Advice...?

UKTG,
I rarely agree with Markus 'cos most of the time he's just an idiot talking nonsense. But somehow, quite accidentally obviously, he has come up with a pearl of wisdom ..... I agree, do what YOU want to do ...

very best of luck whatever you decide
r_e and baby Ashlene
 
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I don't know what to do!

My Uncle wants me to help him with his business, work for him perhaps a few days a week.

I haven't worked for anyone for 18 months now and not sure if i want to or not. Add to that the fact that i am already making money trading, enough to live on, and i have a 8 month old baby who i'd like to stay home with as much as possible.

Sounds simple eh? Just turn him down and continue trading from home. The only problem is i feel a moral obligation to help him since he bought a car for me to use when i didnt' have any transport (tax, insurance, etc all included). He wouldn't pay me very much at all, and i would have to find childcare for my baby. I don't know what to do!?

reasons for working with uncle:
- get out the house more
- fulfill moral/family obligations towards my uncle and pay him back for his help when i needed it
- can still trade a few days a week/ or swing/position trade more instead
- make family happy
- secure, even if very small, income

reasons to not work for him:
- want to spend more time with baby
- want to continue trading
- working for him will effectively be a pay cut for me since i would lose trading days and his pay would not make up for it
- cost of childcare
- don't want to go out in the cold dark mornings and scrape ice off my car!
- i'll be bored and won't enjoy the work after the first few months

It seems obvious looking at the above- i just don't want to do it. But how do i reconcile that with my obligation towards my family to help them?! Also, my capital is not huge and a period of several losing months in a row will most likely render me having to go back to work anyway. It's not happened yet and i've always made money but i'm no fool and know it is possible.

What do i do?!?!

Tough choice.

1. dont feel a moral obligation - unless, maybe, if you asked him to buy you the car, which im guessing you didnt.
2.You could pay him back for the car once you've made a million.
3. Remember, its not possible to please all of the people all of the time.
4. Do what you genuinely believe is best for you. You're young, he's a generation older, and will understand.
 
Anyway, McWage or millionaire wage, i'm proud of what i've achieved-- and i'm sure you are too-- it's a big deal to make any money at all in this game!

I'm going off-topic a bit but this touches on a point I have been thinking about a lot recently.

They great thing about trading is that it is entirely your own responsibility, you succeed or fail on your own merits.

I spent 10 years in a job where my income was in no way correlated with my effort or my results. I would get a promotion but know that I didn't really deserve it, it was just the way the system worked.

The market is the most honest and brutal manager I have ever had!

Ben
 
Thanks for the love everyone! Didn't think i'd get many helpful responses as generally i'm quite a contentious presence on the message boards (amongst a certain type of thread only).

Some really good advice here. I've had a real long hard think about it today and had a chat with my mum and dad. Trading is what i love, its what i do. I'm just now building it up to a point where the money and my capital is starting to mean something- now isn't the time to cut down or quit. My baby is still young and i want to spend a lot of time with her too. Add to that the cost of childcare- i just phoned a few nursery's and they all want in the region of £40 a day- which is probably what my Uncle would pay me. And in order to claim any benefits i would have to spend a good amount of my capital, which would render me done forever trading :(.

I'm going to ask him if i can work from home a few hours a week... i don't mind even doing up to 20 hours a week or so i could fit that in around my trading, from home, and still look after my baby (although will be quite busy!). I think this is an ideal solution- as long as i am very clear with him this is not forever- i'll tell him i will help to find a full time PA for him, i think this is what he needs. This extra work will probably mean i spend a bit less time on here, which no doubt lots of scamsters and spammers will be happy with. :LOL:

The above is my final decision and i'm not changing my mind now- i've got it sussed!

Thanks Charlton, BSD, Rathcoole, JTrader, RedGreenBean, KillPhil, Barjon, fibonelli- i think i got you all-- oh, and the kind person who sent me a private message-- thank you! I bought something for you as a token of my appreciation- hope you like it:-

present.gif
 
Hi UK_tg,
As it happens, I find myself in the job market at the moment.
:cheesy:
So, if your uncle is very unhappy with your decision not to work for him (or not as much as he might like, anyway) you could always recommend me! He's then happy 'coz he gets the help he needs, I'm happy 'coz I get an income and you're doubly happy 'coz you get to stay at home with your girl, trade AND receive commission from your new recruitment consultancy business. Now that's what's called a win > win > win situation!
Tim.
 
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Hi UKTG,

maybe I'm totally wrong and I'm sure you'll tell me, especially since you seem to have sussed out what you're going to do anyway, but it seems you've avoided stating what really bugs you about your situation.

I read the thread twice now and I couldn't understand what the indecision was about.

Anyway since we're used to talking about the markets and getting to the core of the matter, I figured I jump in on the thread with my opinion.

The problem that I see - and I see it loom large in my life too - is that trading is massively risky and we have no certainty that we'll still be doing it next year - or even next week - and this is the point: how do you tell that to your friends and family, without them thinking you're some crazy fool adrenalin junky?

If I want the conservative viewpoint on anything, I always imagine what my dad would say. Hmm, now, you have a decent job offer from your uncle, but you're turning it down in favour of this wild adventure in the financial markets?

So what's your choice? You either accept the job and comply with the social pressures to conform, or you carry on doing something that most of your family and friends really won't get to grips with, and not only that but they now all know a lot more about it.

