Andy Hough

What Is Currency Trading? A Beginner’s Introduction

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You may never have heard of currency trading, but the reality is that many people use currency trading as a source of income. There are a lot of options for beginners who want to get started with currency trading. Currency trading is also known as forex trading.The word forex is an abbreviation of the words foreign exchange. That is because currency trading is actually trading foreign currencies on a central exchange platform.

There are many forex brokers who will allow you to set up a small account to get started with currency trading. Unlike stock trading,where you are trading money for stocks, with currency trading, you are actually trading money for money. The idea is that the value of each currency fluctuates over time. By investing in the right currencies at the right times, such as right before a currency goes up in value, you can make money. Since you are trading currencies,you are always buying one currency and selling another. You are hoping that one currency pair will go up while the other currency pair will go down.

When talking about currency pairs, we are talking about currencies such as the United States dollar, the Canadian dollar, the European euro, the British pound, the Swiss franc, the Japanese yen, and the Korean won. These are all currencies that can be traded against each other.

There are several huge differences between trading stocks and trading currencies. The first is that you do not need a big amount of money to get started with trading currencies. Many brokers let you set up an account with as little as fifty dollars. We will explain how you can use small amounts of money to make bigger amounts of money soon.

Also, forex is available on a retail scale. You do not have to go work on Wall Street or something to trade forex. You can trade from your own home on a platform offered to you by your broker, available online. Many brokers use MetaTrader 4, which is a software that makes it very easy to trade forex.

Also, trading forex involves the ability to trade with leverage.Different brokers offer different amounts of leverage, but some offer as much as five hundred times your money. This means that even if you only have a small amount of money in your account, you can trade as if you had a much larger amount of money. It is important to note that although you can make more money by using leverage, you can also lose more money if you use leverage. That is why it is important to use leverage carefully.You should always have a risk management strategy in place to make sure that nothing goes wrong.

Forex trading is also one of the most popular ways to make money from home. Of course, it is not something that you can learn overnight. It is recommended that you set up a demo account before you start investing any money in forex. Not all forex traders succeed. The ones that do succeed are the ones that have put in the time and effort to study the markets, both from books and from personal experience.

The great thing about forex is that you can get personal experience without investing any money. All you have to do is open a demo account with any broker with paper money of up to one hundred thousand dollars. This gives you the ability to take your time and figure out a trading strategy that actually works for you.

There are many free resources on the internet to help you learn how to trade currency pairs such as the US dollar and the Korean won.However, nothing will beat personal experience, which is why a demo account is so useful. Once you have played around with a demo account, you can move on to opening a small real account and gradually increase the size of your deposits.

In conclusion, trading forex is a great way to make money from home and become self-employed. However, it requires dedication and is not something that will make you rich overnight. Just be patient and acquire trading skills slowly and gradually.

Weight Loss Goal Results

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Back in August I wrote a post sharing my goal of losing 30 in 3 months. I stated in that post that at the end of the 3 months I would post my result, including before and after pictures, regardless of the outcome. The results post was supposed to be published on November 29, 2018, but as usual I am a bit behind on getting the post up. 

I will warn you now that both the before and after pictures are not pretty. I am rather fat in both the before and after pics. If you don’t want to see a half-naked fat guy you should stop reading now and not scroll down the page any further. You have been warned.

To get straight to the point I did not meet my goal of losing 30 pounds in 3 months. I managed to lose 18.4 pounds in 3 months. I went from 224.8 pounds at the start to 206.4 pounds at the end.  I also went from 30.2% body fat to 25.7% body fat. My BMI dropped below 30 which means I am officially no longer obese, I’m just really overweight.  Although this was well short of my goal I am still pleased to have lost that much weight.

The first couple of months in Thailand I was losing weight pretty steadily.  I was a little behind the pace needed to lose 30 pounds, but I was still on pace to lose almost 25 pounds. However, my weight loss plateaued in November.

My weight loss was achieved with a combination of intermittent fasting, a morning HIIT workout, an afternoon swim, and lots of walking. After the first week of November I moved out of my apartment in Chiang Mai to a hotel with no fitness center or swimming pool. This resulted in a large dropoff in my amount of exercise. Once I returned to the U.S. I continued to not exercise and I also indulged in quite a few foods that I had missed while in Thailand. Not surprisingly, I didn’t lose any weight the last couple of weeks in November. 

Below are my before and after weight loss pics. 

Although I still have a big gut, it isn’t quite as massive in the after pics. The man boobs are also a little smaller. The biggest difference was that I lost some weight from my face which I think made a pretty big change in my appearance.

The shorts I wore in the before pic are now way too big for me. While I was in Thailand I had to take an elastic band and tie two belt loops of the shorts together so I could wear them without them falling down while I was walking. 

I have actually gained a couple pounds already this month. Although I have gotten back on track with my intermittent fasting, I haven’t gotten back into the exercise habit. I need to start exercising consistently and eat better so I can start losing weight again. The fact that I lost quite a bit of weight in Thailand proves I can lose weight. I just need to do the actions necessary to lose the weight.  I’m not going to set a new weight loss goal, instead I will set goals to develop exercise and eating habits that will result in losing weight. 

November Income – $19.47

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Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

Interest $5.64
Amazon FBA $0
Job $0
Cash Back $0
Dividends $3.83
Online Income $10
Total $19.47

November’s income was quite pitiful. Before I return to Thailand I need to find a way to earn an income while I’m there. Although my expenses have been quite low the past couple of months I am still going in the hole since my income is almost non-existent.

