money

Just take my money, Steam.

by ZombieSkittles on December 21, 2011

Oh good, another Steam Sale. Here I thought I’d have a little money left by the end of the fortnight, then this happens.

This Holiday Sale is particularly interesting too. Much like last year’s Holiday Sale, there are achievements to earn that unlock benefits, but these benefits are much more appealing this time. For every achievement earned during this sale, one of two things can be earned.

The first one is the most immediately rewarding, being either a coupon for a game discount, or a game itself. This list shows the various things that can be won, and there are a lot of things. There are lots of awesome things, and hey, I love free stuff.

The second seems worse but really could be the better of the two options; coal. The coal can be used for one of three things. You can trade your coal away for other gifts, or items in games like Team Fortress 2. Additionally, coal can be crafted into a non-coal gift when you have enough. The final and possible best use for coal is as an entry into a massive giveaway. Every piece of coal in your possession at the end of the sale counts as a new entry, and the prizes are large. The “grand prize” is every game available on Steam, which is a lot of fucking games. The other three prizes are just wishlist games and Valve games, but those are still really good too.

Steam Sales are weird for me, because it’s one of those times when spending lots of money is actually a really fun and enjoyable experience. Also, the artwork for each day (such as the image above) look amazing.

{ 0 comments }

The secret to winning EVERYTHING FOREVER

by ZombieSkittles on May 10, 2010

Pointed in the direction of this supposedly newsworthy article1, I decided that I too could write an insightful post detailing how you could win in a game of chance. I’ve decided to tackle Roulette, though I guess this could apply to any game.

For those who don’t know, Roulette is a game in which you guess what number on a spinning wheel that a small ball will land in. It’s an interesting often busy game, and has lots of different bets you can make, from guessing the specific number, to guessing if it will be an odd or even number.

roulette-layout

We’re going to focus on the bets for black and red numbers. The odds for the game’s various bets are easy to work out; there are 18 black numbers, 18 red numbers, and zero (which isn’t either colour). Because zero isn’t either colour, this means there isn’t a 50/50 chance to pick the right one, as many people tend to believe. Instead, the odds of successfully picking red or black is 48.65%.
I also want to throw out there for anyone who does play the game and keeps track of what numbers come up because “17 hasn’t come up in ages”, or “there’s been 10 black numbers, surely the next one has to be red!”, that all spins are independent of each other. It could be red 69 times in a row, but on the 70th spin, there is still exactly a 48.65% chance of it coming up either colour.

Enough, how do I win already?

Oh yes! I did tell you that I was going to tell you how to guarantee winning in this and effectively any other game of chance, didn’t I? Well, listen close I’m not going to repeat this:

Bet on the winning colour.

Ingenious right? If you bet on the correct colour, you’re guaranteed to win. Sure you might need some sort of psychic power, or a ton of luck, but it’s guaranteed that you’ll win if you place it on the winning spot. The same goes for Big Wheel, Baccarat, Sic Bo, and even craps. Put the bet in the correct place and there is no end to how much you can win. There are people who would try to have this post taken down as the information is too good to let the general public know about. However, I feel that I need to get this information out to all nine of my readers2 so that you can take advantage of this strategy.

You can thank me later3

  1. Nicko236, accidently providing content for this blog since 2009…I think
  2. number according to Google Reader. God I’m popular.
  3. actually, thank me NOW. Do it in the form of a comment. Did I mention I love you?

{ 10 comments }

The results are in

by ZombieSkittles on January 6, 2010

Hey, does anyone remember this post I wrote about my money box? Me either. But I just cracked it open and spent an hour counting the money inside. How much do I have? Well first, here’s a photo:

IMG_0470

Excuse the glare, I’m shitty at photography. The total of the bagged coins comes to a nice $236. Sweet. I point out bagged, because on top of that there was an addition $48.15 in loose coins, which I’ve thrown into a new money tin that’s approximately 50% bigger than the last one. Since I got roughly $285 in just six months, the goal for this year is to get $500 by this time next year.

I’m pretty happy with myself.

{ 1 comment }

It’s time for change.

by ZombieSkittles on July 15, 2009

100_1248I hate having all that silver, I’m scared of my friends wallet; it’s 90% loose change, and is so heavy that if I dropped it on a kid, it’d recreate the scene from Final Destination 2 with the glass and the pigeons.
I always have change from buying a drink or similar, and it annoys me. Sometimes I pump it into the pokies after work, but it occurs to me that it’d probably be better if I stopped wasting it on a flashing screen.

I’ve gotten a large money tin, and every time I get home, I’m going to drop any coins of any sort I have on me. The tin already weighs a fair bit from all the coins in it, and on a rough guess there must be at least 30 dollars in there. I know for sure there’s a fair bit of gold in there, so it might even be more.
Once it’s completely full, I’ll crack it open, count it, and add it to the savings. I’m hoping when it’s full, to get maybe $150-$200 out of it. Fingers crossed.

{ 3 comments }

Introductionary post

by ZombieSkittles on July 11, 2009

I’ve had trouble for forever when it comes to saving money; it burns such a hole in my pocket that almost as soon as I get paid I spend it all and end up broke again. It’s stupid, and any attempts I make to save money fail. That’s where this blog comes in.
The aim of this blog is to talk about how I’m working on saving my money, the various ways I try to get some extra coinage, and so forth. I’m unaware of how often posts will be made on here, but when I have something to say on this topic, it will be published.

My goal

The main reason for saving my money is to get enough money to get my own place to live. To get a home loan, I need 10% of whatever I seek to borrow from the bank beforehand. So, I need to aim for roughly $30,000 saved. I will be moving in with a friend, but it’s much better to have more money than necessary, to cover unexpected expenses.
Turning this into a blogging game should keep me going, and hopefully get all the money saved as soon as possible.

{ 0 comments }

Saving money

by ZombieSkittles on July 11, 2009

I need a house.

That’s the basic drive behind my latest attempt to seriously save some money. I’ve looked, and found out that to get one, I need to have at least 20% of whatever the size of the loan is. So to be safe, my goal is to save $30,000. This will be more than enough, because moving out is something I’m planning to do with my friend.

To help myself plan and keep track of this, I’ve created another site to document progress as it happens, as well as the different ways I attempt to save or make money towards the goal, and whether it worked or not.

Creative as I am, the site is named Piggy Bank (Piggy Bank has been merged into this blog), since that’s effectively what it’s going to be. The site uses a free Facebook styled theme, and I’m not sure how often I’ll post; much like this site it could be rarely, or several in a single day. As long as I have something to say, it’ll be published.

{ 0 comments }