Quote from: Merit.s on July 12, 2025, 04:44:40 PM

Quote from: ejikeme24 on July 12, 2025, 04:27:04 PM

Quote from: Gost ms on July 12, 2025, 01:47:10 PM

Quote from: TEBTC on July 12, 2025, 05:46:49 AM

Balancing your financial security is a good thing while investing in Bitcoin because investing in any business whether in crypto or any other business without giving much attention to saving is no a good practice as it will affect your financial stability and emergency fund should be as a matter of fact be compulsory for any individual who is ready to investing in Bitcoin because there are other things that will also need finance so putting all your money inyo Bitcoin accumulation will be harmful because Bitcoin investment is focused on a long term basis

If you focus on one thing, then your other side may suffer. You have to balance all the aspects. For example, along with investing, you can create an emergency fund. If you want to invest $5 and if you don't have an emergency fund, then you can keep $2 for the emergency fund and invest with $3. When your emergency fund is fully formed, you can invest the entire amount that you have allocated for investment. In this way, you have to maintain all your aspects properly. If you stop investing and start creating an emergency fund, then it will not be the right decision at all, you have to keep all the aspects in order.

I think you're misunderstanding the theme (balancing financial security and bitcoin accumulation.) you should know that some person's may not be able to balance all this at same time so for this reason they would have to do it one after the other until they finally gain thier balance, so you don't have to say that if you focus on one thing that is going to affect others, rather it can only delay us from getting started, since they would want to start from building thier emergency funds and thier discretionary funds to enable them get start with their bitcoin accumulation then reserve funds can come later . Because if you try to balance all this at a time you may likely get affected in one way or the other, so I feel that balancing financial security and bitcoin accumulation should be done gradually.

You don't need to build up your emergency funds before you can invest in bitcoin, neither do you need to build your discretionary income to enable you invest in bitcoin. Discretionary income is the extra money after you have taken care of your basic needs and monthly expense. That's the money that is your discretionary income and should be used to invest into bitcoin right away even if you don't have an emergency funds available.

There is no need of waiting and wasting the precious time that you should use to start your bitcoin investment and grow it over time with your regular weekly ongoing DCA overtime. You can share your discretionary income into two part, one your your weekly DCA whenever it's available for 4-10 years and above. The second part should be use to build your emergency funds for at least three months of your income. It will put you in a better place compared to when you are a no coiner and piling up too much of fiat that depreciates overtime. Starting your bitcoin investment should be your priority no matter how little the amount is. Your emergency funds should be your second priority because it serves as backup to your bitcoin investment.

Bitcoin investment is a long-term for the future and the price increases overtime, which makes it very dangerous for you to be waiting as a no coiner. The price does not wait for anyone take for example the price of bitcoin last week and look at it this week. If you wait, you will miss out the opportunity in the market. There is no fun staying poor.

Your example brings out various tensions Merit.s.. and guys could be in a real struggle to figure out how much they might be able to invest into bitcoin.

Let's say that a late 20s guy has an income that is right around $500 to $2,000 per month, but most of the time it is around $1k, and his expenses are usually between $600 and $850, yet most of the time around $750. So really we can say that this guy has a discretionary income that tends to be 25% of his income, yet at the same time, he has irregularities in both his income and his expenses that he already learned that he needs to prepare in advance for such irregularities. He already has gotten into the habit of keeping some extra cash, since he knows that some months he might have situations in which he brings in less income than his expenses, so he knows that it is preferable to have 2-6 weeks worth of expenses on hand.. which as I already mentioned, his largest expenses tend to be $850 for the month.

When he hears about bitcoin, he realizes that he needs to get into it as soon as possible and to develop some kind of an investment plan, yet he does not really have any other investments. He decides that his goal is going to be to take about 50% of his discretionary income to invest into bitcoin, which would be right around 12.5% of his regular income, but he also feels that he is going to have to build his emergency funds up to 3 months before he can really start to become more aggressive in his bitcoin investment. Let's say that he currently has $800 extra cash on hand, so he decides to start to put most of his discretionary income (which he calculates to be $50 per week) into bitcoin for the first 4 months or so until the amount that he invested into bitcoin would equal $800 and then after that he would try to put into his emergency funds and his bitcoin investment at the same rate... And, he is going to look for opportunities to increase his discretionary income by increasing his income and/or by cutting some of his expenses... so after 4 months (perhaps), he is starting to put $30 per week into bitcoin and $30 per week into his emergency funds. Once his emergency funds is up to $2,550 ($850 x 3), then he is planning to invest $60 per week into bitcoin, and he is hoping to figure out ways to increase his discretionary income so that maybe after a year or two, he might be able to work up to investing $100 per week into bitcoin.

