Quite a few people have asked me, how is it possible I only had 2 jobs ever, neither of which was anything special, and managed to retire in my early 40s. I worked Non-Stop from 15 to 43, but nothing I did was super exiting and high paying. I had 2 jobs. One at a Movie Theater from 15-18 where when I left, despite being a supervisor and a projectionist, I was only making $7.75 an hour.
*side note,that was in 1998-2001 and it boggles my mind that in 19 states to this day the minimum wage is STILL less than that. Chillin’ at $7.25. How the hell is someone supposed to live off that.
Then MY Second job which was in the IT industry, all over the place, networking, internet support, email support, cybersecurity, a bit of satellite and software stuff. All with the same company. I topped out as the Sr Manager of the L1 tech support and customer service departments. Funny note, I actually made MORE in 2018 and 2019 than I did in the years after. I was salary, but I got KPI bonuses for years of up to $900 a month, but they did away with those in 2018. Also I didn’t have a raise my last 7 years. And actually I GAVE UP money, literally took pay cuts, just so people who reported to me could at least get like a $0.20 an hour raise. By the time I was done I was making $67,000 a year. But it’s not like I was ever making $150k a year, to the other fantasies people have about the tech industry. Yeah, you don’t walk into a $100k a year job. We started people at $17.50 an hour.
But anyhow, how could I amass enough wealth that I can not only comfortably live, but sort of extravagantly live in retirement so early?
So people who know me personally know I am a wizard of finance. I have been obsessed with investing most of my life. Even at like 12 years old, I would go for the business section of the newspaper before sports or anything else. At 14 I was sitting there with spreadsheets and fake money doing hypothetical day trades. By the time I became an adult, I started doing it in real life.
I’ve had some big hits. Some REALLY big hits. I invested in Tesla and Nvidia REALLY early on. I grabbed the Google IPO. But I have had some big misses too. I only set aside like 15% of my portfolio to swing for the fences. I also put 50% of it into a SUPER safe mix of VTI, VOO, and iBonds.
But here is the dirty little secret of where most of it has actually come from. Most investors would tell you it’s stupid, but that is because they are too worried about getting that 1000% win, and don’t care if they have 999% loss to get that one. I don’t EVER want a loss, and ALWAYS want a profit, even if it’s $1
Call Option Trading.
First for those that don’t know, here is an explanation of what a call option is…
A call option is a financial contract that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to purchase a stock or other asset at a predetermined price, known as the strike price, within a specific period of time before the expiration date. To obtain this right, the buyer must pay a premium to the seller (also called the writer) of the option. The premium is the market price of the option itself, and it represents the maximum amount the buyer can lose on the trade.
The premium is influenced by several factors, including the current price of the stock, how far the strike price is from the current price, the amount of time remaining until expiration, and the stock’s volatility. More time and higher volatility generally increase the premium because they raise the probability that the stock could move favorably. Part of the premium reflects intrinsic value (how much the option is already “in the money”), and part reflects time value (the potential for future price movement).
For example, if a stock is trading at $50 and you buy a call option with a $55 strike price for a $3 premium, you pay $300 total (since one contract typically represents 100 shares). If the stock rises to $65, you could buy it at $55 and potentially profit, but you must subtract the $3 per share premium to determine your net gain. If the stock stays below $55, the option expires worthless, and your loss is limited to the $300 premium you paid.
That is the textbook definition. Let me break it down. First, option trading is something you can start doing with VERY little capital. You buy a contract for 100 shares, but you don’t actually buy the shares, you only pay the premium price. Which is a few bucks (times 100)
Lets use actual real work examples. So lets say you think the price of Nike is going to go up. Right now at this very minute, Nike is trading for $62.45 a share. Which means if you want to actually buy a single share of Nike, It’s going to cost you $62.45. If the share price goes up 1% that is $0.63. If you then sell that share to grab the profit is only going to be 63 cents.
Now with options, you are buying a contract for 100 shares. If you are using Robinhood. You go to trades, and then select options. VERY IMPORTANT. When you select it, make sure you are set to BUY and Call. Not SELL or PUT (that’s for shorting). Then you pick the date of expiration. So today is Feb 9th, so we’ll pick Feb 20ths (I always pick Fridays just because it’s easy to remember)
Next you pick your “strike price” I always pick the strike price that is either JUST above or JUST below the market price. So for Nike the market Price is $62.45
For me on this, I would pick the $62 strike price.
So for this, you click the $1.85 to buy. That’s how much each contract is going to cost. Remember one contract equals 100 shares.
When you go to the next screen, it asks you how many contracts to buy. Just want one. Then it asks for the limit price. So you have some people who bidding to buy these contracts that don’t own them and looking for a lower price, that’s the bid price. Then you have people that have contracts looking to sell them for profit. For that I generally go 5 cents lower than whatever the Ask price is to make sure the order gets filled.
Then you hit review order and done. So this contract, which is for 100 shares of Nike, which is trading at $62.45, instead of paying $6,245 for it, you’re only paying $180.04
Now that you have the contract, if the price of Nike goes up, so does the price of the contract. But it is totally disproportionate to the share price. Lets say the price of the shares jumped to $65. Not a huge jump. If you bought 1 share it would have costs you $62.45 and your total profit would be 55 cents. But if the price jumps 55 cents per share, then that Option is going to jump probably around 30 cents. But with the option, you multiply that by 100 since you have 100 shares under contract. So at that moment, if that contract went to $2.10. You sell that, and collect $210. Minus you $180 investment. You walk away pocketing $30. This could be within just a few minutes.
