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I see the boat fund point, and honestly it's a fair warning. Once the fee money comes out of winnings, it stops feeling like a cost, and that's how people end up buying a fourth attempt without ever adding up the first three. A fixed pot from salary once a year does keep it visible.

My only worry is the opposite case, where the pot is gone after two failed attempts in March and the person feels pushed to dip into rent money or into the live account. So I'd set a hard cap up front. Say 600 dollars for the year, which buys three 200 dollar challenges. When it's empty, you stop until next January, even if you feel one move away from passing. Any payout that comes in goes to the live account or savings and doesn't refill the pot.

Quarterly updates are fine by me. A short line each quarter, fees spent against payouts received, gives you the real number. If it's minus 450 after nine months, that tells you something a monthly glance would have blurred.

Would you count your own time practising as a cost, or only the cash? And do you think a three-attempt cap per year is too tight?

WhitG47 wrote: Do you keep it somewhere you cant quietly edit, or is it just down to willpower?

WhitG47, willpower is the weak link, so the versions that hold up take the decision away from the moment. One is a separate card or account that gets topped up once in January with the year's fee budget and nothing else, so raising the limit means a deliberate transfer rather than a click at checkout. Another is agreeing the number with someone, a partner or a trading mate, who has to hear about any change. Neither is foolproof, but both add a delay, and "just this once" rarely survives a night's sleep. As for who sets it: the trader, but on a day when no challenge is running.