Feature Request/Idea: Provide an ongoing accounting of all the money I have not given to Beeminder. It could be called the Fun Bucket graph, or Fun Bucket account, etc.
The point is to implement some kind of reward system into the mix.
I’ve read about the previous ideas of payment up front, and Beeminder paying people back as a “positive reward”. I understand there’s some debate about how useful that would be or perhaps how difficult it might be to implement.
So what I’m suggesting here is that providing a reflection of all the money I have not paid to beminder, that itself is somewhat equivalent to the reward of moving money back and forth, so this idea might be a low cost way to implement a rewarding feedback.
One could use this graph to actually reward themselves for having achieved progress. For example, one could move the corresponding money, or a fraction thereof, from checking to savings, or make a purchase that they have been saving up for.
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I like it!
How are you thinking to calculate this, given that the amount of money you could lose to Beeminder is theoretically unlimited, at least for do-less goals? I guess the calculation would be more straight-forward for do-more goals if you took post-derail respite into account…
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Thanks! I think this is just more of an open ended thought right now and to be honest I haven’t even created a do less goal yet.
Also, I had edited the title to say “request /idea” to be suggestive that this is more of a thought experiment. I figured it might be interesting to think about the pros and cons of this, either automated or how someone might use beeminder info to create a financial reward system of their own.
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Just some more thoughts on this. The “unit cost” is a better metric, as described here: Is there a beeminder term for … “pay per unit”?. For example, suppose one averages 3 exercise sessions on their at home stationary cycle per week for 52 weeks, 156 sessions, and one paid Beeminder $5, $10, $30, $30 in derailments, that’s $75/156 or about $0.50 per exercise session.
The problem with the unit cost metric is that it doesn’t quite determine the cost if one doesn’t derail. Suppose one has 156 sessions over a year and no derailments? There is still a cost in both the time of managing one’s beeminder and “money at risk”. That’s where some economic mathematical model might come in handy. Also, this type of cost analysis could be factored in along with unit cost.
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