What I do is called Profit scalping. I’m not looking for the homerun. I couldn’t give 2 shits about that. I don’t want 2 steps forward and 1 step back. I just want constant profit.
This is disgustingly easy. Here are my profit and loses Friday and Monday
That’s $641 in about 20 minutes of work, and I was just half hearting it the last few days, some days I didn’t even do any.
Now, to use my method there are some very strict rules to follow. First and most importantly, is no going out side the box and jumping into some weird stock. Yeah, Reddit or something might say some no-name hydrogen cell stock is going to pop, but stay the fuck away. Because if it’s not a blue chip and it drops, it will stay there. That’s the new price, and it’s there forever.
You have to, HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO stick to the Dow 30, Plus Google, Amazon, Meta, Nvida, and Gold.
You HAVE to. Those 35 stocks, and NOTHING else. I don’t care how awesome it looks. Never stray from these 35. Here are the exact stocks and their tickers
Home Deport (HD)
Dow Chemical (DOW)
Disney (DIS)
Walmart (WMT)
Visa (V)
Verizon (VZ)
Salesforce (CRM)
United Health (UNH)
Travelers Insurance (TRV)
Proctor and Gamble (PG)
Nike (NKE)
Microsoft (MSFT)
Merck (MRK)
3M (MMM)
McDonalds (MCD)
Coke (KO)
JP Morgan (JPM)
Johnson and Johnson (JNJ)
Intel (INTC)
IBM (IBM)
Honeywell (HON)
Goldman Sacks (GS)
Chevron (CVX)
Cisco Systems (CSCO)
Caterpillar (CAT)
Bank of America (BA)
Apple (AAPL)
Amgen (AMGN)
American Express (AXP)
Tesla (TSLA)
Google (GOOG)
Amazon (AMZM)
Meta (Meta)
Gold (IAU)
Never, and I cannot stress this enough, NEVER deviate from these funds. These are the ultimate Bluechips. These are what makes up the “stock market” When you hear the news that’s like “Oh The Dow Jones was up 1% today” IT is NOT the entire stock market, it’s just these stocks.
These are the hands down, safest stocks on the face of the earth. They are always going to go up. Always. Even is they take a huge tumble because of a bad quarter or something, they are always, 100% of the time, going to make every cent back and turn a profit. There are between 250 and 253 stock market days per year, and all of these end up being UP around 200 days a year.
Again, we’re not looking for GIANT home runs. We’re looking for constant little gains, over and over and over again. If you look at my screenshots, I did Amazon 3 times in a row over 10 minutes and pocketed $105 in those 10 minutes
You can automate this, which is actually what I do. Prices change by the second. So if you hit a point where you want to grab profit but think “nah I’ll wait till it goes higher” it might drop from there, losing your chance.
What I do is as soon as I buy a contract, I go and put in a sell order right away for a small profit to lock it in
You go to your option in Robinhood, and then select “Sell” to sell the option. You’re asked to put in a Limit Price. You bought it for $180 so if you put in a limit price of say $2.05 (you REALLY don’t want to get Greedy here keep it under 50 cents, keeping it at 25 cents is best, if it jumps REALLY high in a minute, you’ll still grab that extra profit. If you put in $2.10 but it jumped to $2.25 you’ll collect that $2.25)
And then you just walk away. If the option jumps enough to where it hits trading at $2.05 it will automatically sell, and you get $205 put into your account, realizing a $20 profit.
Then you just keep doing this over and over and over again.
I always buy my first contracts 2 Fridays out. So if I buy this week, I won’t buy for the 13th, I’ll buy for the 20th. When we’re talking the DOW stocks, even if they take a HUGE dip the day I buy them and drop like 75% in price, that is generally more than enough time for them to rebound and turn into a profit. So I just let them sit.
The Rare, and I mean rare as hell, times when it comes up to the Friday when they expire, if they haven’t turned a profit. You have 2 options. First you can just let them expire. Which is stupid. It expires and you lose the premium, which for the Nike example is $180. Although $180 max loss is a SHIT load better than if you bought 100 Shares at over 6 grand, cause you’d be down like $2500.
But the reason I bought to the following Friday is because if by chance that expiration date rolls around and it’s not turning a profit. You can Roll it to a later date. You can just keep rolling it for 2 years. Eventually, it’s going to hit profit. No Dow stock is doing to have a 2 year down turn. Even in a recession you’re not going to have anything with a 3 month downturn. And they will always, 100% make everything back and then some. That’s the entire reason they are in the Dow. Over half the companies in the Dow went through the Great Depression, Black Monday, The Great Recession, and are still up.
Again, the thing I can’t stress enough here are 2 points.
First. It HAS to be one of the above stocks. Nothing else. There have little to no risk, where literally every other stock on earth has huge risk. Just one time thinking you’re being smart could put you in the hole. Never deviate. Ever.
Second, is Don’t get greedy. Take that $20 profit. I can’t tall you how many thousands, literally thousands of times I saw options with 1000% returns for like 30 seconds, and then 5 minutes later be in the negative. Unless you literally sit at the computer watching from 9:30am to 4:00pm every second to try to capture the unicorns, you’re going to get screwed. Those giant hit usually only last seconds. Then crash back down.
But doing what I do is literally set it and forget it. But 15 contracts for 15 stocks on Monday, set the sell price, leave it alone, come back on Wednesday or Thursday to find most if not all of them sold, with a few grand in profit. You can easily start with $1000 and be making $1000 a week within a month or so if you are very strict about it.
