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Good habits towards money is portable, the amounts of money is not really the main key point, if peole learn how to budget properly, and investe consistently with just $10 per week, those habits usually remains, even when thier incomes increases later to like $100/ week the only difference is that the numbers or amounts become bigger while the discipline and system stay the same. Sadly many peole actually increase their spending after getting raises in financially instead of increasing thier savings and bitcoin investment. In facts learning discipline with small amounts of money can often be more valuable because every purchase matters more. For instance, When discretionary income is up to like $20 weakly that friction truly is useful because it builds awareness, the patience and financial responsibility. It also keeps people actively involved in managing money instead of just be observing from the sidelines.
Moreover, if people can consistently allocate even a small amount of money into Bitcoin for long-term growth, then they have already solved the hardest part challenges, which is building the habit itself. Once income eventually grows, that same habit can turn into meaningful wealth over time without good habits, higher income sometimes only leads to higher spending and little financial progress, so interesting gradually is a good step.
I tend to like to proclaim situations of starting out investing into bitcoin between $10 and $100 per week, even though surely there can be some folks who would struggle to even be able to put together $10 per week, and they might feel that it is more reachable for them to invest $10 per month, which surely would take a real long time to add up to meaningful money, even for poor people.
Another thing that just buying bitcoin at $10 at a time may well limit your abilities to practically do it, even though a lot of banks and exchanges will accept deposits at that low without fees, and even once a trading account is set, there may well be no penalty for smaller transactions as long as they meet their smallest threshold, which could be $5 per transaction, yet there is going to be variance on the exchanges.
Another thing is the impractically of moving those small amounts to private wallets, which may well be one of the reasons why Ashawowo(OS) had recommended allowing the bitcoin amount grow into the neighborhood of $300 to $500 before transferring to a private wallet - and surely that seems like a better practice since the exchange fees and even various online chain fees could become impractical when dealing with smaller amounts, whether we are referring to present fees (which onchain fees are fairly practical and low right now) or maybe we are referring to future fees, which there can be some uncertainties in regards to how future onchain fees might unexpectedly change from time to time.
So getting back to the purchases of small amounts such as $10 at a time, there may be some logistical reasons that guys might end up letting their cash build up to higher amounts before they make their BTC purchases with those kinds of small amounts, whether they are trying to make the purchases weekly or otherwise, and for many reasons related to proactivity and even the psychological feeling of getting the advantages of various price dips, I tend to recommend that guys try to structure ways that they are actively buying bitcoin every week if possible, yet surely I would understand that they might consider weekly buys to be impractical if they are struggling to even get the amounts to sizes as low as $10 or even slightly more and they might have preferences to make sure that they have higher amounts before they make their transfer or their purchases or however they are doing it depending on their local options that they know about.
Absolutely bitcoin is a valuable asset and a high potential pair with a lot of benefits to offer when approach with the right mindset. Bitcoin has proven to be a sustainable investment that helps a lot of investors at the long run despite the outcome of returns isn’t guaranteed which brings many to invest in it.
And about your statement which I bolded. The mindset of hoping or having the courage of expecting high returns from bitcoin investment is totally wrong, we are not here to hold for long term that what the mindset shows and our mindset towards investing is shifting towards traders mindset and that shouldn’t be put into consideration.
Focus on the long term goals and future goals not the short term little gains, avoid seeing profits as part of the journey.
Bitcoin is a highly valuable asset today because it has significant potential to offer benefits to those who approach it. It's perfectly natural for us to invest more money in investments that benefit us personally. However this also depends on our individual mindset. Not everyone wants to invest in Bitcoin. Some people may not believe in the guarantee of returns so Bitcoin investment is only for certain individuals who understand the ins and outs of investing. Once invested a clear mindset is essential to confidently pursue the long-term investment.
This doesn't mean you can't invest in the short term but investing in Bitcoin over the long term is more structured and focused in achieving results. Some people find it difficult to believe in Bitcoin investments so everyone's mindset is different.
