Wife works for the state, so cheap insurance for us.
However, I think what the state pays in insurance costs for our family is close to 20k.
Did you play poker at Canterbury? My buddy runs that place. (I also used to work there decades ago.)
Iām not one who rigidly plans their budget.
Location: Prague 4
Rent/Utilities: 16,200 CZK/month (includes electricity, water and gas) to rent 1 bedroom flat
Car: None
Internet: 500 CZK/month
Phone: PAYG, so not a lot
Entertainment: Netflix and Spotify combine for 500 CZK/month
Healthcare: 4.5% of my pretax salary (other 2/3 paid by employer)
Going out: Max 1000 CZK/month, though often way less
Food: 6500 CZK/month (Food is expensive relative to income here)
Debt: Zero (really the reason I can live the way I live)
Everything else: Varies a lot
Basically, I donāt have to struggle for anything but Iām also not living the dream.
I did when I was younger when they only spread limit games, in the mid 2000s. I went there on my 18th birthday and won $500 or $600 playing 3/6, that got me hooked. I havenāt played poker there in years, I believe MN still canāt run no limit games but they run spread limit now. I go bet on horse races occasionally and hit up some table games while Iām there
I dealt there 2001-2002. They fought the spread limit thing for as long as they could but finally had to give in. My friend knows that spread limit/no limit is a good way to kill the long term action in a room that has a fixed number of players.
Location: Southern California (orange county)
Rent/Utilities: $2150 for a 2 bedroom condo thatās probably too big for me
Car: No payment, insurance is $100/month
Internet: $60
Phone: $120 
Entertainment: oh man. Hulu+ live tv + hbo addon is like $70/month. Netflix/disneyplus/playstation now is another 40ish. I golf at least once a week so add $150.
Healthcare: $300 - mostly mental health costs
Going out: I donāt
Food: about $600/month (on a bad month).
Debt: just 8k in student loans. I pay $300 for that one.
Everything else: Video games probably a hundred bucks a month or so. Golf - can be anywhere from 100-300. Other than that I dont spend much. Maybe $300/month on concessions like tea and beer from the convenience store.
Total: $4200 which is absolutely the tip top. I could be probably living easily about $1000 cheaper.
We almost crossed paths, my first trip there was 2004. The room was usually full and often had a pretty long wait list, not sure if the same is still true (pre covid times)
It depends on the employer. Example: I used to work for a fortune 500 company. I paid ~$120/mo for my portion of health insurance which covered medical, dental, and vision. It was a good plan with low deductible, low($20) copays to see a doctor. In 3 years I went to the doctor two times.
Now I am essentially a freelancer. I pay $350/mo for just medical insurance with very high deductible and high copays. To the point that if I do go to the doctor it is less expensive to pay out of pocket with cash than bill through my insurance.
If I wanted to buy insurance for myself that was as good as what I had at the fortune 500 employer, it would cost me $1k+/mo.
For reference, I am early 40s, no preexisting conditions.
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The room has slowed over time as most poker rooms have. Not nearly the way it was in the early 2000s. People go broke and there arenāt a whole lot of new people to replace them.
I went back and checked - the State of Washington (my wifeās employer), paid out $25,000 last year for health insurance for my family of 3. We paid about $2,640 for our end of it, so for a family of 3 with good health insurance, it was almost $28,000/year total.
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i bought a house when i was 19 with poker money and i legit thought, āiāll be paying $0 a month to live from now onā
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Great investment choice. Do you still live in it?
still live in it. bought it in 09 at like the bottom of the housing market and the value has since tripled. another thing i didnāt know about, is the tax people reassess the value like every year and then tax me based on their assessment of the value. i kinda wish they would just buy it from me at that number because i donāt really believe it but rn itās still cheaper than a studio apartment in midtown. iām at 900/mo including utilities for 2500 sqft
What state?
In CA they voted in Prop 13 to keep that kind of property tax blasting from happening. https://www.californiataxdata.com/pdf/Prop13.pdf
tax blastin still legal in metro detroit
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Well ok.
Mortgage was Ā£1500 but now Ā£0 (paid off sick brag)
Commuting was Ā£450 but now Ā£0 (lockdown brag)
Gas/Elec Ā£80
Council Tax Ā£150
Service charge Ā£230
Groceries Ā£300
TV/Broadband Ā£150
Mobiles x 2 Ā£50
Car + Apartment insurance Ā£60
Brag: Basically fuck all now and Mrs jās salary more than covers it
Beat: I donāt have a guaranteed income
Variance: Sports betting
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Thereās likely an appeals process for this. When we bought our place in 2010 (Ohio), our tax appraisal was surprisingly high, but our realtor helped us petition for a significantly lower value. It wasnāt difficult at all and is probably worth spending 30-60 minutes looking into the appeals process if youāre confident that itās too high.
Hot take: Prop 13 is terribly inequitable and should be repealed immediately.
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Not a hot take, just a smart one. So many bad outcomes from that one stupid decision.
There is a measure on the ballot in Nov that partially repeals it (for larger businesses). Itās currently polling underwater and will probably fail 
My understanding of prop 13, which is bad, is that it basically benefits olds, like every tax law that gets passed in california.