How To Double Income in One Year and Mistakes To Avoid With Stock Investing, Chat With Kostas

Yasi: Welcome to Fast Track podcast Kostas.

Kostas: Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Yasi: I’m very excited that you are here with me and I’m eager to learn more about your personal story, since you know, you have doubled in your incoming a year and you have side hustles, you publish books and how did you make it all happen? So I’m curious to know as well as the audience.

So I’ll start with the first question. How did you double your income in a year? 

Kostas: Yeah, the thing is I decided because I initially was a structural engineer back in the United States. because the field was a pretty much stagnated and I decided that I wanted to utilize my skills in other fields. So I had some friends from structural engineering who switched to data analytics, data science, or social development.

And the salaries are much better. The prospects are much better to grow in this field because it’s like a very in demand field. And they are looking for people with different backgrounds from engineering, statistics, math, and they generally want people with analytical thinking, problem solving skills, a bit coding.

So I added all that mix from my experience. And I did also some online courses. And then I started looking for jobs in that field when I moved back to Europe. And that’s how I got in the data analytics field. I currently work in an insurance company. But this field is like very broad. So as a data analyst, you can work in many way in various types of companies.

For example, you can work in healthcare, you can work in energy company. You can work in marketing companies. Basically any business that wants to utilize data to improve their business relationships, their product, their service, the customer relationships, when they want to get any insights. On their internal processes.

In general, it’s like a very, there are many different types of companies where you can be employed. So that’s how I manage to improve my income by a lot. 

Yasi: Yeah, I know this field is quite in high demand. And when you say you took any, uh, some courses online, did take you a lot of time to transit from one domain to another domain or?

Kostas: Yeah, for me, it was easier because I had done a lot of coding in my master’s degree in California. And I also had an internship with a company where I did some probabilistic analysis. So it’s not that they started from zero and went to data analytics because I had the pretty solid background. So when I decided to switch, I think it took me almost a, let’s say six months, I think.

But, uh, at some point I quit my previous job to focus on the courses full-time and speed it up a bit. So like once I quit my job, I invested all my time on the courses and looking for jobs in data analytics. And then I got the new offer, like three months later. 

Yasi: Okay. Did you have few offers to choose from, or it’s just the one that you wanted?

Kostas: Uh, like the best one was the one I got, because if they were looking for a structure, like it wasn’t the job description. We’re looking for a structural engineer with coding experience. So it was like the perfect fit for me.

Yeah. They were looking, I was looking for them. They were looking for me. So it was a good match because that’s how I didn’t think twice, I just went there and pretty good so far. 

Yasi: What kind of advice would you give it to any other like engineers who would like to also increase their income earning power? 

Kostas: Like for the nine to five aspect and your main job?

I think it’s a pretty good step to just get started with some online courses in statistics, in databases. And data analysis and some tools that you might need to use. For example, I mostly use Excel tools with some advanced tools that they have for that analysis SQL for data basis and Python for coding.

So I think if an engineer manages to utilize these three skills and combines it analytical and problem solving skills, they will have a very good prospects in this field. 

And how much 

Yasi: did you invest in those online courses? 

Kostas: Uh, to be honest, nothing because I mostly took, uh, free courses on Coursera, uh, some online courses on YouTube that I found.

There are many good resources. And I recently uploaded like a small guide with all the free courses that I got online because when I posted that on Twitter, that I switched to data analytics and I got some courses, like I got 50 DMs probably by people asking me, what do I need to do to switch to data analytics.

So just created a small 10 page guide with all the educational resources that they use for statistics, for coding, for data analysis and all these things. And I just upload it on GumRoad for free with all the free courses that anyone can take. I mean, it’s not a, these courses will take you from zero to 100, but they will give you a pretty solid background to just get started, get your first job.

And then once you get more experienced, Uh, you will improve your skills on the job. And then you can ask your company to pay for some more advanced courses. For example, artificial intelligence or neural networks, or more advanced things. I think that’s the best. The best case 

Yasi: I think that’s the most amazing thing is there are so many free resources online.

If you want to put into the effort and time, you can always level up your skills and your ROI in this is basically only since you have zero investment. 

