Over the last four years, I’ve attended almost all of them, and win or lose, each was money well spent.Įntry costs $5, for the bare minimum number of two boards for 12 rounds, but I never play the minimum. I live within walking distance of a bingo hall that offers games every evening, plus an additional 10:30 Tuesday night game, and Friday morning and Sunday afternoon games. It’s the one activity that lets me escape, well, me, where money becomes more magical and less weighty. My local bingo hall is my happy place, somewhere I can go any night of the week and know I’ll leave with a smile on my face no matter what the outcome. The downside of self-employment is I never feel like I can truly be “off.” There’s always a potential story at my fingertips, and thereby a way to chip away at my looming debt, which hovers at a little over $50,000. When, at 40, I realized that wasn’t quite how real life worked, I dedicated myself to earning as much as I could as a freelancer, with a mix of book royalties, articles, and a part-time copywriting gig. In my 20s and 30s, I ignored my debt, thinking it would somehow eventually resolve itself (how, I’m not sure, but I assumed more money would simply materialize the older I got). I’ve been in debt my entire adult life, first with student loans from undergrad and the law school I never graduated from, then from living above my means - not hard to do on a $40,000 New York City salary. I know that sounds ironic, but bingo is my mental escape, offering a few hours where the numbers in front of me all start with a letter, not a dollar sign. The one time in my life, aside from sleeping, when I’m not obsessing about money is when I’m playing bingo.

Win boxers playing bingo