You have a job. Every trading story online ends the same way: someone quits theirs and never looks back. So you start wondering if trading with a full time job is just the waiting room before the real thing.
I’ll answer the question in the title straight away. No, I haven’t quit. I have a day job at a company and I’m not leaving it. The stability and the benefits are worth too much to me. Everything I make from trading, EAs and affiliates is extra, for me and my family. Here’s why, and how I’d do it if I were starting today with only evenings to spare.
The story you’ve been sold
“I blew 1,000 accounts. Then I found the secret, quit my job, and now I trade from the beach.” You’ve heard it. It sells courses because it’s a great story.
It’s not mine. I’m not rich. I’ve lost funded accounts, some of them at My Forex Funds when they stopped paying. But I’ve never blown my own money going “fuck it, all in.” And I took a very, very long time to trade real money at all.
Why I took years to put real money on it
I started manual. I didn’t dare to automate: I wanted as much control as possible, and a bot felt like gambling. I didn’t trust it to work, so I didn’t trust it with money.
Then I did what everyone does. I coded whatever the gurus said. Do this, this and this. It didn’t work at all. Back to zero.
The change came when I saw EAs taking trades on their own and thought: this is where the effort should go. Fixed rules. No emotions (well, fewer). I’d switch one on, and within one or two weeks it was losing money. Stop. Re-analyse. That’s how I learned what overfitting is, the hard way. If you want the short version of that lesson, read why perfect EA backtests lose money.
What finally clicked was risk management. I read book after book until one idea landed: not all your eggs in one basket, and never load all the baskets at the same time. Diversify what you trade, and when you trade it. Only then did I start building portfolios with real money, already knowing there would be good phases and bad ones.
Trading with a full time job needs two things
If you only have evenings, you can’t watch charts all day. That isn’t a weakness to fix. It’s the constraint you design around. Two things make it work.
1. Rules that run without you
Your job takes the hours when markets move. Fixed rules in an EA take the trades you’d miss and skip the ones you’d take out of boredom at 22:00. Your evenings go to the part a machine can’t do: reviewing, sizing and deciding what stays switched on.
2. Several baskets, never all loaded at once
One strategy, one account, one firm is a single basket. When it has a bad month, you have a bad month. I split it: several strategies, several markets, and several kinds of accounts. My own capital, a funded program, a Darwinex account. They don’t all have good and bad months at the same time, which is the whole point. I wrote about counting the real bets behind a portfolio in EA portfolio risk.
Prop firms taught me the same lesson twice. I was always wary of them, because of hidden rules I couldn’t prepare for. Then My Forex Funds stopped paying and I lost those accounts. So: not every account in one firm, and not all at once. Axi Select was the first program where the rules felt aligned with how I trade: no challenge fee, and capital grows as you prove you can handle risk. That’s an affiliate link; I may earn a commission if you join through it.
What it looks like in real numbers
Here’s the honest version, because this is the part most people hide.
My Axi Select payouts this year: January $602.96. February $68.77. March $931.34. Nothing since March. Axi only pays when the allocation account is above its starting balance at the end of the month, and mine has been below since April. Today it’s down 4.9%. That’s what a bad phase looks like. The account is alive and I’m following the same rules.
At the same time, my Darwinex account is up 8.91% since April, with a max drawdown of 4.32%, and it has received €60,000 in allocations. One basket down, another pulling. That’s exactly why I never load them all at once.
Look at those numbers again. They’re real and I’m proud of them. They’re also extras, not a salary. And that’s why the job stays.
Should you quit your job to trade? A three-question test
Before you even think about it, answer these honestly:
- Could your trading pay your bills in its worst year? Not its best month. Its worst year, including the months with no payout at all.
- Do you have a real record? Live money, at least a couple of years, with the drawdowns written down. Not a backtest and not a demo.
- Is the capital money you can afford to lose? If losing it would force you back into a job, you’re not trading, you’re betting your rent.
Most people answer no to at least one. I do too, and I’ve been at this a long time. So I keep the job and keep building the record. If you’re thinking about funded accounts as a shortcut, read prop firms make money when you fail first.
Watch why most bots fail once they go live: in Why Most Trading Bots Fail Live, I go through what changes between a backtest and a real account, which is exactly what those first two weeks taught me.
How I’d start with only evenings
- Demo first, for weeks. One strategy. Watch what it does on its bad days, not only the good ones. My first-week checklist for the Free Gold EA tells you what to look at.
- A small real account next. Fixed risk per trade, sized so the worst historical losing streak doesn’t hurt.
- Add baskets slowly. A second strategy that trades something else, or at other times. Then, once you have a record, a funded program for your own system.
- One evening a week for review. Write down what ran, what lost, and what you changed. That record is the asset.
If your plan includes allocated capital later, read the programme’s rules before you build around it. My Axi Select overview is a starting point. Check what automation it permits for your setup.
Long term always beats short term. If you want the honest version of how my accounts are doing, month by month, join the DoItTrading newsletter.
This is me.
Trading involves real risk to capital. The payouts and returns above are my own accounts and don’t predict yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you trade with a full time job?
Yes, if you design for it. Fixed rules in an EA handle the market hours you can’t watch, and your evenings go to review and risk decisions. Trying to day trade manually around a job is where most people burn out.
Should I quit my job to trade full time?
Only if your trading could pay your bills in its worst year, you have a real multi-year record, and the capital is money you can afford to lose. I don’t meet all three by choice, so I keep my job.
How much time does EA trading take each week?
Less than manual trading, but not zero. Plan one session a week to review what ran, what lost and what you changed, plus time to monitor risk when markets are unusual.
Is trading income reliable enough to replace a salary?
Not in my experience. My funded payouts came in some months and not in others, which is normal for any strategy with good and bad phases. That’s why I treat it as extra income.
How should I start trading with a full time job?
Start on demo with one strategy and watch it for several weeks. Then move to a small real account with fixed risk per trade, and add more strategies slowly once you have a record.
