Vegas, and Discipline.

I've never been what could be called a disciplined person.

I pretty much have always had minimal impulse control when it comes to, well, basically anything. For most of my adult life I have lived paycheck to paycheck and have been able to save money only when putting it into a 401k where I can't touch it. This resulted in a lot of having $8 left in a bank account with a week to go before payday. I would dig and scrounge and sell stuff to make it by. I'm not sure how I got by some weeks.

It's been the same for my eating and drinking habits, if I wanted to eat something I ate it, and as much of it as I wanted. If I wanted to get drunk on cheapo beer I did, without thinking about consequences, money or health-wise. These practices led (along with some fucked up genes) to having a heart attack at the age of 40.

I guess I can only consider my self lucky that I don't have a passion for clothes or shoes or cars, as that would have made life even harder. I would have pursued them and spent all my money on them too. The other two great passions of my life, tennis and golf, luckily weren't overly expensive to pursue (I was never a country club guy).

So this is how I lived my life up until a year or so ago; no savings, nothing to really show for all the money I was spending (aside from a lot of blackouts on Polk Street) and no experiences to speak of.

Then along came Vegas. This new obsession requires planning, and saving, and organization; in my case a lot of all three when I'm taking 3-4 trips per year. It helps that I'm now making the most I ever have in my work life, and finally have a stable job that I'm not either looking to dump or at risk of being dumped. But the biggest factor in my new found discipline is the glorious feel that I get from that 3 or 4 days every few months. It makes the sacrifice and scrimping and lack of a social life when I'm in trip mode worth it.

I suppose in a way it's not REALLY saving, as I'm saving up simply to binge spend at the end of the process, but the Vegas bug I have has definitely impacted my money and food habits, at least, and for the better. If the bug does lessen someday, maybe this saving process could be applied to a trip to NY for the US Open (something I've always wanted to do) or Austin for F1, or Palm Springs for Indian Wells...whatever.

But right now it's Vegas, Baby. And I am, as of today, T-minus 2 weeks away.