I’m on my feet around 16 hours every day, with the single solitary exception of Saturday. Despite the fact that most of the day is spent organizing my life outside of my hectic nursing and school schedule, it’s nice to be able to sit down outside and feel the sun for once, catch up on social media and the latest memes that have escaped my enjoyment.
I don’t see my family very often, and so whenever I do I hesitate to ask them for financial help even though it would really improve my quality of life.
I like to think that when I’m a veteran nurse that I’ll have time to see them more, and I really hope so but I can’t afford to think about it right now. No one wants a ghost of a daughter that asks for “help” on the rare occasions that she’s seen.
I took a lift home from Babsie last month after work. She’s a student resident with me on the same Friday shifts. Her car wasn’t anything special, and we live in the same neighborhood… but WOW she really did some work on the inside of her apartment.
She’s quite handy and has a great eye for design and space, but she had some things far outside the salary that I know we also share. Such cute furniture, a nice TV, and a closet full of brand names! I never knew. I always see her in scrubs.

How was she able to afford this stuff?

I had to ask her. How was she able to afford this stuff?
“I have some work on the side, Lindiwe. It’s foreign currency trading, and it’s really quite easy to get the hang of.”
And there ended my line of questioning, and began the change that I so desperately was seeking. She broke out her laptop and showed me her account, and I was taken aback at how much money she was playing with, or so it seemed.
Then she explained some of the “beginner” terminology so that I could wrap my head around it. Soon I knew that what looked like hundreds of thousands of dollars was really only a few thousand of her own, through something called leverage.
It sounded so dangerous to me, but on one of our last meetings a week or so ago, she took me through a trade opportunity she saw on her phone while we were at work.
She explained to me why she thought it was a smart trade, and went through all of the steps in order to set it up. Yesterday at work, she showed me where her trade was at, and I said, “Wait so you’re already making money? Why don’t you stop it now and take it? Don’t be greedy Babs!” I laughed.
So she did, just to show me how to “close a position” (or so she said). And to see what amounted to a week’s salary get deposited in her account just like that amazed me.
Later that night I did some research. I needed a trading platform that would educate me like Babsie was educated, give me updated news through my phone, and allow me to control my trades through my phone as well.
It was important to me because I have access to a computer only at inopportune times, and as Babsie said, “Timing is essential, you have to have open access to your account so you can react when you feel it’s smartest.”

I started a demo account and downloaded the mobile app

I started a few demo accounts and played around a bit but their mobile platforms were clunky and hard to navigate. Frankly, I had no time to try and figure them out during the short breaks in my schedule. I quickly got disappointed.
I forgot about trading for a few days until, on a random impulse, I went to investing.com just to see what caught my eye. I saw an interesting looking broker called Alvexo.
The language was clean and seemed honest, their site was easy to navigate and organized well, and I saw that they even have a Trading Academy with like a million videos on financial trading situations.
I started a demo account and downloaded the mobile app, then went to bed. At work I opened it up in the break room and was SO surprised at how different it looked to other platforms.
The three main things that I wanted were easy to see and get to. The Trade Academy videos so colorful and neatly organized on my little screen, and they played fast too. I had time to listen to a few of them while resting my aching feet.
Next to the videos was a section on global economy and important events, and next to that was my account information and trading suite.
I was able to read a few things, and confident in the small amount of education I had thus far received… made a trade using my demo account. It was so easy to accomplish even via my tiny phone screen, that I almost thought nothing happened at all.
Imagine my surprise when I made 200 USD on the trade within two days! Thanks to Alvexo’s easy mobile platform I was able to know when to close my position at work… and just think if I had used leverage.
I decided to deposit 500 real USD into the account to start, and won’t touch it until I get through the whole Trading Academy!
Edit: It’s about two months after the events above, and I’ve made over 8000 USD in that span of time. I’m only using 50:1 leverage to begin, and have made it through all the Academy’s videos. I’m so happy to be making such good side money!