Hi everyone,

I need help with a poll I am conducting among VGC-ers. As you may know, I am working on a financial advice website with my fiancee on building wealth even at minimum wage. One of the areas I've been focusing on is discretionary income - money we spend on luxury items.

The poll is public - anyone can view, reply, or check the data. The purpose of this is to see what median spending is among gamers, and if there is any way to mitigate spending patterns through rental services (like NetFlix and GameFly)

So for any interested participants, please check the poll out here:

http://minimumwagewealth.com/2009/11/the-test-how-much-do-you-spend-on-entertainment/

Thanks!

wait.. i'm the first? Damn.. now you know my answers.. >_

Don't worry. By the time the poll is over, I'll forget :-p

I'm a voting Mo-Fo.

About 10 responses so far. Need a few more!

500 to 1000 for games

250 to 500 for DVDs

If you included the cinema then my spend on films would surpass my spend on games. I might note however that I spend so much on movies because I work in the industry and thus I need to keep with the times and I also get it off my tax!

What do you do in the film industry?

There's a reason I only included DVDs and not film. I'll point to it soon.

I do a lot of production work, currently I've been doing a lot of location sound recording and camera operation. That includes both shorts and feature films. I also do a lot of work in the corporate sector for marketing departments etc.

My real skill is with directing and script writing however, but between projects one has to pay the bills.

I'm interested why the Cinema insn't included atm?

The goal of the project is to see what people spend on entertainment media a year, to see if there are ways of reducing expenses through recurring rentals such as using GameFly and Netflix.

For example:
The average gamer on VGC spends between $500.00 and $1,000.00 a year on video games (sans systems). That is quite a pretty penny on discretionary income. How could one reduce the expenses of buying so many games (retaining enjoyment while reducing expenses)? GameFly would be an easy out for such a situation: It costs $15.95 per month for 1 game out at a time, or $192 a year - which is much lower than the VGC-er average of $500 or more.

Likewise, the average VGC-er spends between $100-$250 a year on DVDs. How could you save money on that? Netflix costs about $108 a year for 1 DVD out at a time, which may save some (but not all) money on DVDs.

Admittedly, they would sacrifice the usage of owning their titles, but at the same time, if you don't regularly play a specific game (and I know I don't for about 70% of my games), then GameFly would especially be a great way to save money on video games.

That's why I didn't have an option for movie theaters - there's real no easy out to save money at the theaters other than maybe choosing dollar theaters over the big cinemas, but you sacrifice seeing a new movie which is probably most of the motivation for going.

I voted, Over $1000 for both. And $0 on DVDs. I like your idea for the Netflix and Gamefly thing but I do like to own the games and movies, just in case I want to play/watch them again. It gives me that option. And with the movies, I let my family and friends borrow them so I guess you can say I help others save money.