home or away?

[Bobfat1970]

Hello all, my first time posting. Joined BA a year or so ago. Trading and learning so far so good. Nothing earth shattering but ok - mainly in part due to all the excellent advice and encouragement i have found on this forum, so thanks for that.

I am in a position where i am no longer in employment, made redundant just prior to the lockdown last year. I have always worked in an office for over 30 years and commuted. When i first started to learn trading and using BA the idea of working from home was perfect and new to me. However over the months i have found it more and more difficult to keep motivated and the discipline of sitting at a desk in my spare room is very much lacking. Too many distractions and excuses to do other things!.

So im considering renting a small one person office in a serviced office block so i can get back into a routine of 'leaving home for work' each day and my time in the office would seem more like a job. I realise its an expense not needed when i could just wander into the spare room to do exactly the same thing. Was just wondering if anybody else has had this motivation or lack of discipline issues and rented out an office space to trade from? I am not intending to seek new employment elsewhere, just entered my 50's and am set on making this my living/go to thing for some income for myself. I am quietly confident in a couple of years i could be at that stage where i can trade to earn enough to pay the bills and fortunate enough that until that stage my outgoings are small enough i can cover via savings etc.

I have plenty of other questions and queries about BA, automaton, guardian etc but i am slowly sussing them all out via the tutorials and forum but am sure over the next few months i will need some pointers from the experts. At this stage i am just unsure if i am thinking that an office of my own is just a hidden excuse as to my lack of motivation and discipline to knuckle down!

anyway, just thought id post, was a bit nervous tbh, being new to posting on forums and all that, but have spend a lot of time reading through all the posts and watching the videos and now feel it s about time is turned it all into action.

cheers

[Realrocknrolla]

Great idea….

You can get really cheap 1 man office space these days with free fast internet included. And tea and coffee

Its been a while since I had one but the contracts are decent on ready made offices. 50 per week etc.

[gazuty]

Good first post. Good mindset.

[ShaunWhite]

Motivation is generally easier for people who are used to running their own business rather than people who've had a wage just for turning up. Bills landing on the doormat is usually all it takes to make you get your head down.

I relate to the distractions though, it's why I work nights when there isn't much going on. I work midnight till about 6am, sleep and get up at 12:30-1:00pm and do some work admin, and have all afternoon and evenings doing what I want. I'm 100% automated so I can fit work around life rather than being a slave to the clock and calender.

All comes down to attitude really and realising this is just a job rather than being fun fun fun. And most jobs especially well paid ones have long spells where you need to do dull/boring/hard things so I'm afraid it's a matter of getting a grip and getting on with it. An office won't help unless home is just too noisy because there's no one around to see you're just arsing around. And it's not a 35hr a week job so being in an office on your own for 50hrs+ a week might be even more soul destroying and boring.

[Bobfat1970]

Thanks for the replies. I take onboard the fact that trading isnt a 9 to 5 job as such, it is my aim though to try and do this and restrict myself to 40 hours pw, albeit it not neccessarily mon-fri 9 to 5, this is for the first few months of serious trading (as oppose to a few hours here and there just now).

I have no unrealistic expectations, i certainly wont be able to earn from trading what i was earning in my ‘normal’ job, but if i take into account the freedom, flexibility and taxation (or lack of) from trading it certainly is an attractive and exciting way forward.

The option of working through the night and automation is appealing but for me just now i feel i need the control of overseeing trades and learning the ropes hands on so the uk horse racing in the afternoons is better for me. Automation is definitely a way forward for me in the future though.

I have actually found a small office 5 minutes max walk from my home, 65 quid pw all in, perfect spot and yes it even has ‘free’ tea coffee and biscuits (the posh ones in individual wrappers no less!). It will be available from mid sept so i have given myself the month of august to knuckle down and trade from home, ignoring all distractions and excuses as much as possible. Will then make a decision which way is better for me and more productive.

Cheers

[The Silk Run]

Sounds KOOL, please do keep us all updated. Interesting, indeed ...

