Working and Trading
Working 35 hours a week as well as trading is a rather time-consuming hobby. This is something I've come to realize over the past 8 days, of which I'd been rostered off over the Christmas period. The club is only closed for one of those days (the 25th), but there were a few reasons for it.
We've got new casual staff as some of the full-timers are going on vacation. Unfortunately, our HR manager has a habit of over-hiring when this happens and when the staff on leave return, we wind up with a surplus of staff and not enough hours to cover everyone. Before, this might have bothered me, but since I make money trading too, it's not really a problem, and actually is something I welcome rather than become anxious about.
It's gotten me thinking though. Since I wasn't working for the past week, I was able to live 'the trader life' for a short period of time, to experience what it would be like. I have to admit, I really liked it and it's something I can definitely get used to. I can sleep whenever I want, do whatever I want. I can take trading out with me and use ZTrader when I need to. This lifestyle is great.
However, it's gotten me pondering over a few things.
Why Do Both?
I make about 30AUD per hour at my job (about 23USD). That's before tax. Therefore, in a 35 hour week, I get about 810 dollars per week, of which I pay about 15% in tax, so I wind up with about 675 dollars net. That's across four 9.5-hour or so shifts. In trading, and especially with Steemit so high, I'm able to bring in substantially more. Therefore, I've been asking myself why I bother to work at all?
I figured out a couple of reasons for this. The most important of this is that working a job is stable. It may not pay thousands at a time but it's something I can always fall back on. I'm never anxious about paying the bills when I have my job to go to. Crypto gains are all by crypto and for crypto, and I won't be ready to pull them out into the real world until I have met my savings targets.
Second, you can't put trading on a resume or present it as an investment portfolio. Nobody would give you a home loan if you showed them you owned 100000 Steem or 1000 Ethereum. It'd look silly and they'd laugh at you, right?
Maybe once I have brought some of that money back into the real world and I'm using it to replace my job income, then I'll re-evaluate my stance, but until then, I'm definitely going to keep working and trading together, even if it takes up alot of my time.