The guy has a pretty tight budget and he is being quite aggressive in his bitcoin investment, and maybe if he does not want to be so aggressive, he might continue to invest $30 per week into bitcoin and to slowly reassess and consider if he might need to buffer up his reserve funds and/or other ways he is spending. He might also know that he has some expenses, such as his need to buy a new cell phone or maybe a motorcycle and these will help him in his being able to produce more income and to be more efficient.. so he might want to prioritize certain kinds of expenses that might increase his income or increase his well being so that he can earn more income..

If this particular guy had started out with only $200 in his cash funds (emergency funds), he might have had been better off to build his cash funds and his bitcoin investment at the same time, so instead of starting out by investing $50 per week into bitcoin, he might have had put $30 into bitcoin and $20 into his cashfunds, and yeah, it could take him quite a while to get his cash reserves built up to $2,550 or so, which is 3 months of his worst case expenses... and maybe he decides that $2k in his emergency funds is enough, and he considers anything higher than $2k that is in hs cash funds to be reserve funds (and have flexibility in using them). And, guys can make these kinds of determinations how to treat their funds, and come to realize that their back up funds is helping them to insulate their bitcoin from their life so that they do not have to tap into their bitcoin at a time that is not completely of their own choosing, and he may well want to aim at getting a whole year's of his income into bitcoin, which at the rate that he is investing between $30 to $60 per week, it is going to take him a long time to reach $12k invested into bitcoin... and even if he could get his investment into bitcoin up to $100 per week, it would take him slightly more than 2 years to build his amount invested into bitcoin to equal a whole year's income... and if his income goes up then he might need to consider that, as well... not easy choices, even though guys who are able to increase their income are likely feeling like they have more options as compared with guys who are stuck with little to no discretionary income. This guy should feel good about having $250 per month of discretionary income, even though surely there also could be ways that guys are able to increase their discretionary income, but they might have to spend money in order to be able to do that (such as getting training and experience in other kinds of jobs that pay better incomes).

Quote from: cxtreenal on July 12, 2025, 05:07:49 PM

Quote from: Gost ms on July 12, 2025, 01:47:10 PM

Quote from: TEBTC on July 12, 2025, 05:46:49 AM

Balancing your financial security is a good thing while investing in Bitcoin because investing in any business whether in crypto or any other business without giving much attention to saving is no a good practice as it will affect your financial stability and emergency fund should be as a matter of fact be compulsory for any individual who is ready to investing in Bitcoin because there are other things that will also need finance so putting all your money inyo Bitcoin accumulation will be harmful because Bitcoin investment is focused on a long term basis

If you focus on one thing, then your other side may suffer. You have to balance all the aspects. For example, along with investing, you can create an emergency fund. If you want to invest $5 and if you don't have an emergency fund, then you can keep $2 for the emergency fund and invest with $3. When your emergency fund is fully formed, you can invest the entire amount that you have allocated for investment. In this way, you have to maintain all your aspects properly. If you stop investing and start creating an emergency fund, then it will not be the right decision at all, you have to keep all the aspects in order.

When you start Bitcoin as a beginner, you don't have to worry so much about your emergency fund with long-term investment goals because you are just starting out in Bitcoin investment. You can use the time ahead to build an emergency fund, for example, if your discretionary income is not in a good state (relatively small amount) then you should start saving as much as you feel comfortable with for Bitcoin accumulation. Starting Bitcoin at the beginning may be more fair for your financial situation than building your balance. It is not clear what you actually mean by having a full emergency fund. I think the amount of emergency fund should be enough to meet the daily needs of your family for three months or six months or a year or two years, depending on your financial situation, but if we calculate at a minimum having an emergency fund of three to six months makes more sense to me.

It is not a good idea to be holding more than 6 months in cash, and even 6 months in cash might be too much. Poor people would never invest if they are even building up more than 6 months in cash since they will have to keep adding to the cash because the cash will be losing value faster than you can add to it.

Quote from: yixichloro2xx on July 12, 2025, 09:53:26 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on July 12, 2025, 12:18:56 AM

Quote from: yixichloro2xx on July 11, 2025, 07:42:53 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on July 10, 2025, 11:09:19 PM

[edited out]

This has really opened my eyes, to be honest. I have always been hearing people say, save for emergency, but I never knew there were levels to it like emergency funds, reserve funds, and float..... As someone just starting out, because I used to think that saving a whole years worth was the only way to be safe, but now I see that it is more about balance and knowing your own situation.
‎My income is not that really stable yet, so what you said about not creating your own emergencies by not planning ahead really makes sense..... I still have alot things to figure out, but I am glad I came across your explanations. It really helped clear things up for me.