I have so far managed to avoid talking about work and my job to everyone except a couple of friends who work in finance, so I don't envy you - especially in this phase before getting established as a trader.
 
Well done Donna, hope things work out just great :)

Adam, I do get what you're saying.

However, isn't all of life just one big risk ?

Isn't the only certainty we have in life that the only constant is change ?

Isn't our main objective while we are down here to learn to overcome our fears of what might go wrong and live our dreams instead ?

There are 350 000 bankers the world over who lost their jobs because of their superiors incompetence that led to the current financial mess.

Were they any more sensible because they went for allegedly secure jobs, while some of their at first glance perhaps more irresponsible contemporaries decided to start their own businesses as traders or whatever, and through doing that at least created an opportunity of striking it rich and escaping the treadmill ?

Not really, right ?

The way I see it is that everybody is better off the more income streams there are, and if Donna continues building on her trading success then one day she will be able to help her uncle out financially should he ever fall on hard times.

That is an option that would not exist if Donna were to give up trading or at least put it on the backburner.

But this now sounds like a pretty good solution that should make everybody happy as far as real interests go.

Good stuff.
 
What bugs me about my situation- is the moral obligation i feel towards my family which is in conflict with the lifestyle i want (being free and 'owned' by no one and able to stay with my daughter 24/7).

Trading is risky. As time goes on (i've been going for almost 6 years now, starting in my spare time) profits have become more and more consistent. Trading is never going to be a job where you get paid as per the amount of hours you put in.. e.g. if i sit at my desk and stare at charts for 40 hours a week i will get a fixed income of £30k a year. It's nothing like that. One month i may get £1k, the next i may get £10k, the next i may not get anything, or even lose a £1k. You have to take the rough with the smooth, put money away for rainy days (or months) and just keep going. Trading is a real vocation, a calling, a lifestyle- and i love it with a passion. This is what i don't want to give up.

Despite what i say above, i have strict 'risk' parameters that i enforce upon myself. There is a maximum loss i will withstand for a month before quitting until the next month. There is a defined point at which i will step back and say "enough is enough- i need to stop this game and get a job again for a while whilst i work out how to turn a profit again" all the while preserving the majority of my capital (which isn't huge in the first instance, but enough to be able to do this with!). I am lucky in that if i decided i wanted to go back to work, i could walk in to a job tomorrow (i was a legal secretary). Yeah, the wages are fixed at around £19k a year with no prospects, but it's a job and offers some form of security- and there are always these jobs around. The thought of doing this horrifies me, but i am under no illusions and once i exceed a certain risk point then i know it's time to change. I'll always trade, i love it, even if i lost money i would continue to trade, allbeit on a part time basis whilst working another job.

I had a chat with my Uncle today, and he is fine with me just helping him occasionally from home for now. I think he understands. He was very nice actually and i wonder if i was just getting myself worked up over it for nothing.
 
Well doesn't get better than that then does it.

:)

Btw, I think the obligation part can be well taken care of already if you pay your uncle back the car with a good interest rate in say installments or sthg.

But obligation clearly also ends there where it totally interferes with your own life objectives, even more so when the money you earn would largely go on paying for daycare if you did what seemd to be on the table originally, working from his place, which would create a financial dead end of a situation you would not have if you were doing what you really want to, stay at home and trade in the first place.

But I still don't get the necessity of the whole thing in the first place.

I mean I do realize that a lot of entrepreneurs probably feel they have to do everything themselves, or, second best, only trust close family members, but learning to let go and delegate and manage through objectives is definitely the only way to really grow a business, so maybe seen like this this is even a good lesson for him to learn, getting somebody from the outside whom he can then train to be an independently thinking, target oriented valuable asset to his business.

So that does sound like win / win now doesn't it.

Oh, and of course you're right, you have nothing to worry about if trading goes into a dry spell, you have your old job qualifications that would tide you over.

Besides, if I remember correctly, I think you said you are also thinking of finishing your maths degree at Uni, something that also needs some time and dedication on top of everything else.

But anyway, you've got it all worked out now so that's all that matters.

:)

I think every job needs a clear, guilt or pressure free head, but maybe trading does so just a little bit more than others, so it's always important to keep that mental balance no matter what happens.
 
What bugs me about my situation- is the moral obligation i feel towards my family which is in conflict with the lifestyle i want (being free and 'owned' by no one and able to stay with my daughter 24/7).
This should not bug you. Your FIRST moral obligation is to your daughter, who NEEDS and DEPENDS on you. The others, including yourself, come in line after that.

Your uncle may have helped you out before, but ask yourself why did he do it ? Did he do it because he was looking for a cheap worker in the future ? I hope that was not the case. If he did it because he cares for you then he, like any other good person, does not necessarily expect anything in return.

I had a chat with my Uncle today, and he is fine with me just helping him occasionally from home for now. I think he understands. He was very nice actually and i wonder if i was just getting myself worked up over it for nothing.

See that's fine. One day you will be in a position when you can return the favour more easily. It won't necessarily be directly to him, but may be to a total stranger.

That is the effect of karma

Charlton
 
Factor in the childcare costs, organisation etc for a new baby, and it seems like a no brainer.

I'm surprised your uncle asked you tbh. And its not like you're not working anyway.
But like you said, it doesnt sound like he was pressuring you, and maybe hadn't thought fully about the practical side of things from your POV.
 
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