I am 23(M), passed my Bcom in 2022 later I started preparing for govt exam because my family financial condition couldn’t afford higher studies/CA/CS/CFA, one reason was lack of direction too. Later in beginning of 2024 I joined a BPO back office with 33k salary and started option trading some profit some loss but eventually overall step up losses and loans. On today I lost 8.5 lakhs including interest on borrowed money. This month only I was about to repay all money and my loss was limited to 5.25 lakh but again took Another loan of 3.5 lakh loss, and it is 24 EMIS are left of 16737 rs. Till now I haven’t earned that much money how much I lost. My friends are way ahead of me, they are about to complete there mba from IIM, some become CA, some become govt servants, some are doing PhD and there stipend is more than my salary , some become Assistant professor. I also have Chronic illness UC IBD from last 5 years which require constant medical expenses and medicine. My parents don’t have any savings and investments, we live in rented house in delhi and my father and mother cumulative is less than twenty thousand a month. I know I made a big mistake and repeated that consistently. But Now I am hopeless, behind, lost, in debt and it feels like I am deprived from every direction whether it is health, savings, careers, family background, etc.
Right.
Having spent some time above identifying what all you don’t have,
let us now maybe spend some time identifying what all you do have.
Guesses about what @Aj_O has that others sometimes/often don’t -
(Do share if any of the following guesses are incorrect)
- Parents
- A roof over your head (in Delhi!)
- A strong work-ethic.
- Awareness of the importance of health at a very young age.
- A steady paying job.
- A good understanding of one’s finances.
- Integrity to not try illegal means to earn money.
- Pride to not ask for charity.
- A BCom degree since 2022.
- A good grasp over English to clearly communicate your point across.
- Time on your side. At 23 years of age, you have decades ahead of you.
- And proper direction i.e. an idea…
…that is, the “direction” now can be focusing on
- taking care of yourself this upcoming winter in Delhi
- continuing to slowly repay your loans
- spending any time you can spare
- going through freely available resources online to
- up-skill yourself and make yourself efficient at your existing job
- pick any basics/details of higher-studies/certifications that you are interested in
- going through freely available resources online to
- eventually accumulate savings to pursue higher-studies/CA/CS/CFA.
If you do the math of your recent finances,
would it be accurate to say that, without the losses in trading,
you might have had enough saved to enroll yourself into an open-university by now?
If yes, then knowing what you know now (which AJ_O 1.0 did not),
that’s probably what AJ_O 2.0 can achieve now!
BTW, IMHO, the principles of Lean F,I,R,E [1] [2]
can be one way into the world of financial stability.
(though some of the steps maybe forced on you by your financial conditions, and not a choice.)
If you have time on your hands, do checkout this 6-part series that helped me focus on the psychology first, which later immensely helped in making better decisions financially.
I think this will help:
Losses~
-1,797.43 - Equity 2020 & 2021
-
33,773.33 - Option Buying 2021-22
-
2,552.62 - Option Buying 2022-23
-
4,52,281.19 - Option Buying 2024-25
-
3,09,072.13 - Option Buying 2025-26
Int~
HDFC personal loan: 24,332
Navi 3rd party loan: 11,307
HDFC Credit card: 6,804
Cred loan: upto 65,093
If we Accumulate it we find that it goes to 9.09 lakh.
And now I had loan of 4 lakhs in my head however before trapping in 5 lakh loss and loan I decided that I won’t take any loan.
- 9L isnt too much. Work hard, work on career, save as much as possible and it would be history.
- Once you overcome it, look at how to invest for future.
- Trading only works for 1-2% of traders. So no reason to expect it will work for you.
- Trading with loans is very foolish.
- Trading also needs capital. Expect say 20% per year IF you make it and become profitable. Capital has to be enough that 10%-20% is more than enough. We can do better but this is the baseline.
- Given above, why bother with trading ? Just focus on you work and save like most people into a mix of assets like stocks, bonds and perhaps gold. Best through diversified mutual funds so that you don’t make mistakes.
- Don’t make mistake of looking at others and trying to recover money back from markets. Search in forum and you will see many like this. Some were warned, they did not listen and took more loan and lost it and made it much worse for themselves. Don’t do that. 9L will seem small then and you can can easily start losing 30L 50L and the likes which will be harder to recover from.
I really hope that there is some way to default on these loans. These disgusting companies have no checks to prevent loan use for trading. Perhaps put the guy in jail for few months ( assuming its illegal to trade from those loans) but also wipe out the debt. That will make the loan providers more careful. Too many people losing money after taking loans.
Look at history of other people in similar situations below.
https://tradingqna.com/search?q=lost%20lakhs
The problem with loans is it takes a toll on your trading decisions and makes you take dumb trades. Heck, even without loans, if you lean on trading to pay your bills, it’ll mess up your trading. For it to not affect trading, your position size should be comfortably small. Avoid taking trades that even remotely have a chance of taking up 10% of your capital. You need to have a better source of income(and definitely not in debt) at least, until you become consistently profitable(profitable over a year or two). For now, Your focus should be on fully repaying your debt.
Not to kick a man when he is down, but did you not learn about finances in the BCom course you did how debt is not always good?
I have seen so many posts here along the same lines - people come here when they are at the end of means - dont you learn from mistakes? Even after 4.5L in 2024-25 you still kept going?
I have done BCom so i know they do teach basics of finances - how were you planning to be a good CA if you could not manage your own finances properly?
Many others just give a soft shoulder to those who post lost xxxx lacs to FnO - no one holds them accountable and asks the real questions -
- What were you thinking?
- Did you do proper learning before diving in?
- Who suggested you to do it?
- Where did you figure out about FnO?
- What made you keep going?
- How are you feeling now, that you are so deep in?
- Who asked you to keep doing it?
- Who asked you to even start doing it?
- Over 6 years - did you not think of trying something else and only kept at options?
- What did you do with the degree?
- Did you ever think of gettting a loan for doing CA degree - or did you think it would be easier to take a loan and try to make quick money?
Unless you hold yourself accountable and be brutally honest with yourself, you wont change. You need to look at yourself and be honest with yourself, otherwise you will slip back into the old pattern once the loans are cleared and God-forbid few years later make another post.
There are so many other posts here where people have lost 40-50 lacs but still keep going with hopes of quick money.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and decide to do something about it. All the xx lacs lost posters come here for sympathy - dont be one of them.
And please - there are a ton of resources for CA/CS/CFA online. Lack of direction is no excuse. If you could find videos about FnO online, you could have found videos about the courses. You need to stop making excuses and own up your mistakes.
Have you been around addicts? their behaviours never make sense.
I have been around addicts, and I have been one myself too (not FnO, but something much worse). I know how the brain works - and until the addict looks striaght at the addiction and see it as an addiction, nothing changes.
Person can take all the rehab they want, but the pattern of thinking needs to change - and the quickest way to change a belief is to question it. You question it is by being honest with yourself.
The addiction in itself is just a learned behaviour and does not have to define the person. It was learned - and it can be unlearned. I am not saying it will be easy - I am saying it is possible and definitely worth it.