There are several guys here, including myself, who frequently emphasize learning through experience, which is also one of the reason why so many of us suggest to get started with your bitcoin investment as soon as possible, even if you are only able to start with $10... Once you have some bitcoin, then you will likely be more inspired to keep track of it and also to potentially clear up your cashflow so that you can figure out if you have more money that you can put into bitcoin from time to time, and if you get to a point that you are buying bitcoin every week for months and months or even into several years, you will start to see that the amount of bitcoin that you hold is adding up to a lot of money, and hopefully you are also able to figure out ways to increase your discretionary income by increasing your income and/or cutting your expenses.. which yeah, none of it makes a lot of sense in theory, and it tends to make way more sense when ongoingly practiced and reviewed and figuring out various ways to tweak, whether your investment into bitcoin is every single week or maybe it might end up having to be less frequent based on your own financial circumstances.

I really like how you explained this. I have actually started small, and just holding a little bit already makes me more interested in learning and managing my money better........ I amnot consistent yet, but I am working on it and trying to improve my cashflow so I can stack more over time. Thanks for the motivation....

Each of us likely realize that we can ONLY do so much at a time and within our limits and frequently we might feel that we are not making progress.

There are likely even guys here who have been stacking bitcoin for several years, and who might feel that their progress is slow, yet part of the challenge is to keep stacking even during times that the BTC price is going up... and each person has to figure out how to deal with how to keep stacking and dilemmas regarding the extent to which they might hold some cash in reserves for buying on dips... dips that may or may not end up happening.

Quote from: Shadiq on July 12, 2025, 02:01:46 PM

Quote from: TEBTC on July 12, 2025, 05:46:49 AM

Balancing your financial security is a good thing while investing in Bitcoin because investing in any business whether in crypto or any other business without giving much attention to saving is no a good practice as it will affect your financial stability and emergency fund should be as a matter of fact be compulsory for any individual who is ready to investing in Bitcoin because there are other things that will also need finance so putting all your money inyo Bitcoin accumulation will be harmful because Bitcoin investment is focused on a long term basis

It is clear from your quote that you are not yet familiar with the basic knowledge of Bitcoin investment. Here I will not blame you, but rather suggest you to gain basic knowledge about investment.
Basic knowledge of investment means that you should invest only the amount of money that you can afford to lose. That is, suppose your monthly income is $1000 and your daily expenses are $700. Now the remaining $300 that you have after meeting your daily needs can be called discretionary money which is not very necessary for you. Now you have to find money from that $300 that you can throw away or burn. I am not saying that you should throw it away, rather you should have the mindset of losing that money so that you do not need that money for a long time.

You have to choose the money to invest depending on your situation. Of course, it should be money that is beyond your needs and that you can lose. You have said a bit that investing without focusing on savings is not a good habit. The basic knowledge of investing is to invest with unnecessary money and keep backup funds ready.
I have a thread about the basic knowledge of investing, you can read it if you want. And if you want to read the details of it, you can search AI or Google about the use of points. Long-Term Investment.

Several of the ideas of your thread look good.. I will plan to look at it more closely at some point in the near future...

Quote from: ruykeri on July 12, 2025, 02:07:24 PM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on June 25, 2025, 02:05:49 AM

Surely back up funds can have different categories and even be loosely defined by some individuals, and part of the reason that I like to describe and differentiate three kinds of back up funds is in order to be able to show how they differ from each other, especially for someone who might be having to treat back up funds more seriously, especially if the back up funds might be for the purpose of protecting the bitcoin investment for 4-10 years or longer so that the bitcoin is not tapped into at a time that is not completely of the investor's choosing.
1) emergency funds are the last line of defense - so usually they should be at least for 3 months of expenses in local currency and used only for unexpected increases in expenses and/or decreases in income. Should be promptly replaced as soon as possible if used.
2) reserve funds - can be used for any reasons including emergencies, consumption, buying on dips or whatever reason.. optional whether to replace.. and surely the more erratic a person's income versus expense, then the more justification to keep more reserve funds.
3) floating funds tend to be the extra income that is held until monthly expenses are resolved.. once the monthly expenses are resolved, if there are any floating funds remaining, then those would convert into discretionary income that can be used to invest, consume or to add to back up funds (reserve funds and/or emergency funds)

The way you divided the back up fund into 3 parts is really amazing. I have never thought of it in such a specific way before. You have said that having an emergency fund for 3 months is enough. Yes, I agree with you. Many people want to have an emergency fund for 6 months or 1 year, I don't think it's necessary. It is enough to have an emergency fund for 3 months. If someone, like you said , divides their money into 3 parts and saves it according to the theory of reserve fund and floating fund , then they will be able to continue investing in bitcoin, avoiding all kinds of obstacles in continuous investing, in any kind of situation. Investing in bitcoin consistently is one of the ways to get good feedback in the future. Now I want to know one thing, that is if someone has the mindset that I will invest in bitcoin regularly every month for the next 5 years. So will he fix a specific amount that I will invest 20% of my income in bitcoin ..or will he buy a specific amount of bitcoin regularly….. for example 0.00085 bitcoin can be bought for 100$. Will he fix it that he will buy bitcoin for 100$ or 0.0000085 btc regularly, no matter what the price is.

