Hello Friend,

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Need some serious mentoring and advice

Bingo-Player

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first time I've posted in this part of the forum , but theres clearly some well educated and intelligent people that have been round the block on this board so i need some career & business advice

ok so at the moment im 22 working in public finance , I've been doing this for around 4 years now

i don't exactly love it but on the other hand neither do i hate getting up in the morning and going to work

my job provides a fairly average wage and is cushy , so cushy i could sit there for the next 20 years without a care in the world rotting away ,its needless to say that career progression is as slow as grass growing

this isn't me , i have something inside me that burns to be important ....i want to be heading extremely important board meetings , i want people to ask my opinion on stuff , i want my skills to be recognised and commended

none of this is going to happen in my job at the moment because to be quite frank , nobody cares

i don't just want to be a shadow in the background for the rest of my life

the problem is i don't actually know what i want to do , i know i don't want to become a fully fledged accountant thats for sure

i enjoy the theoretical side of finance and I'm pretty good at it , but working out all the tedious equations and functions is just too boring for me .....

this is a list of stuff I'm good at if anyone has any ideas for something i would be good at

organising

memorising

strategising

planning

explaining

manipulating

negotiating


i really don't know what to do with my life at the moment so any advice would be much appreciated , i guess my biggest question is if you could could go back to your early 20's what would you do ?
 

Bible_Belt

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Have you taken any college classes? It sounds like you would be able to work at your job and go to night school at the same time. Obviously, there is a lot of degree inflation right now, so you have to pick your courses and major wisely. But if you do so, and you keep working, I think you'll come out ahead.

If it were me, I would save every penny from work and invest it in a trading account of some sort, but mostly that's because of my background in the stock market. All you need is a thousand bucks or so to start plinking around with e-mini futures or low-priced stocks (stick to exchange-listed securities, not penny stocks). Be prepared to lose money. At first, you will hemorrhage money. Your friends and family will think you have a gambling addiction. The odds are against you, but I think with years of discipline, most people can do ok. But most people don't want to be a failure at something for years before they get good at it.
 

dasein

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More information needed. When you say public finance, are you working for government? or at a private sector firm that consults or similar? Need specific detail about your job, as much as you are comfortable talking about. At 22, literally every single door is still open to you, don't worry too much about wasting away for years at 22 LOL... GET EXPERIENCE... BUILD NETWORK. Sometimes, dead end govt type or other jobs can be absolutely incredible for getting into the private sector if you stick with it a few years. A rolodex full of friendly government contacts and knowledge of how bureaucracies work can be an excellent way to start a career.

Bible Belt, I love your posts, but disagree in this case. Trying to make a living trading is suitable for about .5% of the male population, .0001% of the female population.
 

Bingo-Player

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@mauser69

Have thought about this but don’t have anywhere near the amount of self discipline to start and finish a degree


@bible_belt – yes im currently studying AAT ,halfway through the second year at the moment not exactly enjoying it though and definitely won’t be going on to ACCA or a likewise qualification

I have £1200 in stocks already , currently invested in

QPP
&
TRP

(Both on the lse)

i am bleeding money on these already lol but hoping these shares will recover eventually and i now have a good operating of the stock exchange so i figure it was a good shout for the long run


Dasien – yea local government finance , i guess your right in the sense there are great opportunities to make contact with figures of power in the community and i would be able to use this to my advantage if i was planning on staying within the county im working in for the rest of my life

Problem is i am not ,

im not afraid to travel and i want to get out of here sooner rather than later

You say not to worry about wasting away and just gaining experience and knowledge at 22 but to be honest i have already extracted every ounce of experience and knowledge from my role and even a few other peoples

I am now at the point where i can complete my “days work” within 2 hours and spend the remaining 7 browsing the internet making coffee and posting on SS

Sounds like fun ? , not when your doing it 5 days a week
 

Bible_Belt

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I still say keep your job, and work on plan B at the same time. You can either invest in your own education and skills, or work on building a side business of some sort. The job will pay your bills while that's happening.

I'm glad to see you interested in stocks. Just fyi, though, "buy and pray" is not trading. There's a lot more to it than that.

If seasoned fund managers with access to significant amounts of information can't beat the market your probably won't either.

I've heard that a lot. I think the large brokerages tout that point for the sake of their own business.

It's actually much easier to get a higher percentage return with a smaller account. Fund managers have to take such huge positions, that it really limits their choices in stocks. They have to stick to the most liquid securities. For example, if I were to buy a $5 stock, my measly 100-1000 shares is not going to move the stock. But if I were a fund manager, I would have to buy 100,000 shares or more. That much volume would move the price of the stock up as I was trying to buy it. If it started to go down, it would be even harder to get out.