[ODPaul82]

I'm at the point where I traded full time before about 6-7 years ago but the female of the species didn't like what I was doing
Fast forward to today, I've been made redundant with a due to finish date of middle of Jan 2022 however I fully expect to be put onto gardening leave beforehand.

From my time before when I did it full-time I'll still be using a home office because I'm as tight as an 18 year old nun.

What I will be doing which I didn't before is is as follows

:- AM walk ( or dusk walk if trading Aus open or far east tournaments). I have that seperation of what's home and what's work.
:- Eating sensibly (I'd trade from the pub for some seperation from whats home but pubs maybe not the best place, nor coffee places particularly if othrer loud people are in).
:- The roof over your head depends on it. I would become quite lacsidasical (excuse the spelling) about my approach so the idea of something entirely seperated would be quite good

4For your particular situation in what you're doing in a seperate office
:- "I'm an analyst". The moment you mention sports, people will want to know more, why, how, "you got any tips for the 3:20 at Kempton". The less others know, the better
:- "Freedom/Flexibility" - I approach this from a tennis point of view, yes you get freedom but I have to adjust my timezone to be waking up 8/9pm during January to trade in the middle of the dark. It's a toss-up. I gain certain freedoms but I give up otherd

[ShaunWhite]

Office sounds like a decent price, worth trying for less than a tenner a day. And from my perspective you're right about creating a proper 'work' vibe around it all. Some might just do ok informally but I chose to treat it seriously with plans, objectives, timescales and a 100% honest friday afternoon debrief with my missus, seriously. Won't work for everyone but without accountability I have a tendancy to procratinate so it kept me focussed. Enough small doable steps and what can go wrong eh Unless everyone at home respects that it's work and when the door is closed your off-limits then an office could be money well spent, for a while anyway.

Unless you're a big horse fan then try to be open minded about other sports. If I was starting today I'd pick footy or tennis, volume on the up while the less cool stuff like horses is in the doldrums lately and I see no reason for it to flourish again.

65 quid eh, with big enough pockets for those biscuits and free toilet roll you could be looking at a small profit from day 1, all the best.

[Bobfat1970]

Some great points above, thanks, certainly pointers that that can really help me.

Definitely agree with keeping it simple with regards to telling people what i am doing. When i used to say sports trading on betfair the responses were either ‘ mid life crisis alert’ , ‘sounds good can you tell me how to do it’ or ‘ yes but what are you doing for a proper job’. I now just say im doing paid research for marketing companies, they soon lose interest!

Being open to other sports is perhaps the one thing i have been thinking more and more about. the only reason i am trading on horses is simply the abundance of races in the uk and timings meant mainly afternoons at the desk. Plus the majority of training videos and tutorials concentrate on horses when teaching you about the basics - back/lack/green/ticks etc. I must admit i have zero interest in horse racing as a sport or hobby. I do think the scalping trade system i have been doing has been a major factor in me becoming distracted, bored, less disciplined due to the fact its monotonous, repetitive and basically not that interesting (for me anyway).

Shaun raised a good point regarding other sports and volume being down on horses. I have only got limited experience thus far on trading the horses and all during ‘lockdown’ and covid. Are the volumes and liquidity drastically down this past year or so compared to ‘normal’?. I am going to spend this week looking at Peters other videos and tutorials on other sports and then make a decision as to the best way forward for me. I think i have some basic knowledge now of trading and hopefully this will be of benefit in whatever other sports i decide on. My initial gut thought about other sports like football and tennis though is that it involves more ‘in play’ trades than pre off/start?? The one thing i do like about the horses is that i can be in and out and moved on before the race starts, less stress for me this way.

[wearthefoxhat]

If you can get a private office space or a spot near a window so that you can maintain your privacy, I reckon it would work well. I wouldn't want some twat gawping over my shoulder or asking stupid questions in the middle of a trade or when doing some R&D.

[Bobfat1970]

Yes for sure, the office i have found is a private office, within a serviced office block, own lock on the door, window overlooking a courtyard. Room for an armchair and well as a desk and chair and storage unit. An office version of a ‘mancave’ shed in the garden!.