I'm 26 years old and I started investing during Covid.
At the time I had more cash than usual because I had just started my first job. I was still living with my parents, my expenses were low, and for the first time I had money sitting in my account. Then I learned what inflation was, or at least I thought I did, and suddenly keeping cash felt like a terrible idea.
The funny part is that this was also the period when I still had a Postepay Evolution as my main card. What a piece of shit.
At the time, I did not even fully understand how limiting that setup was. I had my first real cash, but I was managing it with a tool that felt barely designed for someone trying to build any kind of financial structure. It worked for basic things, sure, but the experience was clunky, limited, and honestly annoying.
In a strange way, that also pushed me to care more about personal finance. When you start noticing how bad your tools are, you also start noticing how little control you actually have. The card, the banking app, the lack of proper categorization, the friction around understanding where money was going: all of it made me realize that managing money is not just about earning or investing. It is also about having systems that let you see clearly.
My parents told me to be careful. Obviously, I did the opposite.
I started putting money into crypto. Not just Bitcoin, which at the time was still much cheaper than today, but also a lot of strange stuff that I barely understood. Everything felt exciting. Prices were going up, everyone online sounded like a genius, and I had the classic beginner feeling that maybe I had discovered something early.
For a while, it was fantastic.
Then came the crash of LUNA.
By that point I had put too much of my money into crypto and I had almost no cash left for daily expenses. And by daily expenses I mean the simple stuff: going out, putting petrol in the car, small things like that. Nice times, honestly, but also a bit stupid in hindsight.
That was probably my first real lesson. Not a theoretical one. A real one.
I started to understand that being invested is not the same thing as being prepared. You can believe in HODL as much as you want, but if you have no cash when you need it, you are fragile. And when you are fragile, markets decide for you.
Crypto also gave me some very practical lessons. One of them came through BlockFi, when I started to understand what a blockchain actually was and how transactions worked. I also sent around €500 to the wrong blockchain and lost it forever. Bad day.
But I learned something useful: always send a small test transaction first, then the big one.
Later, BlockFi, Celsius, and FTX all collapsed. Luckily, by then I had become much more cautious. I was following the news, I was paying attention, and I withdrew in time. I did lose some money on FTX-related coins and other garbage, but I avoided the real disaster.
That period taught me a lot. I learned what counterparty risk means. I learned that yield is never free. I learned that diversification is not just a fancy word people use in finance. I also learned that if something gives you a high APY, you should probably ask where that yield is coming from before getting excited.
At the same time, because I had created my own shortage of cash, I had to learn how to control expenses.
But to cut expenses, you first need to understand them.
So I started tracking everything. I set up Firefly III, which is honestly an amazing tool, and I began recording where my money was going. At the beginning I probably obsessed over it too much, but the habit stayed. Even now, I think it is one of the best financial habits I built in those years.
It changed the way I looked at money. Spending stopped being something vague. I could see patterns. I could see waste. I could see where I was acting automatically.
Books also helped. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and Atomic Habits. I do not think a book magically changes your life, but sometimes it gives words to things you are already starting to feel. Those books pushed me to think more seriously about habits, assets, cash flow, and the way small actions compound over time.
Then came the side hustle phase.
Over the years I tried a lot of things. Referral bonuses, sending SMS for money, random online opportunities, even matched betting, which ended up being a big loss for me. Some of these things worked for a while. Some were funny. Some had their little moment of glory. But in the end, most side hustles either died, became too crowded, or required too much effort for what they paid.
Still, they taught me something. I was saving money. I was experimenting. I was trying to understand how money moves outside of a normal salary.
But there was one big problem: I still did not have a real investment strategy.
I read a lot. I followed people online. I even watched some of those trading gurus who make everything look simple. At some point I probably believed some of that bullshit too. Fortunately, I never paid any of them.
Slowly, I started moving beyond only crypto. I learned about ETF PACs, stocks, P2P lending, borrowing strategies to earn APY, and DeFi. Some of it was interesting. Some of it was risky. Some of it was probably not worth the time. But I kept learning.
Was it worth it?
Yes.
Was it fun?
Sometimes.
Was it always smart?
Definitely not.
But looking back, I do not regret those years. I made mistakes when the amounts were still manageable. I lost money, but not enough to destroy myself. I learned what stress feels like when your portfolio drops. I learned how easy it is to confuse luck with skill. I learned that if you do not have a plan, every new opportunity looks tempting.
And that is where I am now.
I have some savings. I have a bit more experience. University, jobs, internships, people I met, and real life in general have changed the way I think. I am not an expert, but I am not the same naive person who was throwing money into random coins during Covid either.
Now I need a real strategy.
Not a perfect one. Not a strategy that pretends to beat the market every month. Just something clear enough to follow, strong enough to survive emotions, and simple enough to actually apply in real life.
That is the point of this blog.
It is not here to show off returns. It is not here to pretend I know everything. It is a small record of what I am learning, what I am testing, what I get wrong, and what I slowly improve.
More than anything, it is a commitment to myself.
A way to prove that I am not just reading, watching, and thinking about money, but actually applying what I learn.
Because the boring truth is that this stuff compounds. Knowledge compounds. Habits compound. Mistakes compound too, if you ignore them.
Six years in, I am still learning. But at least now I know I need a strategy.