If you go into bitcoin with the intention of investing "in the short term" such as less than 4 years, then that would be trading and/or gambling rather than investing.
If you go into bitcoin with an investing intention, yet suffer some emergency in the middle (or maybe you change your perspective about bitcoin) and you have to (or want to) cash out some or all of your bitcoin, that would merely be an investment that did not work out as planned.
If you go into bitcoin, and you are not ready to commit to at least 4 years, then surely you could go in with an expectation that you might not be investing, but instead intending to trade or gamble, yet you could commit to continuing to research in to bitcoin (and into your cashflow situation) in order to perhaps convert yourself into committing to 4-10 years or longer, even though you don't come into bitcoin with investment intentions. There is nothing wrong with that, since people have there various ideas, and sometimes it is better to get started and to research at the same time, even if the person runs the risk of maybe not converting into developing an investment mindset (and practice) in regards to bitcoin.
Our real task is to continue investing in Bitcoin without thinking about the results. If we place too much hope in what we want when the peak doesn't match our expectations we may always panic about investing in Bitcoin and ultimately no one will invest again because of the frequent failures in achieving profits.
One way to simply persevere in investing, especially long-term investing requires us to focus solely on waiting. The long term is not a short time. However with a mindset of waiting for results one must have patience so that our desire to invest is solely for profit. Although many may be skeptical we must have confidence in investing in Bitcoin. This is the mindset of someone who invests in Bitcoin without thinking about profits.
The points that you make in this second paragraph are correct, since there tends to be some value for guys to not get diverted in their thinking (or practices) in regard to bitcoin based on their perceptions of whether they are "in profits" or not, even though there is nothing wrong with ongoingly monitoring their costs per BTC as compared to the value of the BTC holdings.. and I personally think that if a guy spends 4-6 years or more ongoingly buying bitcoin no matter the price (on a weekly basis perhaps?), then he has good chances of making good progress in his bitcoin stash and even in the strengthening of his cashflow management systems/practices. There are also guys who are able to front load their bitcoin by taking money from other places and reallocating into bitcoin, and/or they might have circumstances that come up in which they come accross extra money that they can put into bitcoin that could possibly cause them to not need to ongoingly buy bitcoin for 4-6 years or longer, and surely the bitcoin stash size and its growth can affect decisions in regards to whether a person considers himself to still be in his bitcoin accumulation stage or whether he might believe that he graduated to a maintenance stage, and surely there are guys who prematurely miscalculate and misjudge where they are at and either stop accumulating bitcoin too soon or maybe they start to erroneously deploy bitcoin selling techniques into their practices.
We cannot tell others what to do, and surely each of us is responsible to figure out what we believe is a better approach in regards to our own
9 individual factors and how our judgements about those individual factors might change with the passage of time.
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A person’s early life, environment, and daily lifestyle can strongly shape how they make financial decisions. Someone who grew up watching their parents budget carefully or manage business cash flow will likely become more disciplined with money and risk management. On the other hand, someone raised around unstable finances debt, or impulsive spending may struggle with planning and long term investing because survival habits often influence decision making.
Lifestyle also matters. A person who is used to tracking expenses and delaying gratification will naturally approach investments with more patience and structure, while someone surrounded by pressure to spend or someone wholive for the moment may find it harder to build consistency. Most financial decisions are not just about knowledge, they are also shaped by experience, habits, and the situations people face while growing up.
Of course there are studies (such as the marshmallow study) that attempts to proclaim that some of the characteristics related to ability to delay gratification are genetic rather than trained.. so nature rather than nurture.
I like to believe that any of us can develop habits and practices to help to make ourselves more ready, willing and able to defer gratification and to adjust our bitcoin investment position size so that we are inclined to build our bitcoin stash size and not tempted to tap into it at a time that is before a time that would be to our better interest to work towards achieving.
