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Overview of My Investing Journey

Introduction

When prospective investors ask in forums how to start investing, they often get a response as if they should first discover the true purpose of their life and get a degree in finance. Things like, before you start you have to know what you want to achieve in the end, what is your risk tolerance, and know about all types of investing, their pros, cons, and taxation nuances. 

To be hit with those questions right at the start is, in my opinion, overwhelming, not helpful, and could result in instant surrender. It is all coming from a good place, if not from a desire to grandstand, but for many people it is better to just start with something. Put an amount of money, they find insignificant enough, somewhere and see what happens.

This is one of the reasons I would like to share my personal story of investing, failing, giving up, getting back up, deviating from plan, making new plans, trying new strategies, succeeding at times, etc. After a while, most of us know what the boring and effective strategies are for them. But what we actually execute is much more to do with handling our emotions and learning to do it better over time. 

A friend of mine, who was also into investing, once said that an investment plan should be laminated and on your table at all times. Then, whenever you get a great idea and want to start buying or selling something, you have to read the plan again. The plan itself would be short and simple but following your own instructions over longer periods of time can be surprisingly hard. We tend to start believing the plan was something else.

How I started investing

I have been trying to invest money since 2015 but only started succeeding in it by the end of 2017. The desire to invest started about 5 years earlier but it took time for the seed to grow and knowledge to accumulate. The money I was initially trying to invest, to try things out, was a couple hundred euros. I was still in university.

First attempt 2015

As everyone knows there are stocks and investors ought to have them, I tried buying local shares through a bank. Right away, I was hit by high commissions and monthly holding fees which made it a certain loss unless the growth would have been exorbitant or my assets much larger. Therefore, I sold the shares, paid more commission for doing so, and laid low for a while.

Misusing Bondora as a trading platform 2016-2017

Investing in US stocks and funds via Interactive Brokers 2017-2020

What is to come?

What I have yet to describe is my experience investing in US stocks and funds, buying a home, starting a company, returning to P2P lending, and contributing to pension.


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