Introducing the Workbank

Recently I've run into two problems:

1) I've haven't been working all that much for my research professor. I love the work, I just... don't do it.

2) I don't have funds set aside from discretionary spending. I believe I shouldn't spend money under any circumstances that aren't "I need to live", which is an obvious problem. I still buy luxuries, but I feel bad when I do. This isn't a good way to live.

So I've decided to kill two birds with one stone: introducing the workbank! For every hour of physics work I do I get five bucks of disposable spending, slightly under half of the amount I make. I can spend this on whatever I want, like meals on campus, club dues, cooking equipment, etc. Only five dollars max roll over to the next week, plus whatever I made that Sunday (to give incentive to work on Sundays). And to add a bit of bite: if the workbank ever goes negative, I have to donate twice the difference to charity.

Ideally this means I can spend guilt free as long as I work, since for every dollar I spend I'm also saving at least a dollar. So does it work? I've had it running for a week, and I haven't had any problems so far. I made more progress last week than I did in November. I've also been buying more nonnecessities. While I still feel a little guilty, hopefully that will go away in time. I've been making really small 'just because' purchases to work on that. Hoping on keeping this up for at least another month, if not indefinitely.

The idea of combining solutions to problems is actually a pretty interesting one. I haven't thought too much about it besides "it might work here", but I'm going to play around with it and see if anything really useful comes out.