Started this blog in March 2023 with $8,400 and a Chipotle loyalty level I was more proud of than my trading stats. Three years later the account is at $68,010 and the blog has, by my last count, 1,100-ish readers, most of whom are silent and all of whom are welcome.
If I could rerun year one, here's what I'd fix:
1. Sizing. Year one I traded 20-25% of the account per position because "small account needs aggressive sizing." What it actually needs is to survive long enough for the edge to show up. First year net: -$2,900. Ugly.
2. Weekly options. They felt like free money. They are not free money. They're lottery tickets with better branding.
3. Not journaling the misses. My first "trade journal" was just a list of wins, which is like keeping a diary where you only write about your good hair days. Useless.
Year two and three, with position sizes at 5-8% and a system I can explain to my sister in one sentence, the account compounded properly. The math from here: $68k to $1M needs a bit under 14x. At my current pace that's somewhere between six and nine more years. Which sounds insane until you remember this blog is called Million Dollar PATH, not Million Dollar Sprint.
"Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to be solvent." — I read this somewhere in year two and it lives rent-free in my head.
Thanks for being here for three years of this. Next milestone post at $100k. See you on the road.
3 comments:
"Lottery tickets with better branding" is the single best description of weeklies I've ever read, and I worked at a brokerage for six years.
Posted by ex-broker_ben · July 19, 2026 at 5:26 AM
Found this blog two months ago and went back and read the whole first year. The difference between the 2023 posts and now is basically a different trader. Good reminder that the learning tax is real and payable by everyone.
Posted by MiguelS · July 19, 2026 at 11:40 AM
Chipotle loyalty level — lol. Congrats on three years. The deposits honesty in the trade log is what keeps me believing these numbers, for what it's worth.
Posted by Kelly T. · July 21, 2026 at 8:03 PM
Comments are moderated when I remember to check, which is weekends, usually. Email me if it's urgent.