Kostas: Yeah. Everything is profit. 

Yasi: Yeah. And next I want to ask you about, uh, you also started side hustles. So what do you think, who should start a side hustle?

And also why you start a side hustle. 

Kostas: I think anyone should start the side, hustle it, start from there because I think improving your financial situation should be anyone’s goal. The reason I started was because I focused a lot on how to improve my nine to five income. But I mean, it’s it caps at some point you cannot get 50% increases in your salary every year or something. So you need to also to create additional income sources, and use that money to invest it in yourself or invest it in stocks or bonds or cryptocurrency, which is very popular right now, whatever you want and create a cash flow for the future when you want to retire, not when you’re 65 with when maybe you’re in your thirties. Or in your fourth is depending on what your current situation. So in January, I decided to start being active on Twitter and writing about finance, investing stock market history. And in general, provide some guidance to others who want to improve their financial situation.

And then I launched also a newsletter on Substack, basically writing on the same topics. And I also upload it to ebook on Gumroad for like a, basically a guide for beginners who want to get started with financing investing. I’m at the initial stage right now. 

Yasi: where did you learn about all this topics?

Uh, like personal finance topics. And how did you get started into this area? 

Kostas: Uh, yes, it was mostly from like self-education by reading books. I was following some, uh, YouTube accounts that were posting content about these topics, like financial independence, side castles investing. So that gave me some motivation to start reading more books about these topics on how to increase my income, how to invest, how to create multiple new income sources.

And that’s how, like I got the ball rolling because I think once you get into it, it becomes kind of addictive. So you want to do more and more and more because when I started on Twitter, like in January, I had like a goal. Okay. We’ll just write stuff and gain 100 followers by the end of the year. And then I started getting more attention on my profile.

So you said, look, yeah, we’ll maybe start the newsletter. Then I said, okay, maybe I should write a book. And I’m doing that. I have like more things on the pipeline right now. I’m starting cooperating with other people. For example, today I published my first thread, where I had a collaboration with another account.

I wrote the thread and he created a pretty good visual to summarize the thread. So I’m always looking for like more opportunities to network and collaborate. It’s not necessarily always to earn more money, but I think there are also other benefits to that. 

Yasi: Is this from the YouTube videos and online content that got into the idea of a change career and double your income, or it comes after.

Kostas: As a person, I always want to improve myself, but sometimes you don’t know where to get started or you don’t know what options are out there. Because, for example, I didn’t even know that, you know, people were writing their, was the money Twitter as they call it. People write about stokes. People write about investing about e-commerce and all of these things, because I was used to be on Facebook and Instagram, where everyone is posting about what they are eating. When they are going for vacation or what, uh, pictures of their lifestyle content and stuff like that. So I didn’t know that this side of Twitter existed, honestly, I discovered it like probably in December of last year. 

Yasi: Uh huh. That’s pretty fast because in several like few months time you’re active on Twitter, you publish the ebook, you’re collaborating with people. And you still have your nine to five job. 

Kostas: Yes. But the good thing is that they work from home. Uh, so that saves me a lot of time in commuting.

I don’t have to spend time chit chatting in the office kitchen or, you know, just wasting time. So I all these time that I save from working from home and having a flexible schedule, I just invested in my other side hustles. 

Yasi: Yeah. I love that. And then we talk about, uh, personal finance and the money. What is your money philosophy?

How do you manage your own money? 

Kostas: First I try to keep like a very specific budget every month. I tried to pay myself first, which means that once I get my salary. I have a specific amount that they send it to my investment account. And then I spend whatever is left from that because usually people do the other way around.

They spend, they spend, they spend and then whatever is left. If there is anything left, they try to save it or invest it. So I think paying yourself first would be, on the top of my, of my priorities. And then another thing in order to stay in budget is I try to measure the prices of things or services or product, or they want to buy in terms of how much I need to work to earn this amount of money and how much I would earn if I invested this amount of money, instead of spending it on this thing that they want to buy.

So if I think that it’s not worth it, then I just give my money. And invested instead of spending in the, you know, unnecessary purchases 

Yasi: and then how do you invest? What’s your investment philosophy? 

