The most useful tool I have found is using Mint.com. For those unfamiliar, Mint is a personal finance tracking tool that you just log into with your financial institution credentials and it tracks your expenses, income and provides them in an easy to read format. My favorite and I think the most useful graph is the net worth graph. You can track this over time like you can see below. I've talked about Mint before so I won't go into too much detail more than just saying, this is a useful website and application to use and review. Below the chart I will provide three checks you can perform to see if you're making smart financial decisions. They go from the least work to the most if you're already using Mint.
Check 1 - Net Worth
Is my net worth increasing??? In order to see if I am being smart financially, I just need to know, is the far right bar (most recent) higher up than the last few bars preceding it. Between Europe and purchasing the condo (the equity in the home hasn't updated yet), you can see I've remained pretty stagnant over the last few months. If there aren't extenuating circumstances, this is not what you want to see.
Check 2 - Income vs. Expenses
You'll want to review your income vs. your expenses over the last few months. I will not use my personal number, but rather the average for a 25-34 year old with a bachelor's degree. This comes from the National Center for Education Statistics. In 2013, the average income was right at $50,000 which is a good round number to start at. We are going to look at household income though, so let me assume the second person in your household has a master's degree where the average income in 2013 was right at $60,000. So the total household income is $110,000. Budgeting is best done monthly, so let's say they earn $9,167/month before taxes. Well, unfortunately, most of us pay taxes, so let's go ahead and take 35% of that away and say they have $6,000 left per month to spend on everything. If you spent more than $6,000 on all expenses (which should be easy to track because you should use your credit card for everything and earn points), that's not a good sign.
Check 3 - Spending Habits
This is a detailed version of check 2. The best way to really realize how much you're "wasting" is to sit down and do a 90 day check up on your expenses, leaving income completely out of the analysis. There's a few different ways to go about this. The easiest is to print off (or download if you use Chase) your last three full credit cards and bank statements. You'll want bank statements so you can see any debit card transactions as well as withdrawals you may have made for say a late night casino run. Look on your credit card statement first for any gas, grocery, utility, car, student loan, house, phone, internet, TV or similar expenses, eliminate those. Those for the most part are necessary expenses.
What's left for me is eating out, golf, gambling, drinking, bowling, travel, hotels and dinners on vacation. That sum comes to $4,187.72. This can't all be contributed to waste however. I currently have a balance on Draftkings, Bovada and Fanduel accounts, so let's decrease that by $900 and I used profits from the casino to buy tickets to a sporting event, so the net waste over the past 69 days is roughly $2,800. By spending more at the grocery, I could have packed my lunch more, let's there's a 25% savings, so my waste is now $2,100. By not going to a bar here or there, I would have saved $75 on Taco Bell and another $25 on McDonald's breakfasts putting me at $2,000. By not going to my cousin's wedding (which I don't consider a waste at all), I would have saved $200 on golfing, $500 on a hotel, $200 on food and another $100 on gas. This brings my total waste to $1,000. To revert back to check 2, if, after you figure in your recurring monthly expenses (rent/mortgage, car payments, student loans, utilities, savings) you have less than $0 left, that means you're doing something wrong. Other than just comparing if you're spending too much, it's really a good way to see how much truly are and making that amount tangible. Would I rather have $1,000 to spend on going to a Buckeyes National Championship appearance or would I rather have bet on the Buckeye's to not cover the last six weeks, gotten drunk, made bad bets, eaten Taco Bell then woke up the next morning and gotten McDonald's. While both sound appealing, there is a clear winner here.
Also, always remember that savings should be considered a monthly expense. Your 401k and other retirement items you can't touch without potential penalties until you reach certain ages. You will have unexpected expenses prior to those ages, I can guarantee that. It's hard to say for each person, but being in a 100% commissioned job, I prefer to have 12 months worth of expenses. I've read anywhere between 3 to 12 months and it really just depends on your risk tolerance and job marketability. If you lose your job, how long will it take you to find a job with similar earning potential.
Now on to the picks!
I have shied away from betting on the basic lines, (Falcons -3.5, Buffalo +3, Bronco's Browns over 42). Why? Because 90% of sports gamblers lose in a given year. I have gotten into teasers and sweetheart teasers and have had success so far. A teaser is when you pick two or more games and you can buy 6-7 points on an NFL game (pretty much the only sport I win on). A sweetheart teaser is when you buy either 10 points (on a 3 team parlay) or 13 points (on a 4 team parlay). If I am confident the Falcons will beat the Saints, I should just bet the money line. Trying to chase the 3.5 points is a sucker bet in my opinion. For example, some books had the Bengals at 3.5 point favorites last week. The money line would have paid $100 for a $190 bet, the spread would have paid $100 for only a $110 bet. However, they only won by 3, so that $190 bet made $100, while the $110 bet lost $110. So they're up $300 compared to the other guy.
ANY WIN IS A GOOD WIN IN BETTING. Let's say you have $100,000 in your 401k right now, if you earn a 6% return, you'll have approximately $200,000 in 12 years (rule of 72). If 90% of betters are losing money, I would say to break even after 12 years is solid. But what if you could double in 12 years. What line gets you a 6% return? That would be -1600. You know bet is currently sitting at better than -1600? The Patriots to win their division, the last time they didn't win it was 2008? They finished at 11-5 and missed the playoffs with a backup QB going 10-5, even then they just lost out on the tiebreaker to Miami. THEY'RE A SOLID INVESTMENT. Everyone wants to bet the $110 to win a $100, but the safer bet is the better bet because it wins more often. You can even parlay this, if you think the Broncos (3 games up, 2-0 DIV), Patriots (1 game up 1-0 DIV) and Packers (2.5 games up, 1-0 DIV) are going to win their divisions, that pays a 19% return. There is obviously risk involved, but that's the safest 19% return you're going to find.
