Let’s say you are an ordinary citizen, with a life and a job. Whether you have a family or not, you started the year 2020 leading your life as usual. While the news commented that something had been happening in Asia, a new disease. But come on, Asia is far away, it is not even 100 miles from your home. And all of a sudden the novel coronavirus arrived.
At first, some cases appear, then they go from hundreds to thousands, the alarms are activated and the lockdown happens. Hardly anyone can go out, some manage to work remotely, but generally, most can’t work. Even you.
This is bad news for everyone, especially for you. You have some savings, but life goes on. Whether you have a job or not, you can’t stop eating, you need a place to live. It is very hard, especially if you have a family. And your savings dissolve, between common expenses and some other special.
The lockdown is deactivated, we try to recover the rhythm, but the infections increase again. The second wave of infections triggers the second lockdown. You barely had any hopes of getting afloat, but you’re out of work again. It is the same story everywhere, restaurants, shops, shoe stores, offices … There are no places to save ourselves, well, there are some alternatives, but they become very competitive. Some can be parcels or delivery services, with some open positions. Now those positions are quickly saturated and you are not on that list… It’s hard.
Now when this lockdown is over, you can go out to find a job. You are not sick, you have health, disposition, and time. But the third increase in cases happens, a new mutation of the virus, homemade, in your own country. Seriously? Is it not planning to finish?
Getting better? Or getting worse?
Of course, it will end, a pandemic is not eternal. We are not at the end of the world, but it is the end of one world. The world as you came to know it, as you understood it to be. That world where today you were unemployed and the next day you started a new job, without problems. Maybe not the next day, but there were opportunities. True?
And then you make an important discovery, you have been able to save some money, you managed to protect yourself for a while. But you could only buy a few days of peace of mind without working before running out of money. You thought you had an investment and it was no more than a handful of coins. It’s not rocket science, you came to the conclusion that it was just money … Really?
What is the difference between saving and investing?
Well, saving is when you manage not to spend all your income. You set aside some of it, and save it in a bank account for example. That money could be investment capital, but that only happens when you use it “to work” for you.
Ok, surely someone has told you that your house is an investment, or your car, or your television, or whatever. Well no, none of that is an investment, because for this you should ask yourself this question … Is my house putting money in my pocket? Or is he taking money from me?
How to understand what produces money.
Everything that takes money out of your pocket is not an investment. Understand this as if your car is only for personal use, or your house is for living in it. It is the same if your television is for private use, or your computer when you use it for video games or watching cat’s videos on Youtube.
It would be an asset if you have rented that house you own. If you rent your television for someone else to use it. The same goes for when you do a transport service with your car, or work from your computer. And yet they are tools in some way. The house is much more investment in this sense, but it takes many more houses to talk about a business.
Let’s say I work as a self-employed person, then I have a “business”… Am I an entrepreneur?
No, not strictly speaking. If you don’t work, you don’t make money. Let’s say that in this case, you are your own boss, effectively, but at the same time, you are the employee of your job. Let’s even say that if you have a small business, a store, or a service business, then you should ask yourself this question …
If you stop going to work, can the company continue to operate?
Or if you are not there, can your clients receive your services?
Then if your answer is yes, you could be on your way to being an entrepreneur;
But if your answer is no, you only own a job (or maybe the job owns you).
Ok, okay … What can be an investment?
Investment is that capital that is placed or spent on activities that will produce money over time, whether you work or not. It’s like being the owner of a restaurant where you have a manager running the reins, where your supervision is not needed to make money. It is like being the owner of shares in a company, which at the end of the year makes the payment of dividends to shareholders. It’s like owning a series of houses that you keep renting, and with a little care from you, they will be paying rent, whether you are there or not. Are you seeing the big picture better? Are you understanding the idea better?
Yes!… Sure!… But if I can’t have that, how can I do something, whatever, that represents an investment?
There are other possibilities. There are two other ways to invest that are much more within your reach. One possibility is to make investment capital and trade with currencies and even cryptocurrencies, be a trader (simply put it). Another form of investment is education, education has always been the compound investment form that has one of the greatest impacts over time. You do not believe me? Well let’s say you are a waiter in a restaurant, and you decide to sacrifice part of your time and resources to study engineering, it will take you about 5 or 6 years, but once you graduate and start working, the return that investment will make over time it’ll compound, It will make it worth both the time and money put into it.
Okay!… What is my best option? Become a trader and start making money?
Yes and no at the same time. You can become a trader, but first, you must learn to do it well. You must learn what to buy, how to buy, where to do it, when to buy, when to sell, when to retain. It is a process, yes, it will indeed take a while, and you will also have to invest in education expenses, knowledge is not free. It requires you to make the sacrifice of studying, but remember that education is one of the expenses that generate a return on investment, because even if you do not invest your own money, being a trader is a job, a well-paid one; so it becomes a better employment option. Now if you complete your training as a trader, you better put your ability to grow your money and your capital, so that you are the owner of that asset. And so when the next crisis comes, you can resist less anxiously, more secure, you can be unshakeable.
Ok, now I assume you want to learn how to become a trader. Well, there are so many options everywhere, but one that can be affordable for you is at Learn2Earn. They offer a series of courses from beginner to advanced levels, with which you can teach yourself how to be a trader. Now my question is …