I thought I would be returning to work the last week of November. However, my start date to return to work has been changed to the end of this month. I wasn’t super pleased about that change, but it wasn’t something I had any control over.

I’m hoping I will be able to work a couple of weeks on a document review project before I return to the tax job at the end of the month. That way I will at least have a little income this month. Otherwise, I won’t get my first paycheck from the tax job until January which would result in another very low-income month.

I might also drive for Uber or find some other way of generating income this month while I’m waiting to resume my tax job. I still have plenty of savings to get me through until the tax job starts, but I am getting tired of seeing my savings dwindle. I would like to start building my savings back up.

I’m hoping that my income will improve quite a bit this month. It can’t get much lower.

November Expenses – $738.60

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

Household $133.59
Rent $123.36
Entertainment $75.37
Transportation $78.30
Food $161.94
Travel $149.66
Phone $5.17
Health $11.21
Total $738.60

My November Expenses were very low due mainly to having very little rent and no other large expenses.

The main household expenses were $52.21 for utilities at my Chiang Mai apartment and $53.17 for five weeks rent on a storage locker in Kansas City.  I was responsible for paying electric and water for my apartment in Chiang Mai. The first month they screwed up my bill and I was only charged about $6 for utilities. As I expected, they rectified their error the following month so the $52.21 bill is really for almost two months of utilities. Considering I ran the aircon all night long and took long, hot showers every day that is a bargain.

Upon my return from Thailand I was going to move in with my ex-girlfriend as a roommate.  That didn’t work out so I needed somewhere to store my stuff while figuring out where I was going to live.  Thus, the $53.17 charge for a storage locker. I have figured out where I’m going to live. More on that in a later post.

The rent was for 9 days in a hotel in Uttaradit, Thailand. When my monthly rental in Chiang Mai ended I moved to Uttaradit for a few days so I could be closer to my girlfriend.  The room was a great deal at a little over $13 a night. I actually could have gotten a monthly rental for almost the same price. Since Uttaradit is a smaller city rent is even cheaper than the already cheap Chiang Mai prices. I’m considering living here when I return to Thailand next year.

Entertainment was mostly for movies and dinners with my girlfriend. This category was down because my girlfriend often didn’t feel like going out and just wanted to stay in the room. That was fine by me since staying in the room was usually more fun for me anyway.

Transportation was for gas for my car. I drove from KC to southern Missouri, back to KC, and then back to southern Missouri again. The cost of all that driving wasn’t too bad due to cheap gas, a discounted gas card, and fuel rewards.

My food expense was slightly lower than the previous month. Since all of my other expenses were so low I didn’t worry about trying to keep my food expense low. I consider this to be a slightly high amount for food for a month, but I think a lot of people would consider it a low amount. My food bill doesn’t get too high even when I’m not trying to keep it low since many of my favorite foods are really cheap. I also spent a few days at my mom’s for the Thanksgiving holiday and had a Thanksgiving feast and lots of leftovers which kept my food expenses minimal during that time.

I’m not going to worry about my food expense this month either. I plan on eating at home a lot more this month so I think my food expense will go down anyway.

Travel was for Uber/Lyft rides, airport parking, taxi, gas money for my GF, a bus ride from Chiang Mai to Uttaradit, and some other small incidentals. I don’t think I’ll have any travel expense this month unless a super bargain airfare to Thailand for next year or something like that comes up.

Phone was for 1 week of phone service in Thailand. I switched my phone back to Google Fi during the month, but I wasn’t billed during the month. The new Fi bill will be due this month so this expense will be higher although it will still be quite low.

Health was for my fitness club membership and some medicine.  That expense will be going up a lot this month.  I had to enroll in new health insurance for next year and my premium has gone up substantially. The cost has gone from $0 a month to $123 a month.  That is after subsidies.  The real cost is a lot more. Since my new plan has a low deductible and a low out-of-pocket max I intend to have a couple of medical procedures done next year that I’ve been putting off due to the cost.

My November expenses were very low and I expect my December expenses will also be very low.  How was your month?

 

 

Swell Investing $50 Referral Bonus

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Swell Investing is a robo-advisor service that lets you invest in high-impact, high-potential companies that are focused on a positive future. There are six thematic impact portfolios that you can invest in.

You can currently get started investing with Swell Investing with a minimum investment of just $50 and you can get a $50 bonus if you sign up using my referral link. The bonus will be paid out after you have maintained your account for 90 days.

It is easy to sign up with Swell Investing. I was able to open my account in less than 10 minutes. I’ve decided to stop chasing smaller account sign up bonuses. However, I think a $50 bonus is worth pursuing. Especially when it is quick and easy to sign up.

My money has been divided between the clean water, zero waste, renewable energy, green tech, healthy living, disease eradication and Impact 400 portfolios. I have no idea if this is a good investment, but in the few days I’ve had the account open it is up slightly. Since I only invested $50 and I’ll be receiving a $50 bonus in 90 days my chance of having a positive return is quite good.

Once you sign up they currently have a promotion where you can receive a $300 bonus for referring 3 others to invest with Swell. That is why I’m hoping at least 3 people sign up for Swell Investing using my referral link. That referral bonus would give me a very good return for my investment.  There is a max of 18 referrals allowed. I doubt I will hit that limit, but it would be nice if I did.

Swell Investing is backed by Pacific Life so they are a legit company. There are no trading fees. They make their money from a 0.75% annual fee applied to your investments.  That would just be a 38 cent fee on a $50 balance.  There is no fee to close your account if you wish to close it after receiving your bonus.

If you are interested in signing up for Swell Investing and receiving the $50 bonus please consider using my referral link.