I'm 29 now, started in US equities when I was 18 now trading spot FX with Oanda. Took me 10 years to be profitable as I held normal day jobs in between bouts of trading full time. Blew out my account about 5 times during those 10 years and had to work and save. Each blow out was about $5000. Profitable now and more than recouped my tuition. What clicked for me is T Harv Eker's Millionaire Mind Seminar. It was a psychological block I had with bad money associations. Also learned how the brain works as it relates to discipline. Our brain is like any other muscle we have in our body. Whatever bad habit we do, it's because we excercised our brain to have a strong muscle for that bad habit. What did it for me is letting that bad habit atrophy and replacing it with a better habit through sheer willpower, rewards, punishments, etc. That made discipline easy knowing how the brain works.
Almost every "great" trader out there, from Paul Tudor Jones to Tony Saliba, has gone bust at least once during the education process. It takes awhile to get the psychological "mind fuck" understood. (fear of loss screws with almost everyone in one fashion or another, just need to play #'s) Give it time, and keep at it even if ya go bust. Starting with nothing, almost guaranteed without an experienced mentor. Good luck.
I like the idea of getting a backup job where you can work weekends, evenings so you are free to participate in the markets. This way you can take time off from trading which I find very valuable. And, you are less fearful of loosing money. For inspiration, I go to the net and google same. Lots of uplifting stuff for free. Not a get rich quick scheme. Takes about 5 years. I would recommend putting your money toward education, but that's me....also important to have trading buddies.
In my opinion, it's not the market skills that are hard to develop, but the personal attributes that are needed to be successful in the longrun (at least without being extremely lucky). I'd consider these to be patience, discipline, emotional control and the ability to be objective. Unfortunately, these are things most people will only learn with experience - usually only bad experiences - and most people won't learn at all (it's very tough for most to overcome human nature). I'm sure many successful traders don't 'master' these attributes, but in most cases they'll control them to an extent that allows to be profitable.
since i said i'd reply....found i've already done that. snipping part of an earlier post of mine from another thread: (i) worked @startup for 1 yr. laid off when money tight. started new job a few weeks later at a major international bank as a documentation person and techie for small trading (fixed income derivatives) floor... worked there for 6 years, through a merger. initially loved it, but ppl moved on, new bosses promised promotions / raises / opportunities that never happened...at the time, i was trading from work for about a year? never letting it affect my job. also, one of my jobs was now supporting all data for (non-equity) traders. this was '99. they started saying i (only) couldn't use pc or phone (!) for ANYTHING outside of direct work. i wanted to work one more year to raise more capital for myself, but couldn't take the pressure. i left. i also had two side-projects during that time. it's now been 9+ years of trading - almost all daytrading equities which aren't huge - from home for my own account. my best years were NOT '99/00/01, but have occurred after that. wife and i had a tight budget when she was in grad school / i was on my own and eking out a small living. she still works, we have kids, i'm doing fine. not making millions, but 99% of the world would love to be in my shoes. (new part): i never went bust. the closest i came to busting out was buying a pink sheet stock with most of my capital in '98, and sold it after taking a huge loss (60%? 80%? i don't remember) because of irregularities. was halted / suspended or something days after i sold.
Considering how many of you are new, you may all enjoy this old gem of a thread from 2001... <b>my story</b> http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1670
I don't know about others but personally I don't really give a shit about definition of price action.