📉I lost nearly 90% of my savings, 😭, Here is how I learned from this early mistake and Built Long-Term Wealth

This will be longer than my usual market updates. I'll share how I got into investing, and how the past 14 years led me to financial independence. If you have similar aspirations, make sure to have an uninterrupted 5 minutes - I promise it will be worth it!

👨‍🎓I started investing quite late, in my mid-twenties. I just got my first big-boy corporate job, and after my monthly mortgage payments, I had some extra cash left over at the end of the month.💰

💁‍♂️I had no idea what to do with it. A friend introduced me to the basics of forex💱, and I also invested a lot of money in a single bank🏦 stock in Hungary. It was late 2007, months before the 2008 financial meltdown began. Let's just say, the odds were against me!

❌Naturally, as all beginners, I soon wiped out my forex account, and my confidently chosen bank stock dipped 80%. I was devastated. Defeated. 2 years of my savings went up in smokes. 😢

🛑I believe this is the point where most people close their laptops, call investing a scam, and never have a riskier investment than a savings account.

💪Not Me. I couldn't afford to lose this much. I was determined. I took responsibility and realised, it was me, doing stupid things, playing with fire, and getting burned. I wanted to get back into the game. I believed I could do better. I started saving again, picked up side hustles, and moved to London for better job opportunities.

✅London was the perfect place to learn about investing! A well-paid job helped me save more, and soon I started to experiment with investing again. One evening in 2013, I was sitting on my couch and found this tiny broker, called eToro. Little did I know how life-changing it would become!

Over the years, I improved my investing skills, got promoted at work (=even more savings), moved to the US with my wife, and our nest egg became more and more noticeable. I started to see the power of compounding!

I also got into reading finance blogs (Hello MrMoneyMoustache) and discovered the FIRE movement🔥- Financial Independence, Retire Early.

💹From an investment perspective, the next 10 years were fantastic. Our investments grew steadily🚀. We were living in Hong Kong, when our daughter was born, so we decided it was time to take a break. 👨‍👩‍👧

🔥We moved back to Hungary, and with no job lined up, we had to live off our investments. This was the moment of truth, a true test if we can do it! Just 10 years after I made my very first investments, and lost 90% of it. With patience and discipline, my long-term investing plan showed positive results! Modestly, but we were able to make a living!

😊It was liberating to take time off and do whatever I wanted! Spending time with my newborn daughter, and having the freedom to travel was a dream come true! It is all thanks to investing, not giving up after the first failure, and putting in time and effort to learn the ropes!

🙏In 2023, I got confident enough and applied to the Popular Investor program on eToro. Another life-changing moment! I am now a part of an investment community for over 2 years, and as an added challenge, I am not only responsible for growing my own money but for my copiers' money too. I am grateful for my copiers who are with me on this journey, who truly mean long-term, and growing their accounts with me!

🦘In 2025, I moved to Australia with my family. The FIRE lifestyle is put to the test again. All our living expenses are paid by our investments in one of the most expensive countries, where we have to pay rent, food, healthcare, holidays, everything. To be fair, I do understand that markets fluctuate and results are never guaranteed, so I am planning to grow additional income channels over time.

👉Now, Imagine if you could do something similar! And you don't have to walk this path alone!

👉Imagine you have an expert, who puts you on the right track from the beginning!

👉If I did it, starting from poverty in Eastern Europe, learning everything on my own, I trust others may be able to do the same! If you’re interested in learning how experienced investors approach long-term goals, there are many ways to start developing your own investing plan!

👉You have one more secret weapon you may not be using yet: eToro’s CopyTrader feature lets you automatically mirror the trades of selected investors! Of course, it is never a guarantee, if a Popular investor is losing money, your CopyPortfolio would go down as well.

✅If you are in it for the long term and want to reach your financial goals, just start copying and following me! I am investing my own money, I treat yours the same way! We are in the same boat, and we get the same result, good or bad!

📖Check out my Copier handbook to learn more about my investing principles, and what you can expect! etoro.tw/3WDPHoB

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💚 I'm Gabor Fogarasi - I Don't Work for Money, Money Works for Me.💰

🔄 eToro’s CopyTrader feature lets you automatically mirror my Strategy! 🚀

✅2023 - 54.58%

✅2024 - 54.1%

Gabor Fogarasi @fogi70

eToro Popular Investor 🏦

CISI Level3 Investment Certification

Copy Trading does not amount to investment advice. Your investments value may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.

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