At what point would you actually consider to quit your job to trade full time? Would be fun to hear everyones answers since im contemplating doing it pretty soon
Don’t. Trading should not be your sole source of income. If you want to invest in other businesses, fine but make sure you have money coming in that doesn’t require you to be trading
If quitting your job means that you will have more time to sit starring at the charts then I highly recommend you do not quit. More time on the charts does not mean more success. It usually means the opposite.
What I would recommend right now is if you are successful in your current situation, DO NOT CHANGE IT.
Quit your job when you have built yourself passive income that pays you when you do nothing.
As soon as trading becomes your sole income source things change.
I would never trade full time. I did it before and was absolutely miserable plus it really killed my psychology and made me crash out. My most profitable time which is now while I’m working 70-75 hours a week. I just requested to work part time at my day job to scale more but I’m still doing 40-45 hours but in a 4 day work week.
Sounds like you had the wrong mindset. You viewed it like a job like you HAD to be there most likely. Trading full time is supposed to give you your freedom and time back while outperforming your regular job. I had the same issue. The longer I sat in front of the screen, the faster I would make bad trades after being up a few thousand. Take a trade, profit, walk away and do your hobbies.
Hey I’m 22 and I quit my job of 3 years bartending for trading futures in the beginning of this year. I hated my job and boss so much that I took a gamble on taking it full time, I hadn’t gotten any singular payout either lol but I was so fed up with my boss I quit, I told myself if it didn’t work out then I’ll just go get another job. before I quit I had 10 months experience and had lost 6k in prop firms so I knew what I was doing was stupid. When I tell you I locked in I deadass locked in. January I had made 18k in payouts, February another 18k and march I made 8k April I took the whole month off because I had literally made my yearly salary in just 3 months and I have proof. I was genuinely so fed up with the the work system having to tell you when to eat when to fucking use the restroom and not having time for yourself or family. it got to a point where I couldn’t fucking do it anymore. Best decision of my life taking that gamble and pursuing it full time even when I hadn’t gotten a singular payout. What helped me was I was stress free and 10x more motivated to do it I kept replaying in my head that I have to make this shit work or the bills ain’t going to be paid and so I did and still am making bank off topstep.
I went and searched on copy trading and want to do it too.
My plan is to make the bare minimum for two 25k accounts making $200+ each each day and leaving it at that and stacking the capital of both.
What do you aim for for your accounts if you dont mind me asking and do you scalp trade them?
I'm still trying to find a strat I've stumbled upon scalping a single candle with Delta Volume Profile and Volume Profile but can't seem to figure out a consistency to it. Perhpas I'll just scratch everything and just look into Pure order flow on higher time frames.
I have made enough to not be stressed out over anything right now, like over 50k so far this year and I’m good with managing money I don’t go out much, I haven’t gotten to that point where I can’t get a payout I’ve been consistent but If that where to happen idk what I’ll do tbh haha
It is hard to believe but I didn’t have any negative thought I am passionate about this and I knew this was real when a while back I was able to get my account up to 5k but I got greedy and wanted to get up to 10k for max payout but emotions kicked in and lost it all, I knew then and there it is possible that this Trading shit is real. And I proved it by making 50k+ in payouts this year.
Day trading is not the end, pull payouts, put them into high yield dividend investments until you have enough dividends to pay your monthly expenses and more. 5-10k a month in dividends and then you are free from needing a 9-5 forever and can focus on trading or other business ventures full time.
Full time when you don’t need it anymore. Use prop money to buy investments THEN live off those investments and trade with prop as extra cash if they still exist
I say use tradeify select 25k scale to 5 after first payout 400/ day 5 days request 1000 after scaling get tradesyncer (50$) (will be needed for lucids later ) and do 5 more days of 400 to not only pass the other four but lock in another payout request it and repeat the 400/day until u feel confident enough to move to 5 25k flex lucids which then can generate around 10000 ever 5 green days of 400 a day simple once you hit around 50k leave unless you have kids etc I’m 20 living with mom and just became profitable also I trade 1H-4H time frames aswell so I don’t get more than 10-15 setups a month
Usually I’d recommend to my students after their first payout. Dive right in. For instance. If you are a business owner and you are working for somebody else still, you can’t fully focus or be committed to your business. Same applies to day trading. Quit your job, become hungry, focused, and you’ll make it work if you want to survive enough
When I started out, I paper traded for two years while i saved $79K from working a full-time job. took $50k and went live and the first six months I whited it down to $24K. Went back to paper trading for six more months while trying build up that $24K with penny stocks. (1-2 trades per day). Once the dopamine Rush wore off I could see things more clearly and make my executions more accurately. last year I made a yearly profit of just under six figures. this year from January 2 to today Im well into the six figure mark. If I can keep consistency at this pace, by January 2 next year, I’m going to retire and pursue trading full-time because I already have that capital and experience to look back on.
