I plan to demo trade for 2-4 months before depositing real money, and my goal with small deposits over time is to build up my account balance faster to try and reduce the time it will take to earn money that will actually have an impact in my life. My trading plan only allows me to risk 1% per trade, so with a $2,000 account that would be $20, which won’t earn a whole lot even if I make 150+ pips a trade.
Now if I had a $100,000 account I would be risking $1,000 per trade which could generate some good returns, at least in theory. So by making additional deposits on a regular basis over the course of a few years or so, I can get up to that level faster than by trading alone because the deposits could offset some of the losses I would incur.
My reasoning behind the monthly average rate of return is because I look at trading earnings as being similar to compound interest, at least, similar mathematically. By setting an average rate of return I can do some forecasting to see how long it would take me to earn a full-time income, which I define as $120,000 per year, from my trading which gives me a yardstick to measure myself against.