New Member - Gaz
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Who you are? Gaz
Where you are from? Frome (rhymes with room!) for the last 35 years, in Somerset. Lived here since about 1985, but previously lived all over the place. Dad was in the forces (RAF) and we moved about every year to 18 months until I was around 13. We lived near Lincoln Ryan - Cranwell near Sleaford in late 60s and early 70s. Also near Stamford. Then settled in Chelmsford, Essex, then moved to the West Country in the early 80s
What stage are you at in your trading journey? About 3 months of being serious, but I'd been trying to create my own strategies for about a year/18 months based on collecting stats and looking for patterns/trends. They were really "straight bet" strategies, not trading, and a couple looked very good. Needless to say this was scuppered by behind closed doors games! Everything I thought looked promising went belly up after lockdown!
It was really trading I wanted to get my head around, but it seemed too difficult and mysterious on my own without any help. I was really looking for help/advice and I wanted to find someone successful to take me to pro level. A mentor to be honest.
Got serious about looking at trading about 3 months ago. But I still found it very hard and to be lacked direction and focus. It's hard to focus when you don't even know what you're supposed to be focusing on - ha!
What's your background? 27 years working in High Street bank - not managerial, just a regular bod. Left about 15 years ago through stress when sales targets became horrific and also counter to my natural instinct which was to help my customers not flog them stuff they didn't want or need.
Then looked for something I could do from home and started online affiliate marketing using pay per click Google/Microsoft ads. Soon became successful and in fact made more for a while than I had in my previous job! That eventually became really hard when companies online strategies changed and nearly all of them stopped allowing direct linking from Google/Microsoft ads. It really stopped what I was doing in it's tracks. Some residual income left from that but not much.
Did matched betting (Bonus Bagging) and through that I heard of Betfair and trading and have been looking at Betfair trading on and off for while now without really getting serious. I knew it was something that really interested me and I thought straight away I could see myself doing that and being pro level at some point in the future - but didn't know how to get there! I am quite analytical and love stats and sport so it seemed a perfect area to make my living in. I also am a guitarist, band member and song writer, and pre lockdown played live very regularly which was also part of my income - that also went completely as you can imagine! I have been a guitar teacher in my earlier life and was also considering becoming an online guitar teacher quite seriously.
Now coming up to age 60 in the next 18 months and will be getting my bank pension - doesn't seem possible I'm that old - blimey! I need to make another income on top to get to a level of income I'd like in retirement. It sounds weird to me that I'm "only" 58 and talking about that stuff...
Why did you join BTC? To learn how to trade successfully with a serious goal of becoming a pro trader.
What do you hope to get from the community? I just completed the BTC 5 Day Challenge with Ryan and it absolutely blew me away. It is exactly what I've been hoping to find. Not only the software and data side of things, but also a community of people with the right knowledge, mindset and attitude to help and advise each other along the way. I instantly felt comfortable and at home with BTC - so can't wait to get cracking.
What are some of your trading goals? Main goal is to learn the skills I need to be a pro level trader. I would like to get to £500 a month average profit and work upwards from that. Ideally I'd be aiming for £2500+ a month on average eventually. I haven't set a timescale as I'm not sure what is realistic time wise, so any help and advice on that side of things will be welcome. I don't have any particular urgency, I'm not desperate to achieve it in a stupidly short time frame. But then again would obviously like to achieve this as soon as is possible for me personally.
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Watcha Gaz.
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@mikael-nordstrom Thanks for the welcome! I'll be sure to ask - I have lots of learning ahead of me so I'll definitely be looking for help and advice - pretty soon probably!
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Welcome Gaz! You have really came to the right place! We are in the same position and If you want to share experience just ask!
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@ryan-carruthers Thanks mate. Yes I lived near Lincoln as a young 'un for probably 4 or 5 years when my dad was on 2 separate RAF "postings". I loved it there, and still get a warm fuzzy feeling when we drive past occasionally. I vividly remember watching the Vulcan Bombers taking off at Scampton. Sometimes we watched them taxiing, then line up waiting to take off, then off they went, one at a time. They had to stop traffic on the public road (a bit like a level crossing for planes) that ran past the end of the runway as the Vulcan's jet engines would have blasted the cars off the road! One of the most awesome sights and sounds ever!
Looking forward to moving on with BTC now, so much to learn, but it's really exciting at the same time
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@martin-futter Thanks for the welcome! Seems a while since I was working in a bank, it's over 15 years now, but a lot of good stuff has stuck with me. Yes it's very useful for bank roll management and also discipline.
I wasn't massively into the investment side, more lending and mortgages and also spent quite a while as a chief cashier, which meant being in charge of hundreds of thousands of pounds - and sometimes millions of pounds. And by that I mean actual cash in safes, cashiers tills, ATMs and strongrooms and managing the branch cash flow. You have to manage the whole branch's cash flow every day and either order in or send cash from/to central cash depositories. Stuff people don't think about - but it's a juggling act between not keeping too much cash in a bank branch and not running out!
Probably becoming a thing of the past now methinks?
I'm really looking forward to cracking on with BTC and any help and advice from existing members will be very welcome - there's a LOT to take in for a newbie like me. I'm aiming to be full time pro with my trading, but no rush, I can take my time if that's what's necessary.
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@gaz-hutchinson welcome, really enjoyed reading this, thanks for sharing!
I'm sure your banking experience can help with trading, the investing money side of things and bankroll management especially.
Keep us updated on your progress, if you have any questions just ask
