So what we're talking about here is how much money do you need to start trading and the belief on the one hand that it takes money to make money. So therefore you must need a lot of money to start trading. And then on the other hand, you can open a TD Ameritrade account or an E-trade account probably with like 100 bucks and I have day traded with accounts as small as six hundred dollars. So I want to throw the question out you guys and I hear what you think about? how much money do you really need to start trade? And is it true that you need money to make money? Yeah, I think that's an excellent question.

so you know I And it's not just the money itself that you need to start trading because you know the time that you put into trading and focus on trading is time. you're not spent on doing anything else, making money or any other type of work. So for me personally, I wanted to be in a position where I could focus on trading, not need the money to pay my bills and then have money in an account that I can lose that I need to live on. For me, that put me in a headspace where I can attack trading as a career as a long-term Endeavor as a business and really do it slow and right to be able to.

you know, build up and and have a successful career trading. Now with that said, you know all bills and all that kind of stuff aside for living. I Started with account with sixty thousand dollars. That put me a little bit significantly over uh, the pattern day trader Rule and you know I was anticipating losing some money in the beginning and I was right I did exactly that I actually dropped below PDT I think got one as low as 20 000 and I had to add money back and I only had to do that once.

Um, you know that was enough. You know the pain involved in that experience going below PDT and having to fund my account again um, helped me make some changes so that that didn't happen again and from there I have significantly and grown that that account exponentially. Um, so if I could go back and do it differently I probably would have been a little tighter I think I went a little too big with size too fast. um even you know as as quickly as I pick things up I still think I sized up too fast.

Um, but that was my personal journey and it taught me lessons along the way. but uh, for me I wanted the cushion uh of having my living expenses paid for and be in a position where I could really, uh, take up trading as a full-time career I'm going to give you I want to hear everyone give their feedback and answer on this but I want to sort of throw the other side of the coin at you which is something I've noticed sometimes is that some traders who come in with large accounts and sometimes people again, sorry for my voice. Sometimes people will start trading with a you know, 100, 200, 000, 401k or off array and they'll get into trade. They're down, you know, three, four grand and they're like, well, I can afford just to hold it.

It'll probably come back the next thing you know they're holding 5 10, 15 positions that are all down five, ten Grand and they've lost half their account. So sometimes I feel like having too much money is actually, um, not a blessing. and I think that having your back against the ropes a little bit where you have to take it seriously or you will not survive forces you to be disciplined and I would agree with that. I think even at with sixty thousand dollars I think I started off with too much money, you know I could have done fine with a thirty thousand dollar account, giving myself a five thousand dollar cushion and uh, you know, learned the same lesson just not as painfully so.

I would definitely agree with that and if I had done things differently I would have started with probably half as much money in my account size. Uh, so you know, does it really take money to make money? I think a little bit. So when I started, uh, started looking into trading I know there were, you know, Cmag available and then I know a lot of people were just trading on cash accounts on you know the free Brokers or TDS and I mean first of all I was really lucky to become or try this endeavor when trading became free whereas you know Jess and Ross you guys started when you had to pay for it. Yeah so it was kind of.

it was a lucky time I guess in a way but you know obviously you know learning from you I thought I should be on a direct access broker but regardless I didn't want to start with a small account I mean yeah I guess you could call me a privileged a little bit because I I was a farmer I was making enough money I didn't have a lot of money I didn't come for money I had a lot of student loans. uh so I was definitely paying that off as I went. so I had no savings and here I'm just working at uh at a farmer company I had no money yet I wanted to start how to learn how to trade. so what I did was I started you know doing the courses and you know I started learning and in that time I was just picking up a lot of ships I was getting I was doing overtime making money and getting to that point I wanted to get to 25 000 because I'm like I knew that it would have been a lot easier to make money if I have 25 000.

So I got to 28 000 and so if you consider 28 000 as a as you know that money to make more money then yes I think you do need 28 000 in my opinion to make your journey as easy as possible. as if you compare it to like going from a small account like you know, five thousand or even ten thousand dollars uh is a doable definitely. But I feel like it'll become. You can even say exponentially easier if you start off with a PD uh you know above PDT account.

So I I think that that's what I think uh I think you know, does it take money to make money? Um I mean it takes work to make money but it I don't really believe in it needing you know 100K account to make money. You know there's plenty of Traders out there that traded with you know, millions of dollars and lost millions of dollars and Ross traded with a 583 account and that's basically no money and grew it. so it it just shows that the work and the process is what made the money, not the money. um but in terms of account balance I don't really think we as day Traders we need a high account balance I think we need a life cushion so just money in your bank account to pay for bills money that's going to pay for your car payment or whatever you have so you're in second form of income.

Yeah yeah. like if you run a business or something and because it takes that that pressure off it takes that need to make money to just showing up and trading. and um, the privilege to make money. and uh, so that's that's kind of my my basic view on that I'd kind of say the same thing.

um as among where I started out with 28 000 in my account. basically just because that was all that I had really um and I was just going for it though too. That was pretty much all that I had um in life saving that came out of an IRA most of it. Um, so that was kind of the reason I did.

That is just that I had that three thousand dollar cushion for the PDT level. um and um TD Ameritrade I couldn't have anything below it like I could with Cmag where I could still have margin and have unlimited trades per day. Is it possible to make money with less money below? PDT I Think so Yes, especially if you can find a strategy that works for that better. However, for most of us here who are momentum based creators who are kind of quickly scalping moves I think that yes, money does play a big part in that where you kind of do the money to make money and the more that you have especially as a cushion too.

I think that you're going to be better off with that anyway. Yeah, I would agree. um with what the guys are mostly saying here: I think as I've gained Experience day trading I think of the money in my account as a tool and I don't really think of it as like my cash available money. Um, and so thinking about it that way, the better tool you have I think you can do more with it if you know how to use it.

Um, that said, I started with a hundred dollars in my account I opened a TD Ameritrade account with a hundred dollars started from there I added a few hundred here and there. a few thousand here and there and as I was making progress in trading live eventually I got myself over PDT and built the account from there. Um, I Think it really depends on your expectations about how much money you think you'll make or want to make. um, with more money.

you have a bigger tool and you can definitely make more money being able to buy into larger positions and get more out of each trade. but um I think it has so much more to do with who is using that tool, basically your experience and how to use that tool. Well, yeah, all right. well thank you.

Those were all terrific answers. and yeah, I think we'll we'll leave it at that for today. So thank you guys who have tuned in. We'll be back at it first thing tomorrow morning for the morning show.

Uh, very bright and early. All right I'll see you guys in the morning Hey I Want to thank you for watching this episode?.