I'm currently paid 100% in Bitcoin through bitwage.co. I pay for as much as I can using bitcoins.
I think you are relying too heavily on bitwage.co. Most employers need a certain amount of notice in order to change where your direct deposit payment is sent to, so if/when bitwage.co runs into problems and/or turns into the next gox, you could potentially have two, or maybe even three pay periods worth of money sent to them depending on how quickly you can see they are having problems.
I think it is good to use/spend your bitcoin as much as you can, however I don't think it is smart to entrust a third party with so much of your money as you are doing.
I actively sell bitcoins on localbitcoins so I usually have plenty of cash for buying food and paying rent.
Our of curiosity, when you sell on LBC, are you able to get above market rates, or do you need to lose some amount to liquidity providers?
If BitWage has any problems I would know about it within hours of missing my paycheck. My paycheck is every other Friday, I usually get an e-mail about 6-7PM on that day with the amount of bitcoins deposited into my account and the rate. If this did not happen I could call them, if they give me the run around I would call my company and have them reverse the direct deposit(which would be a hassle, but possible). And from there I would certainly drop them. So at most, one paycheck is lost if they go under. They don't keep peoples bitcoins though. I gave them my bitcoin address that I have in cold storage, they send to that address immediately once the direct deposit goes through.
I guess if you really stayed on top of it, and were really paranoid then I would think you would have no more then one paycheck at risk at any time. However I would think there would be some reasonable explanations that many people would be able/willing to accept as to why they are not sending your bitcoin to you immediately. At the company I work for, you need to give roughly 6ish days notice to have direct deposit information changed, and I don't think they would be willing to reverse a direct deposit, although I have not tried.
For localbitcoins I am getting 10% above the market rate, I get enough for spending money and rent each month.
Very nice, this is essentially at least a 2-3% bonus (depending on how much of your salary you need to convert into fiat, price declines, ect.) raise over your normal wage. This is also the taxes I was referring to as say you needed to sell $1,100 worth of bitcoin to cover your fiat related living expenses, but only "paid" $1,000 (via your wages) then you would owe taxes on that $100 in short term capital gains (assuming the below tax break would not apply to this)
As for taxes, yes I am avoiding taxes...legally. I live outside the US working for a US company. If you live outside the US for more than 330 days out of the year you qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion. This means that the first $100k of my salary is tax free and I can write off any housing costs. My situation is unique in that I work as a contractor for the US military so I do not have to pay taxes in the country I live in (I can even avoid paying VAT, but usually don't bother with the process).
That has nothing to do with bitcoin, however is a pretty sweet deal. I should probably look into doing that as that would save me a great deal of money.
