I scraped together the little money I have and dove into bitcoin. My ambition is to make money trading altcoins and keep a bitcoin reserve. Can I even make it anywhere starting with such a small amount of money?
With that amount you can't make that much of what you are planning to do. That $25 fits with altcoins though but it's better for you to buy bitcoins now and wait for few weeks before seeing the profit. And once you had gained enough then you can start your own trades now with altcoins. There are various of altcoins to choose so you had to start first with those and take time to know what you really want.