This is what I like about teasers, you have to pick a few more games, but you get a nice little cushion. Personally, I like Sweetheart Teasers because you get even more points. The key is to look for lines you can exploit for the smallest benefit. Cleveland +4.5 turns into +17.5 (which is two touchdowns, two extra points and a FG), but ATL -3.5 turns into ATL +9.5 which isn't as desirable line strictly talking numbers.
Now that you have the basics out of the way, let's get onto these picks...
My explanations of course did not save, so let's use this for now:
In regards to the NOR pick, I will not be retyping my extremely long explanation of why I think they were huge favorites at +17. In short, ATL hadn't played that well against the good teams. They ran through the NFC East (NYG couldn't close a game, PHI hadn't hit their stride yet, DAL didn't have their starting QB or #1 Receiver (that's a number sign, not a hashtag for those in the Tweeter generation) and WAS is frankly just a confusing team with 4 different running backs and none of those wins were impressive. Their only dominating victory was against HOU who ended up switching QBs and put up 21 in the 4th against the Falcons. In short, the Falcons have not really played many good opponents. The Saints by no stretch of the imagination are a "Good Opponent" either, but they're playing at home, Drew Brees is finally healthy I believe and it seems like to the naked eye ATL should have the same 10-10.5 line that NE has coming in to IND, but it's only 4. That made me think Vegas knows something we don't and it showed last night which is why I took NOR +17, I wasn't super confident, but I was confident enough to put my money where my mouth is.
Next we move on to the Bengals and Bills. The Bills have a hobbled QB1, RB1, RB2, WR1or2, TE1 and a safety in IR. In addition, Watkins who is that hobbled WR, is in the media saying that he is upset about the lack of targets he's receiving. Hmmm... So Percy Harvin is a WR on the team and he isn't being the most distracting player... That's weird and not a good sign. Buffalo also has a little trend going (usually my trends are more patterns that have no actual impact, but when I'm right it makes my point look very valid) in that they've W/L/W/L/W. Let's dig further than the W/L though. They looked GREAT against INDY, pretty poor against NE despite the score, GREAT against a fairly terrible team in MIA (still waiting on Tannehill to be their savior I've been hearing for 3 years now), horrible against a NYG team that could barely hold 4th quarter leads prior to that and barely squeaked out a victory against the Titans, who have only beat the lowly crab stealing led Buccs, who again beat the Texans. In synopsis, Bills > Buccs > Texans. I actually don't think the Texans will even beat the Jags this weekend, but that's a side note. The Bengals offense has been ROLLING, the third highest scoring team in the league. They have been a little lucky though with their draws, but I think that is what they needed to build the confidence in Dalton so he can get to the playoffs and lose again. This Bills defense has been okay... Giving up 40 to NE and 24 to the Giants wasn't spectacular, especially both being at home, but that is supposed to be their strong suit. I really like Cincy more at 10 or 10.5 (since on a Sweetheart Teaser you lose on a tie), but with how good they're playing of late and how poor the Bills are playing, I think that's still a good line. I'm hoping for a missed BUF extra point to seal the deal. I think BUF may be able to pull this out if they play perfect defense, but hoping those extra points for Cincy put it over the top and a GW FG either way wouldn't affect the line for me.
Lastly, we feature yet another undefeated team in the Green Bay Packers. Here are some home stats for A-aron Rodgers - W/L = 48/10, Comp. % = 68, TD2INT = 5.5 (which includes two picks last week, his first in 17 games at home) and a rating of 113.
I know, I know, those are crazy numbers but they are true. These are the highest passer ratings over a 1 year period the last 5 years - 113 (Romo 34/9), 119 (Foles 27/2), 108 (Rodgers 39/8), 123 (Rodgers 45/6) and 111 (Brady 36/4). A few things to take away from this - Rodgers is the only QB to lead twice and also he happened to be 5th or higher each of the past 7 years and only 5th in 2013 because he broke his left clavicle and only played in 9 total games. My point is Aaron Rodgers anywhere is GREAT, Aaron Rodgers at home is excited as this guy when... Well you can fill that in. His last home loss was against the Bears when he broke his clavicle. At the time he was 1 for 2... Before that it was 2012 against the NFC Defending 49ers. I will go out on a limb and say the Chargers are NOT as good as the NFC Defending 49ers. The Packers WILL win at home, will they win by 11? I dunno, that's a lot of points. But all we need is for them to lose by less than 2 or in other words, 1, which is essentially a really crappy loss for the Packers or them winning, in either case I feel confident about that.
The last pick is on the over/under, which I DO NOT LIKE TO BET but I am going to do it anyways. With the line at 50.5, teasing 13 gets us to 37.5. Ideally, a line of 36.5 of lower would be what you want to shoot for because the most common score in NFL history (245 of the 15,463 games) is 20 to 17 followed by 27-24 and 17-14 each at 190 games. There hasn't yet been a 20-17 game this year, so I predict there will be one this week, but it won't be this one. I think Green Bay may have 20 at the half, more likely though, 21. They have had at least 13 points in the first half in the last 13 games in which Rodgers completed the first half. They even put up 30 and 42 in back to back games last year (including 6 first half TDs against the Bears last year, yikes). As long as the Chargers can manage 14 points (they're averaging 23.2), this should be a lock by the 3rd quarter.
No comments:
Post a Comment