Kostas: Right now because I’m young. So I invest mostly in stocks. I don’t have any bonds and some cryptocurrencies.

And what they do is they basically invest. A specific amount every month in some companies that I intend to hold for many years, my philosophy in investing is just the dollar cost average. Every month they put the same amount. I don’t try to time the market or try to predict what the economy will do six months from now, 12 months from now, because I think that’s a money losing strategy in the long term.

So just put every month, the same amount. And I just let compound, I try not to pay much attention to the news because I think, you know, if you watch, or if you read too much of it, we start getting emotional. We say, Oh, maybe I should sell the stock or buy the stock. And you make emotional decisions that in the end they kept your load.

So I just try to stay calm and invest every mom the same amount. And that’s it. I don’t try to get too much restated or anxious about it. It 

Yasi: reminds me of one of the episodes I did the with millennial money woman. And she mentioned that if every single person just using dollar cost averaging methods and invest like 13 us dollars per day, everyone can become a millionaire currently. 

Kostas: Because if you invest like, and then I think I’m not sure what the exact number, but, uh, the SMP 500 increases about seven to 8%.

Let’s say per year on average.

Yasi: I think the last 10 years as about 13 to 14%.

Kostas: Last 10 years is even more, but okay. Let’s say the historical pick up the last decade only so historical. It’s 8%. If you invest I don’t know $300 or $400 every month, you will be a millionaire guaranteed. I mean, there’s no question asked. 

Yasi: Indeed. The problem is many people might try to react towards news and then some, 

Kostas: yeah, that’s 

the worst thing you can do 99% of the time. It’s just knowing you have to ignore it. 

Yasi: Yeah. It’s, it’s more than the rational thing is also emotional thing that investing is you have to control that emotional side of how your brain reacts to the market 

Kostas: yeah.

I think investing is 80% or. Controlling your emotions and standing about psychology, human behavior and these things not about advanced mathematics or anything like that. 

Yasi: Um, and then what are the most common mistakes do you think people are making when it comes to investing? 

Kostas: One thing I’ve seen for beginners is they just go, you know, instead of taking baby steps, they go straight to trading options.

Or using margin, which, yeah, I have actually a chapter on my book for these, like the scenes of amateurs and like the margin one, I have like a whole page of telling people just don’t do it. Don’t do it. It’s not going to work because you know, sometimes when you invest in the first time the stocks go up and you think you’re a genius, you think, Oh my God, Um, better than Warren buffet because I doubled my income, my investing portfolio in six months, or maybe I should trading margin.

It’s free money. You, you get, you put $10 and you get another 30, 40 from your broker as credit and you can buy more stuff because that’s wonderful. But when the market takes it down there, you get a margin call and then you have to put more money and then that’s the worst position to be in. 

Yasi: Yeah. I know, listen, I talked to Matthias in the another episode is like when the market goes up, you think it’s not because the market is because you are smart.

Yeah. But 

Kostas: when it goes down, you blame the market and capitalism and the wall street and the government. And I don’t know. Yeah, because you even started with GameStop when we saw this Robin hood fiasco, because people were. when the stocks go up, when they go like on a hundred times, they think it’s because they are good investors.

And once it goes down, they think it’s the government and there’s a conspiracy, but it’s just, uh, and that’s another thing that they believe beginners should do is like study history, not just, financial statements of the companies and what companies to buy and what not to buy, but study history and see the patterns.

It was always bubbles and money. And like from the tulip mania or from the South sea company bubble or like, I mean, I’m talking about centuries ago. If you study them, the apartment is exactly the same. Like even Isaac Newton lost his entire fortune in a stock company bubble in the South sea company. And he was one of the most intelligent people of that era. So if you think you’re smarter than him and you’re going to avoid it, then think again. 

Yasi: Have you made some of the mistakes in the past? 

Kostas: Uh, I’m not going to say that they’ve made big mistakes. Most is like companies that they shouldn’t have invested in. And sometimes that made a judgment that they shouldn’t invest in this company then if they’re not to be wrong, but in general, I try to learn from other people’s mistakes.

