Preparing yourself to move from Part to Full time

Trading Discussion Trading Lifestyle
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I was wondering how far out all you full time traders started making plans?

To the part timers planning to go full, have you started working out your road map?

My own personal journey involves more than just FX trading, although based on recent performance I do believe it will play a larger part than I once thought.

My own position is that I work away from home (Offshore) so I intend to over time create a routine at home, daily shedule, this i will be able to seamlessly move into when I go full time so I do not really notice a changed impact other than my routine doesn’t get disturbed by having to go offshore any more.

I see my routine being, 7am up for RNS on UK shares.
Breakfast while watching for anything interest on UK market open.

9am kids to school then up to 1 1/2 hours exercise. Swimming, golf, walk or run.

10:30 to 12:30 Trading/Admin. Back testing new theories, bookkeeping, possible little bit of scalping.

12:30 to 21:00 leasure/home time.

21:00 to 22:00 daily Forex Trades - Last hour of Daily Candle NY Close.

22:00 Friday to 07:00 Monday absolute time off, family time etc. NO SHARES or research.

As it stands I have started building this routine on my home time, my time on the rig is much more wrapped around the employers timings. I make sure I am available at 21:00 to trade though.

I don’t see me being ready for 18/24 months. That is that I’ll have a large enough pot and enough money set aside to cover my bills for 24 months or so ontop.

Obviously if things beat my (hopefully conservative) expectations the timeline may be pulled up a little.

So shoot away, you part times with plans, and full times. How did/do you see your transition going/went and was it a huge lifestyle change? Did you stuggle with the change or seamlessly fall into it?

Good/bad experiences welcome.

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Im part time at the moment but hope to be nearing full time by the end of the year. Want to have a year’s salary as my buffer before i do

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Good to see that you’re not jumping right away as a full timer. Its actually important to do it part time before going full time.

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Very good. I also do it part-time but I will stay in the market full-time thinking to maintain consistency.

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I made almost as much last year as my job and really considered it. But I really like the mental break and routine of the work and helping people.

If I get to the point that I make $100k+ a year trading then I will probably do it full time.

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I’m part time, it’ll be a long time until I could ever think to go full time and I’m not sure if that’s for me just yet, but like you this could change for me too. I’m at home at the moment, but I have other things going on - I have an online shop and kids. I’m just working as hard as I can, and seeing where it takes me.

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I will be full time one day but this is amazing to keep a journal and get people moving slowly through each stage

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Started off as a scalper so 2-3 hrs a day was good enough for me in the beginning. But now I think I’m ready to spend more hours since it’s reaping me good money.

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Sounds like a good plan mate.

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People who can create a balance in forex and get some regular profits out of them can surely go into full time forex trading. But I still have to make a clear picture and schedule before jumping in. Had to have some backup plans as well.

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It’s great you are thinking like this buddy. Backup is always required in forex trading.

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Yes it is a good plan, it is always better to have your fund beforehand so that you can trade without worrying about the money.

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I am a part time trader too. Great to see your efforts to learn complete trading before jumping into real money investments.
Still I haven’t thought of switching as a full time trader. Would like to switch once I am more confident with my investments.

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That current schedule is actually already great! How is that schedule holding up today?

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I’m planning on the beginning of next year to walk away from my normal 9-5 and become full time. Everything seems to be going in that direction, Lord willing, :grin:. So we shall see.

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Sounds good! let us know how you get on

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I think every good trader started part time before going in full time. Am doing part time now but to bounce into full time when I’m fully ready and equipped

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Actually, part-time trading is too good for people. What is more valuable is that you’re able to make a good profit even if you a part time trader. Mainly part-time traders don’t trade every day, but they do it regularly. Trade on a desktop or laptop during an allotted time each day is still in use. So everything you needs is to treat this as you work on a part-time job or business. Speaking about profits, being a part-time trader and beng a full-time trader in relation to money actually mean the same thing as I said above. You have to elaborate a strategy and trade in hot time during a day according to your strategy.

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Hi Chris,
Back to your original post.

Forex will never be a full time concept for me. 15 years ago it may have been - but even then, I decided on participation with a view to it potentially contributing as much as 50% to our gross income.

Now 15 years down the road, I last formalised the Forex contribution to be approximately 10% of our “nice to have future income”. It gets a bit complicated, but I participate in Forex today for very different reasons I did fifteen years ago. That long ago it was with the idea that I could, for example, quadruple my money every year and grow a £5K hobby into a £100K per year income stream. I am sure that has crossed the minds of very many new members here too.

I came to the realization that I was not “one of the chosen ones” and needed to spend a bit more time earning my income like 99% of others - by continuing to do some hard work.

We set up our lives about three decades ago to aspire to having three independent sources of income. After the first decade that grew to four. I think of our overall actions being a four cylinder engine, and for about another decade, all cylinders were firing, and it probably didn’t matter whether we “worked” five or twenty five hours per day, the outcome was going only one way - upwards.

Then we hit a few problems.
The first cylinder started misfiring. The 2008 financial crisis was the first problem we had to deal with. Our substantial property portfolio was akin to a zombie company - but ten years later, it still flows positive cash

The second cylinder seized. 2011 came along and the Syrian war started. My wife ran a company there that for 20 years had been a significant contributor. This moved to Kurdistan, and had been loss making for 10 years. There are slight signs of recovery.

The third cylinder went out of timing. 2017 I had a heart problem in the middle of an overseas business trip. That impacted my consulting income somewhat.

The fourth cylinder is long term investment other than property and wholly owned private company. Part of that is my interest in Forex, and using its learnings to derisk the rest of that portfolio. It now includes crypto currency investment and crypto currency trading. It has been over a year since I have “traded” other currencies, and it may stay that way. Part of that crypto part has become an interest in “mining cryptos”

A long answer, I know, but in some respects, I am totally NOT reliant on needing to demonstrate a continuous positive edge in the Forex market. It is rather what I have learned from my participation in Forex about risk management and mitigation, and reward to risk ratio that has been the largest benefit by far to our overall plans. I suspect that is similar to a large number of contributors on this forum.

P.S. It also helps that I get a great deal of satisfaction out of “the day job” which also puts me in the minority of folks.

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I have moved in an unconventional way. I have been trading for a couple of years now but struggled to find the time to invest in trading. Me and my wife made the decision to switch things up a little and so we have rented our house out and build a custom campervan with everything we need. This way we have created an income which allowed me to stop the 9 to 5 to concentrate on trading.

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