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Maybe I misunderstood what you said yesterday but I get it now, I get fact that even small amount of money can be managed well, it just a matter of having a good income habit regardless your financial income. I get it now that having a good financial habit can prevent you from living a inflated lifestyle or wasting money on unnecessary things.
Getting to know your needs from wants will really help to be more financially disciplined, especially for people, young people who have low or no income growth. Just like you said we have see people who barely get up $10 by the end of the week as discretionary income. Such people will definitely struggle with investment but also having a good financial habit might still help to invest no matter how little it might be.
There may be some young people who have some bad habits or maybe overly spending on some consumption goods that they don't really need, but they want to fit in with their friends and they want to have some enjoyment and spontaneity in their life, yet they could also try to figure out some ways to buy bitcoin on a regular basis (such as weekly), and maybe they vary their weekly buy amounts, and some weeks it is really low and other weeks the buy amounts are higher, yet perhaps still with the passage of time, maybe 4-10 years or longer, they still end up in a better position by having had set aside some of their income into bitcoin rather than if they had not done so.. and sure maybe after 10 years they realize that they could have had done better, but they still end up having something to show for their 10 years or so of having had been buying bitcoin.
There are also some people who might start out buying bitcoin in a fairly whimpy way, but then after several years, they may well come to looking at the status of their bitcoin, their cash holdings and perhaps any other investment that they might have, and then they might realize that they might be better served to start to put a higher priority on their continued bitcoin stash building..and to thereafter figure out ways to both increase their bitcoin stash building and also to deploy practices to strengthen their cashflow management systems/practices (including building up the levels of their back up funds).
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Bitcoin knowledge about the market, network and financial management are all necessary for a newbie, but they don't have to know everything about Bitcoin knowledge and have a huge reserve of discretionary funds before they can start. They can actually start with what they can afford and learn then gradually be increasing in knowledge and finance, if you're waiting to be very well equiped in knowledge and finance you will likely not start when you should.
If you know how to download a wallet, how to buy and discretionary funds to pay for Bitcoin then you ready to start as an investor.
Even though a bitcoin newbie needs to make sure that he is buying bitcoin from his discretionary funds, and he also needs to know how he is going to source his first bitcoin buys, a bitcoin newbie does not need to know how to download a bitcoin wallet in order to start investing into bitcoin, unless he is buying directly from someone or he is buying in such a way (such a bitcoin ATM) that requires him to have a bitcoin wallet address.
I recall, several years ago, in about early 2021, selling some bitcoin through an bitcoin ATM, and it required me to transact from a certain wallet. I did not have that wallet on my phone, so I returned to the place where I was staying, and I downloaded the wallet and safeguarded the back up seed words, put some bitcoin on the wallet, and then I returned to the bitcoin ATM on the following day, and the withdrawal transaction went through within 30 minutes or so. That ATM required at least 2 confirmation before it would allow the withdrawal of the fiat money from the ATM... and it had a transaction limit amount that was around $600 per transaction, and ONLY 2 transactions could be done per day per person (the ATM verified identification with a phone number).
, so everyone is always advised to have a slightly larger source of income so that they can continue to buy Bitcoin regularly without being hampered by anything.
Even though you have a larger source of income as you are proclaiming, it doesn't guarantees that you can invest in Bitcoin and be successful at it because having a large source of income doesn't guarantees that a Bitcoin investor can be able to figure out his or her discretionary income, since the key to every successful Bitcoin investor is to figure out their discretionary income.
Having a large source of income is good quite alright, but it's not the most important thing that is need to invest in Bitcoin consistently. What you need in other to invest in Bitcoin consistently is a discretionary income, it doesn't matter how much you earn, as long as you can figure out your discretionary income, then you can invest in Bitcoin and be successful.
You may have misunderstood, CageMabok said that if you have a large income source, you will not be hindered from investing, but you understand that if you have a large income source, you can be successful by investing. Profit in Bitcoin investment is not guaranteed and even if a person adopts the highest method of investment, the profit is not guaranteed.