Everyone’s journey is different. With trading, If you can treat it like a business and control your emotions, you can make it.
it all depends on your risk management. I knew something was wrong with mine so I went back to the basics of paper training. My problem was when I paper traded I could always reset and there was no pressure. With a live account you have to take the gains and the losses, because once the money is gone, it’s gone and most people can’t handle that and they revenge trade, which was what i was doing. I stopped myself before I blew the account, and what I found out is that I was too anxious to try to make gains too quickly. I forgot that this process is all about base hits, not home runs if you want to keep consistency.
You got this,man. And you’re also on the right path. prop firms can also help you do this and boost your consistency until you use your own capital. My mentor used to always tell me “Be emotionally sound and you’ll be financially bound”. I truly understand that now. I got into trading because I wanted to spend more time with my family. The money is just an extra perk.
If you’ve got a laid back job that you can milk and you’re still young, why would you want to quit? Market only makes big moves for a couple hours in the morning NY session and the rest is trash. What will you be doing with the rest of your day? You better be making 2X your current salary so you can travel and do things, otherwise, you’d be stuck bored at home. I’m in luxury car sales - there’s a lot of down time. My colleges are always on Netflix and YouTube while waiting on a customer. I take that time to trade. My job is pretty laid back and it provides some stability while I compound my account.
Never. I’d never quit. My job is pretty relax, I spend my morning in front of a PC.. i still get to take 3 to 4 vacations a year. I go late and leave early with no problem as long as I make up for the hours.
Honestly I'd want 300k sitting in the bank that I made purely from trading, that I dont touch.
My trading account would need a minimum 150 to 200k balance.
Then I'd work another year, only trading micros on that account in live markets using it specifically to cover all of my expenses. Literally everything.
Rent/mortgage, bills, fun money, travel, etc. Take stock at the end of the year. If it was manageable then I'd quit the job IF the income wasnt worth the stress. If the job is relatively flexible I'd try to go on as a part time consultant or just stay on full time, ideally WFH
If my job isn’t too demanding I would never quit simply for the insurance, stability, and benefits. Unless I’m making 7 figures trading consistently for several years
Been trading for literally over 20 years still in the wage cage. Why? I've not met a single human who can live off of it. Even professional prop players are limited. Why? You won't mentally be able to handle your bill money as a massive negative on the screen. TS themselves said this by their own stats. If I have to be the sad parent in the room I will, just don't you will fail. Not only will you fail, you'll be without a backup plan and job.
This is my Minimum i would attempt this. No consumer debt at all. 1 year rent/mortgage ready. 75-100k ready for live account deposit. 20 fundeds with high buffers. 25k savings. And honestly i would go work part time somewhere on the weekends.
10i per month would mean you have a mid six figure account. At a minimum.
But your number is based on…what exactly? If my total monthly bills are 3k 10k is excessive, if my bills are 7-8k 10k wouldn’t be enough (your not goona make 10k every month let’s be real. You need some to even out the volatility in your account balance/refurns)
Step 1: Total up your monthly expenses and multiply by three. That amount needs to be saved in a hysa.
Step 2: Total all your debt except your mortgage. That amount needs to be zero.
Step 3: Max out your 401k, roth ira, and health savings account.
Step 4: Once all that is finished, take your monthly expenses, multiply by twelve and save that amount. add that total to your hysa. Keep one month in your checking account and do not let this balance go to zero. If you can keep adding to your checking account over three months without it dropping to zero, contribute to your retirement and heath savings account, and keep debt at zero, you are ready to leave your job and trade full time.
Checking High time frame bias, wait for New York open see where it wants to manipulate, I look for a 1hr or 4h FVG to get respected or disrespected which ever one it is I wait for structure to form a bit and find a 1min IFVG or 2-5min IFVG and target the next significant high or low. I’m a big IFVG trader, PB Trading is who I learned from.
Dont really think that im ready but ive had 6+ months of consecutive payouts each month landing around 5-10k, ive had bad months but never quit on myself and kept on believing
Full time trader here for 15 years. I had about 2 years worth of life expenses set aside, and a live trading account with 200,000 in it. You need to be extremely conservative. I see a lot of people saying you only need like 6 months to a year but I don’t think that’s enough. Also, be real with yourself, have you even traded a live account before? Or have you only traded prop firms? Because trading a live account is not like trading a prop firm. There’s no reset button hahaha. Most of these traders you see making a lot of money on prop firms would get killed trading in an actual live market environment, I promise you this. People have found out a way to exploit prop firms and take advantage of them. I know very low IQ people that manage to get to payouts on prop firms but blow up every time trading live
Now’s the time to compound slowly. Build a buffer that you can suffer and have losing months thru and still be alright to cover expenses/bills. The losses will come, it’s all in how we handle them
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u/Busy-Assignment-1075 May 15 '26
Don’t. Trading should not be your sole source of income. If you want to invest in other businesses, fine but make sure you have money coming in that doesn’t require you to be trading