'Became A Millionaire At 18 From Trading'
A Little Background Story
Hey, I’m Bolu! I come from a family of four and I’m the second child. Growing up, we were not poor, but we were not rich either. We just had enough to go by and sometimes a little extra to spare.
I’ve always been quite inclined towards financial stuff, but the significant change started in my life when I was about to write my final high school exams. My father called me and asked a question. He said, “Bolu, do you know if you can still change your preferred university? I don’t think we’ll have enough money to pay for your preferred university.” I didn’t give him any response because that was where I wanted to attend.
That conversation somehow motivated me to sort out my finances. I started reading everything I could find on money. I set out on a mission to read one hundred books about money before I turned 18.
Tracking My Inflow and Outflow
I learned that wealth was generated through investments, basically, and you only invest the money you have, so I started to track my inflow and outflow. I realized points of excessive spending and points where inflow could be maximized. This helped me save more; It wasn’t a lot, but my savings began to exist.
I read a book during this period called ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ by George S. Clason, and it was a game-changer for my finances. It showed me that this was simply the process – For anyone who could keep 10% of their income while following all the steps in that book, the ‘goddess of the universe’ would work to ensure that their road to financial fortune is practically established. Once I learned this, it was a significant turning point in my finances.
A Ray of Light
A while later, my parents attended a seminar on Crypto and Forex. They talked about how amazing it was and how people were earning money, but they felt too old to do it. I was young, so I wanted to try it out. I started doing some basic trading here and there - investing sums as little as $10 and $20.
I proceeded with my journey and started trading fully. I lost a lot of money, but then I invested in proper education by paying a professional to teach me, and eventually, I started to make some profit. In the initial stages, I wasn’t very profitable, so I knew I needed to learn more. During one of the holiday periods, I stayed back at my school, and I spent a lot of time learning about trading. My efforts began to pay off because I started making enough money for it to be a steady source of income.
Passive Income Changed My Life
I went for a webinar when I was in 100 level and heard a definition of financial freedom that I hadn’t heard before. The speaker said, “Financial freedom occurs when your passive income exceeds your living expenses.” That was revolutionary because I knew that I had majorly focused on active income, not passive income. Immediately after watching that webinar, I started looking for ways to earn passive income.
During my search, a friend introduced me to Ethereum and showed me how I could buy some. I started actively trading currency pairs and bought some Ethereum when the rate was somewhere between N50,000 - N70,000, the equivalent of ~$100-140. To my surprise, Ethereum began to boom. In a short period of time, my finances skyrocketed! I put together some trading courses to teach people what I’d learned, charged a small fee and turned that into another stream of passive income.
At this point, I had learned how to make my money work for me. Life was good!
Automation: The Game-changer
Later on, I studied another book titled ‘The Automatic Millionaire’ by David Bach - he shared how automation was a secret to not even giving your indiscipline a chance. I was earning so much money and saving so much money, but I would break my savings consistency once in a while.
David Bach told a story of a couple that automated their investment. I immediately used an app to automate my savings. At the end of the month, I take that money and invest it in various places; this really helped. But the challenge was that the automation scheme was in Naira, and I didn’t want my long-term investment to be in Naira.
I was looking for a project that could help me invest automatically, and the only one I came across needed me to use a USD bank account; I didn’t have any, so I couldn’t use that service.
After a while, I came across Accrue. I immediately jumped on it. I liked that I could automate my investment - this removed the burden from me. For me, it was the most amazing idea because it’s what I had been looking for.
Accrue changed my game because it solved my Crypto automation and stocks automation. I just know that daily, the money is being invested. I don’t have to worry about the price; I don’t have to worry about anything.