My reading of CageMabok is that he is saying that if a guy has a certain income and expense situation, and if he increases his income (presumptively keeping the expenses the same), then he is going to have more discretionary income that will allow him to invest more into bitcoin.
Of course, if a guy increases his discretionary income, then besides being able to invest more, he also increases his options in regards to his abilities to save (put into back up funds) and/or to discretionarily consume... in this thread, we might be presuming that guys who are investing into bitcoin have placed some priority in ongoingly building their bitcoin investment, so an increase in their discretionary funds may cause them to prioritize their bitcoin investment rather than their savings and/or discretionary consumption, even though any time there can be situations in which guys might choose to allocate their discretionary funds in ways that give less priority to bitcoin accumulation.
I think that it can be misleading to suggest that emergency funds are not important at all, since there is ongoing importance to emphasize that a person needs to be investing within his discretionary funds, so then the lower the amount of back up funds that he has at the time that he starts investing into bitcoin, then the more risk he is running to invest into bitcoin beyond his discretionary funds.
Sure, there is no problem starting to buy bitcoin from whatever situation a person happens to be, yet from my perspective it is overly risky if the amount of back up funds are zero, so there has to be some acceptable level of back up funds, even if it might mean that half of the amount that is going into bitcoin (in the first few bitcoin buys) are also going towards the building up of back up funds, so at least there is a conscious effort to make sure that the back up funds are not so low that they do not protect the newbie bitcoin investor from any upcoming decreases in his income and/or increases in his expenses.
I'm sorry for jumping into discussion midway. Saying emergency funds don't matter is not just misleading, it's a reckless idea as far as bitcoin is concerned. In fact, the smaller your back up funds when you start your investment, the higher the risk you dip into BTC during a personal cash need. This is the reason why most newbies get wrecked in the process because they'll be forced to sell irrespective of market condition. It doesn't matter whether it's +50% or -60% that time. This only kills long term ambition day by day.
Yeah but, I am not saying to go to the opposite extreme either. I was mostly responding to implications that several guys had been inclined to make to suggest that back up funds are not important and we can start later, and surely there is going to be some variance in regards to how much back up funds a guy might already have in place, and then his own judgement in regards to how to go forward, and surely if the back up funds are so low that they might not even cover until the next paycheck comes in, then that could be problematic, and also if the next paycheck ends up being way lower than expected and/or the expenses have gone up, then that could be problematic too.
At the same time, I tend to be a BIG advocate for getting started investing in bitcoin, and getting started from whereever a guy happens to be, so long as he can establish that he has sufficient discretionary funds to get started.
Going in the other direction of overly building up the back up funds and delaying getting started based on the size of the back up funds is problematic too, especially if a guy might be trying to bolster his back up funds prior to getting started buying bitcoin based on a presumption that back up funds are superior to getting started in bitcoin, even though back up funds do not need to be considered as superior, even though some certain levels can be helpful to make sure to get a guy to his next paycheck and also to get a guy past any reasonably foreseeable glitches in the pay and/or expenses.
I would also expect that if a guy is new to bitcoin and starting out somewhere close to zero in regards to both his bitcoin stash and also his back up funds, then with the passage of time (whether week by week or otherwise) the guy will be ongoingly building his bitcoin holdings and also ongoingly strengthening his back up funds.. and the longer that he is in bitcoin the stronger that both the bitcoin stash and the cashflow management becomes - even if a guy might have had started out his bitcoin investment journey without much of any investments and/or without much of any back up funds.
We all agree that Bitcoin is a volatile asset. You should only invest what you can afford to lose and lock up for as long as possible. This is where discretionary funds comes in and if your back up is low or zero, then I'm sorry to say none of your money is truly discretionary yet.
