ABOUT

The Trading Father Goal

The Trading Father started as a father that wanted to prepare a financial jump start for his daughter over 5 years ago. I wanted to be able to give to my daughter the best start in her adult life that I could. 

The knowledge quickly grew as the stake was high. Today I continue to build my daughter's wealth and strive for excellent investment opportunity.

The Trading Father Story

My youth:

I am born in the late 80's, and was raised in a French village called Weislingen.

It's a village which has a mixed wealth situation, you have company owners or C-level employees that are living near factory workers. One particular business owner will have an impact on my live and it was the farmer.

My mother was a secretary but retired early to take care of my brother, my sister and myself.

My father was a contractor, installing bathrooms and heating systems.

We were living in an old house, that was bought by my father grand-father.

By what i remember we were part of the lower middle class, or like my mom was used to say: "Too rich for getting social benefits, and too poor to enjoy vacations..."

I remember one Christmas my father was working under temporary contract for a factory, and he came back saying that he has a present for us. He presented us a "Drum" which in fact was a carton roll with a plastic lead on it.

So what was my experience about money in my early years?

It was hard to get, and once I had saved enough I was spending it on "Luxuries", for example cereals to get the toy within it.

Other influence about money came from my God-Mother and God-Father, both of them were doing well money wise. They were generous with me, taking me for camping or spending some vacations at their place.

I would say this double example of wealth is the foundation of my approach to money.

Object with the biggest value owned: a laptop 2000€

Study time:

I went to study in Strasbourg. I somehow managed to get by with 20€ per month of pocket money. This money was used to by prepaid sms 5€/month no calling minutes and what was not used expired. I could also buy time to time some patisserie 0.50€ special price as it was sold in school, something that is gone by now due to health regulation in France. And the rest was either saved for some time to buy something bigger, for cinema or used for the weekend night out when coming back to the village.

I didn't do long studies, I had a call to go to work and get money, first to pay for the driving license and for a car.

Object with the biggest value owned: a CRT TV100€

The beginning of my working life:

My first job was at a freight company, it was 40km away from my parents place, and in those days you were going to the office every days. It was an ok job, and it was paying 800€ a month, which as I was still leaving with my parents was good. However it was a work for the salary, spend the salary, work again for the salary cycle. Which stopped at the end of the two year contract.

Object with the biggest value owned: car Renault Clio 300€

The reality check:

My first job finished in 2008, what is now identified as a financial crises. It took me five months to find my next job as a deliveryman for a commercial center. During those five months I started to look into saving and making money by trading. I opened an account and played with the demo account. The concept was to big for me to grasp it at that time so I focused on the new job.

That job was great, I was kind of free, on the road all day, visiting house of people from really poor to super rich, still living with my parents and I was getting a lot of tips.

The first saving account:

Having excess money, something new for me, and the recent experience of not having a job, made me look for ways to save money and get some returns. During the year and a half that I worked for the commercial center I managed to save 5000€.

Object with the biggest value owned: car Renault Megane 2 10000€ (4 years loan)

2010 Hello Czech Republic:

The easy life of the 2010's era, started with my work at IBM in Brno. First getting this work as helpdesk agent was fast, the salary was good allowing to rent a flat, continue to pay for the loan of the car, enjoy an easy going life. However I wanted more money, I wanted the life of the big bosses at IBM, so I worked, many hours, gave it all, managed to get promoted, and increase my salary quickly.

This allowed to rent a better flat, travel several times per year, eat out...

IBM became too slow, it was trying to save cost on everything. And I started to eat my saving.

The golden era:

In 2014, the big success, I was young, I built a strong experience at IBM, changed for Motorola getting a direct 400€ raise. Started to do some sport, the work was good and motivating, I was promoted. More money was flowing in, allowing for a superb flat in one of the tallest modern tower in the City, I changed car twice during that era, a Skoda Rapid and then a Jeep Renegade.

The flashy lifestyle, was leaving me with little on the account at the end of the month, if I would have lost my job, I would have been in troubles.

Object with the biggest value owned: some furniture's

The financial freedom journey begin:

It's 2018, all is well in the world of finance, money is everywhere and easy to get. And a new type of money is getting the spotlight, Crypto and specifically the Bitcoin.

It's the beginning of the rally, in the back of my head i remember reading an article, must have been in 2011-2012, it was used by drugs dealers to not be identified, leaving me a don't touch that thing feeling.

Now that it grew in value, and that I missed that opportunity, I decided to educate myself on investing. I read, I watched, and I realised that I don't have money to invest, all went into the lifestyle.

Object with the biggest value owned: laptop 200€

Time to take control and become a man:

With my wife we decided to move to Switzerland at the end of 2018, follow the money as they say.

The new job is an amazing coincidence, IT support technician for a Private Equity firm. This is a wake up call, there is an endless amount of money in this world. The hard part is to access it.

That understanding made me read even more, every moment of my free time (commute, evening) was focusing of financial independence. And the magic formula is multiple stream of income.

With my wife being pregnant, the true purpose and reason of working hard was set to arrive in August 2019. Yes it is my daughter. I will be having to provide for my family no matter what.

5 years of growth:

We are in 2024, it makes 5 years that we are in Switzerland the three of us.

A pandemic passed, wars started, financial crises fear is present for 2 years, and many attempt to set e-shops, youtube channels were done. Only one area worked out and is somehow the easiest.

We are now investors generating returns though dividends, the compound effect is catching momentum.

Object with the biggest value owned: car 55000€ and portfolio worth 80000€

A grateful Husband and Father.

Antoine B.