A mutual fund is like an aircraft carrier. It's a big, slow, hulking thing, and that's really what limits its percentage returns. The same fund managers who earn 10% annually could earn 100% if you gave them a smaller account. But 10% of a billion dollars is a lot more money than they would make by doubling a small account.

And I'm not trying to tell anyone that they should be a trader. I'm just saying it's not impossible. If your bills are paid and you've got a little money to lose, it's not a bad time to learn.
 

dasein

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Bingo-Player said:
Dasien – yea local government finance , i guess your right in the sense there are great opportunities to make contact with figures of power in the community and i would be able to use this to my advantage if i was planning on staying within the county im working in for the rest of my life Problem is i am not , im not afraid to travel and i want to get out of here sooner rather than later
In this case, a couple of suggestions.

1. Pick where you want to live and go live there for a long haul. Spend that free time at work figuring out where and why, visit different places. Do enough research to make a 10-20 year commitment to your choice. Don't move until you can make that commitment and once you have moved stay put. Travel, sure, but no more big moves unless truly outrageous circumstances. One mistake I made young was moving around too much. It does you no good in the long term and will burn you out.

2. Get out of government work. That type of work is mostly window dressing over welfare today, with many people, mostly women, getting overpaid for doing little real work.

3. Other than that, there's not a lot of help folks can give you here without knowing you personally. Start building a network of dependable contacts once you move and offer them value whenever you can.
 

Bingo-Player

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Thanks for your input guys , realistically im not in a strong financial position at the moment to be able to make any drastic moves in my life anyway

I know i like organising and negotiating with people so im going to look at some jobs that revolving around that

Guess i need to start filling up some of this spare time ive got in the days aswell , might start blogging
 

Tenacity

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Bingo,

So you work in Public Finance right now, I would assume routine administrative related work, correct? You DON'T want to become an Accountant/CPA, because you believe that type of work is boring? What you DO want to do, is something that will give you a lot of attention, enough attention to the point where people ask for your opinion on matters?

For one, to think that being a CPA won't accomplish your "important contributions to the world" goal is a little off the mark. Right now you have the experience on the administrative side of Finance and through picking up perhaps a Bachelor's in Accounting then sitting for all four parts of the CPA Exam, you can be working in some pretty solid Government roles in perhaps Audit, Tax, or general Accounting related work (bookkeeping, financial statement compilations, etc.)

You mentioned that the things you are good at include organization, memorization, strategic planning, "manipulating" and negotiating.

My recommendation is that you stay in the Finance/Accounting/Banking world. For one, you already have ground-level experience in the field from a holistic point of view, and two, what you say you are good at are all skills needed within the industry. You can do a variety of roles in the Finance/Accounting/Banking world, I would suggest you research the different roles and see which one(s) would work for you. You have a number of choices from the Accounting/Auditing side, the Retail Banking side, Commercial Finance side, Public Finance side, Personal Finance side, etc.

I myself work in Commercial Finance, I have an MBA with three bachelor's degrees in Accounting, Business Management and Journalism. I was going to sit for the CPA Exam just to grab the license to slap after my name, but the preparation for it was eating WAY too much into my work schedule and I had to put it off to the side. I can though, however, go and finish taking the CPA Exam portions anytime I want because I'm still a CPA Exam Candidate and my CPA Excel Review Course never expires.
 

Bingo-Player

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hi tenacity

yea i agree i probably will stay within in the financial world now ,i just don't think i can do it within public finance

I've been looking this week at personal finance and mortgage advice ,but obviously my employer would have no interest in supporting me in that as it offers no benefit to my current role

gonna start looking at new jobs this week
 

Bible_Belt

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personal finance and mortgage advice

I don't know about the UK, but in the US most of those jobs would be sales positions. I have had a lot of them over the years. I've sold stocks, retirement plans, annuities, insurance, and also worked as a mortgage broker. All of them are the same job - find someone with money and get it.

Once again, all I know is how it works in the US, but mortgages originate with salespeople, and the next step is underwriting. Underwriters are salaried employees. Their job is to look over the loan to make sure the bank is not making a bad decision in lending the money. I also dealt with a lot of title companies. They did research on the title history of the property and issued insurance against a previous claim holder suing you to claim they were the rightful owner of the land and not you. Insurance adjuster is another similar job. You review insurance claims to make sure there is no fraud and the amount issued is appropriate.
 

Bingo-Player

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Sounds interesting.......... How did that work out for you then bible_belt ?
 

Bible_Belt

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Those were all jobs I had in Florida, before I moved back to Illinois. The mortgage company I worked for was owned by a stock trading buddy of mine. He's been doing home loans since the 1980s. He still does very well, five figures every month. I've seen him have a $30k month. He makes the most money off the people with the worst credit. He's good at cleaning up bad credit and getting underwriters to approve the loan.
 
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