Well that is true. A guy could have such messed up finances that he is not really in a position to really determine that he has a sufficient amount of discretionary funds available to get started buying bitcoin, and availability of back up funds could be a part of that assessment, and it is hard to recognize any circumstances in which it would be justified to invest in bitcoin if there aren't any back up funds, unless the paycheck is coming the next day, and even then it could be risky, since paychecks sometimes do not come when they are expected to come.
There's no unanimously agreed back up fund level as it varies and depends on individual financial class. If you can cover most of your expenses and emergencies for at least 4 weeks and beyond without touching your bitcoin, then you're good to start gradually.
Many guys here tend to agree that working up to a target level of 3 months of expenses for a back up fund is good, yet if a guy is starting from zero or near zero back up funds it could take him well over a year to build his back up funds to that level, and so in order to get started, there is no need for back up funds beyond making sure that a guy is not investing beyond discretionary funds, and so in that regard, the building up of back up funds and buying into bitcoin could progress at around the same rate, yet if guys end up fucking up based on their not having enough back up funds, then they are going to be responsible for their own preparations and suffering the consequences of not sufficiently preparing themselves for their own income and/or expense situation. So ultimately guys have to figure out what is right for them, and if they are overly risky or even overly whimpy, then they could end up suffering consequences from their own ways of proceeding with their balancing of their bitcoin investment, their back up funds and whatever discretionary consumption they choose to make.
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There's no unanimously agreed back up fund level as it varies and depends on individual financial class. If you can cover most of your expenses and emergencies for at least 4 weeks and beyond without touching your bitcoin, then you're good to start gradually.
Ignoring an emergency fund is not misleading but it is also like financial suicide. The key to investing in a volatile asset like Bitcoin is surviving for a long time. Without a fund people are likely to panic or be forced to sell assets at a loss during market downturns. This ruins the potential for long-term gains from Bitcoin.
- Building a 4-week emergency fund and starting to invest protects the portfolio from sudden market fluctuations, such as a 20-30% drop in a single day.
- It gives the investor peace of mind. This reduces the tendency to make wrong decisions.
Building up an emergency fund of 4 weeks is not necessary to accomplish before starting to invest in bitcoin.
However real-world experience suggests that 4 weeks of funds are not enough for a high-risk asset like Bitcoin. If you enter bitcoin with at least 3 to 6 months of living expenses saved up you may have to sell bitcoin at a loss in the event of a major personal emergency, such, as job loss or medical expenses.
I doubt that there is any need to have 6 months of back up funds, and if a guy is building his bitcoin along side with his back up funds, then it may well be the case that when the back up funds gets to 3 months the bitcoin will be at or around 3 months too. and surely if the bitcoin continues to build and/or even get to a point that it covers 12 months or more of expenses, then perhaps there might be preferences to continue to build back up funds too and to hold back up funds in other assets and/or currencies with considerations of both liquidity and volatility, yet at the same time, these are discretionary matters in regards to how much to build up the bitcoin versus keeping value in various inferior assets/currencies...and guys who are overly focused on fiat may well end up giving lower priority to bitcoin than it deserves and then end up suffering the consequences for their bitcoin whimpiness and their seemingly overly love-relationship with fiat.
Therefore it would be wise to create at a 3-month backup fund without touching Bitcoin. This way you can invest in Bitcoin with a safety net.
How long do you think it takes a guy to build up a 3 month back up fund in fiat? How does he balance his back up funds with his bitcoin buying?
What if a guy comes to learning about bitcoin and he wants to get started, and he knows that he has discretionary funds, yet he does not have any back up funds, how should such a guy proceed, from your point of view? How much back up funds do you believe he needs before getting started buying bitcoin, and then once he gets started buying bitcoin should he continue to build his back up funds or not? And then what happens once his back up funds are at a level of 3 months of his expenses? Where is his bitcoin investment at such a time? Presumptively the bitcoin is more volatile that the fiat in which his back up funds are kept.