It tends to be best to attempt to adjust your BTC buying strategy to your income situation, so you could say that you will aim to invest 10% to 20% of your income into bitcoin, yet that might be too vague, so then when you get into the details, you have a certain amount of discretionary income each month, which is the amount of left over money after you have accounted for your expenses, and so within that discretionary income, you could tell yourself (in the beginning) that you are going to invest at least half of it into bitcoin, yet the discretionary income is likely to vary, since some times your income will be higher or lower and other times your expenses might be higher or lower, and in the beginning years, you may well have to make sure that you have some reasonable level of back up funds (emergency funds and reserve funds) to protect your bitcoin investment, and so maybe in the very beginning, you might already have 2-6 weeks of back up funds on hand, and so the amount of extra money that you have is already serving as a kind of emergency fund. You could also tell yourself that you will reassess your approach from time to time, and in the very beginning, you start out a bit more conservative as you are getting used to following your own system that you are creating and trying to figure out if there are areas in which you are making mistakes or where you could improve what you are doing... and as you practice more and more and more, you likely will become more confident in terms of how aggressive you are able to be without overdoing it, so you might even increase your bitcoin investment or find ways to increase your income and to cut some parts of your expenses.

It is o.k. to think about these matters in a variety of ways, yet as you build your own systems, you might realize that it is good to keep a certain amount of money as a cushion all of the time, and surely if your income/expenses are more reliable and simple, then you might not need to keep as much of a cushion as compared with if you have a lot of irregularities in income and/or expenses then you may need to purposefully keep more of a cash cushion. I know when I was younger I used to project my income expenses out 3-6 months, but then as I got older and some of my finances became more complicated, I frequently would have to project my cashflows out 12 to 24 months, and surely the months that are closer are more important to have the specifics correct, and the months that are further out can be a bit loose, but as they get closer, they have to be more specific, and surely the month that we are currently in and/or the upcoming month are the most important of months to make sure that we have enough money and enough of a cushion so our planning of the months in advance can sometimes show us several months in advance the extent to which we might have potential short-falls of cash in the future. .and if we see that we have a potential short fall of cash 4-5 months into the future, we may well be advantaged to make adjustments in our current earnings and/or spending in order to attempt to account for that future short-fall in cash so that it becomes a non-issue and we may well end up addressing it during current times rather than just leaving it and not addressing it in advance.. so then when we get to that point 4-5 months into the future, we may well end up not feeling any stress because we addressed the matter early..

Quote from: Ruttoshi on July 12, 2025, 02:38:32 PM

Quote from: ruykeri on July 12, 2025, 02:07:24 PM

[edited out]

It all depends on your discretionary income and not your income mate. After you have received your monthly income, you are to take out money for your monthly expenses and basic needs. The leftover is your discretionary income, that's is the money that you are yo use part of it and invest in bitcoin.

You cannot buy a fixed unit of bitcoin 0.0000085 because bitcoin price fluctuates. If not, you will put your bitcoin investment at risk because you might invest beyond your discretionary income when the price of bitcoin pumps higher than what you bought. For example if you bought 0,0000085btc at $100 when bitcoin price was at $108k and now that bitcoin price is $117k, if you want to buy the exact quantity, the price will be above $100 which is more than what you budgeted for. At the end since $100 is your discretionary income, it will lead to you selling your bitcoin too early when your basic needs arises because you bought with part of the money for your important needs.

However, having a fixed amount in which you can use to be buying bitcoin weekly from your discretionary income is the best as long as it is an amount that wouldn't put pressure on you. That will enable you continue buying every week consistently and persistently for 4-10 years and above till you reach your bitcoin target. Even at this, there are some weeks that you wouldn't be able to buy with the same amount from your discretionary income due to increase in your monthly expenses. Some times, when your expenses is higher than the initial amount, it will affect your discretionary income which will make you reduce the amount that you will buy for that week and when your monthly needs and expenses his smaller compared to what it use to be, it will increase your discretionary income and you can also increase our DCA amount for that week.

These are all good points as well.