Just curious to see where everyone got their money to fund their trading accounts. What jobs allowed you to make enough money, quit and start trading? Or did some of you inherit money? Any great rags to riches stories??
When I was a broker with a major firm 20+ years ago I was more interested in learning to trade than sell. So I made the cold calls at nite, but picked the brains of their traders during the day. Ultimately I went to the spoo pit as a local, and was LUCKY to be short and carrying from the week before the '87 crash. That was the stake that set me up. By today's standards it wasn't all that much, but I was able to pay for college, med school, and living expenses without loans, and still have a nice nest egg. I lived well within my means while practicing medicine, saved a lot, and went back to trading after about 5 years of practice. But it all started with that LUCKY short. Who knew?
I was a broker at a major firm from 1996-2000...in my mid twenties at th etime..I had a cheap apartment, a paid off car, and no debt at all. I was putting as much $ as I could in tech funds every paycheck...and bought some stocks (BRCM,AETH,QLGC) and everything just soared. By almost dumb luck I got tired of dealing with clients and started selling stuff in mid 2000 to raise cash. The rest is history.
Think about this: If you work at MCD or swipe the floor or something you can easily make more than $2000 per month if that is all you do. If you buy a small car you can pay it off within a few months and after that all you need is $600 per month for food, rent and maybe a little gas. That leaves you more than $15k per year, so within a couple of years you could save up enough to fund your first trading account. The only thing that stands between this truth and your future is a TV set telling you about all that junk "you need and deserve".
um $2000 is a bit high, but i agree that you dont have to be in the cushiest job to save enough to trade within say a year, at least for futures. it also helps a lot if you're single.