTG wins total pot of 6,210 with a 6 high straight.

Can't really say I was tilted after this hand, because how can you get mad at getting someone in that dead. It was just kind of an 'Oh, Ok. Yeah I had you on K4 anyways' moment, just reload and try to win it all. What was tilting though was that I almost immediately got moved from the table where I'm certain the fish eventually lost all of his money. I didn't stick around though because there was no way I was going to be able to play with him again.

I can't really top that hand in terms of retardedness, but I did play a questionable hand a couple weeks ago:

UTG: (1500) limps: this player often limp-raises big pairs and other stuff
Hero MP1: (1500) limps
Fish BTN: (2000) raises to 40
SB (2000): calls 40
UTG calls 30
Hero calls 30

(pot: 170)
Flop

SB donks for 130
UTG folds
Hero calls
BTN calls

(pot: 560)
Turn

SB bets 340
Hero calls
BTN calls

(pot: 1580)
River
SB shoves 990
Hero calls
BTN folds

This hand was really questionable in my mind. I wish I had played with the SB more before this hand bc I would have easily mucked the river. I don't really beat anything, and even if the fish had KK he got there on the end. My reasoning at the time was that he could be valuing really thin because the fish is in the hand, but that seems dumb given that I've called him twice already. I also thought that the first two streets he could've led with KJ and then be value shipping the river thinking I had 45 or A4/A5/45 with two diamonds and the fish had a J or mid pair or something. Turns out this guy was just a big nit though and had JJJ. Oh well.

No other interesting hands are coming to mind right now so I'll just leave it at those two. Ran into a couple sets, bluffs didn't work, etc is the main reason for losses, but these were two of the culprits throughout the month. One funny one, and maybe one I could've avoided. Hard to say for certain. I also shipped AK into AA to a cold 4b for 1500, but we had some history so I can't say that was a mistake even though the guy is generally pretty tight.

Hours-wise I was pretty happy getting in 153 since I took an extra day off this month. Really didn't think I was going to get to 150; I even took a few hours off on the last day of the month when the games weren't good or I could've gotten close to the 160 mark.

As far as the challenge to make 100k by WSOP, I would need a helluvan upswing to get there...So hopefully I can just get the hours in and have a solid month before the series starts and then rip off some big MTT in June. Shares still available btw .

Until the next time! wh00sel out.

VROOM

0 votes

Comments (5)

This seems a little early, but honestly the WSOP is just 3 short weeks away so here we go...

EDIT: I decided to go ahead and make this a package for everything other than the 10k 6max for simplicity @ 70% backer/30% player, that way if you buy one share you have a sweat in 11 tourneys. The total amount of the buyins will be $35,500. That leaves 71 shares @ $500 a piece. The 70/30 split is because you will have a chance through the last MTT to get your money back as this will be a 35.5k bankroll to play everything.

Here's the list of tourneys

Just tell me how many shares you want to reserve
(must be able to get me money before the event starts either cash in vegas or paypal/bankwire, something unless some special circumstances and I trust you enough):

Shares Available: 66/71
Link to the shares available/buyers list


This event I'll just put separate since I'd like to play it but I think it will stop my bap from selling a lot, so if you want action in this tourney just specify. It's not til the end of the summer so plenty of time on this one.

Event 57 - $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Six Handed Jul 03 3 $10,000
Selling 90%
Price 1.10:1, 5%=550 10%=1,100 Full 90%=10,000
90% left


This is the first time I've done this, but I'll be updating this as I get offers (hopefully). Let me know if you want to reserve x% and i'll write it down and confirm the action later on when I get money from you. I might take some of my own action in things that need that last little push to play them.

LET THE BIDDING BEGIN!

Also whoever wants to put me in the $1,000,000 tournament, just send me a box full of money and I will play it for free.

ps: I guess it's standard to withhold 30% of any significant score (where they give you a W-2) for taxes, so unless we arrange the appropriate paperwork (you sign a simple doc I'll print out) I'll be doing that too.

pps: could someone knowledgeable inform me on one-time deals, if you do an 80/20 deal on a 1k tournament and the person cashes for 2k do you...

A- Give 1k back to the backer and chop the 1k profit 800/200?
B- Chop the whole cash 80/20, backer gets 1600, player gets 400?

It makes a big difference on small cashes so I'd like to know which way to do it.

0 votes

Comments (15)