Yasi: You try not to prove that you can avoid it. Yeah. 

Yeah. I didn’t pay to prove anything to anyone I’m just trying to avoid other people’s mistakes. Because I think as Charlie monger said, like, you don’t have to be very smart, just don’t do what they stupid people do. Does what, what they’re doing, which is trading in margin, trading options, day trading going in and out of stocks all the time.

Kostas: So just avoid that, then you will be fine. 

Yasi: Do you have a financial goal for yourself? 

Kostas: Uh, for myself right now is to just increase my side hustle income. I mean, I’m just getting started now. So my goal long-term would be to create cash flows that can substitute my nine to five job so I can kind of semi-retire and then focus on some other projects, passion projects, or some other activities that I want to go into without the need to have a nine to five job to provide me this salary. 

Yasi: Yeah. So then you are completely free to choose whatever you want to do. 

Kostas: yes, I think for me, it’s more important to have control of your time and your location than just to have, you know, $5 million and go to expensive restaurants or go to very luxurious places and buy luxurious.

I don’t know, designer clothes and stuff. Like not roommates, mostly controlling my time and controlling my location. Yeah. 

Yasi: So actually, it’s your freedom of how you manage your own time, your freedom of where you want to live and stay? Yeah. Ultimate freedom and empowered by financial independence. 

Kostas: Yes, of course.

Yes. Well, of course you need some money coming in every month in order to do that, it also depends on your lifestyle and what your goals are. You don’t have to, you don’t need to have a million dollars. In order to retire. You can do it with much less. 

Yasi: Indeed. And I often have conversations with people.

Like they would have a big, big number in mind. Like I want to achieve that amount of money because I want to have certain lifestyle. But in reality, if you pin down what you want to do in your dream life, you don’t need that much money actually way less. Yeah. 

Kostas: And especially if you have some other income sources apart from your investment portfolio, you can sell, let’s say you write a book, you have a podcast and you get some sponsors.

You can have some extra income just to cover your basic expenses. And then I don’t know if you made a very good investment in stocks and you get a lot of money, then you can go like Asia, you can go, you can buy your dream car and stuff like that. 

Yasi: Talking about talking about the buying cars. And I have several conversations with podcast guests.

Most of the people say the biggest mistakes people are making is buying a very expensive car. When did you not have a big net worth? 

Like I 

Kostas: bought one when I was in the U S and I paid like, I think $5,000. So it was like a seven year old car, it has like some scratch on it, but I didn’t care. I added in some more of my own.

So, you know, there was like, uh, I never, I mean, I’ve never understood why you want to buy something that the moment you get out the door and you put money on you lose 20% of your money in 10 seconds. That’s the worst investment you can make. 

Yasi: Last question to you is, is there anything else that you would like to share with the audience?

Any, uh, like a key takeaway message you want them to, to remember from this conversation? 

Kostas: Uh, that their first goal should be to leverage their nine to five job to increase their skills, improve their skills, increase their main income, create a network because from being in an industry with many professionals, you can create a good network that might be helpful in the long-term and then start creating multiple income sources from whatever side hustles you can get started with.

also invest consistently every month, regardless of what yeah, exactly. Yes. 

If you do the strings, you will be set for life. You don’t have to worry about that. 

Yasi: Just stay the course do not deviate from it. Recently you published your ebook about investing and personal finance for beginners.

Maybe you can tell the audience a little bit about what this book it’s about, and then I will put the link in our show notes. 

Kostas: Yeah, for sure. So it’s like about 110 pages. And it’s a guide for beginners who want to get their finances in order increase their income. I mentioned about how to get started with side hustle, what options there are, from my opinion, probably there are even more from others, how to create a budget, some principles you need to know about.

For example, what your FIRE number, how to calculate using the 4% rule, how you can use compound interest in your favor. What investment options there are. What are the mistakes on beginners to avoid, which is probably the most important, some basic principles to use in your investment journey. And I think for a beginner, it will be a good guide to give them a basis to get started.

Yasi: Yeah, it’s pretty solid. I think, unfortunately, again, we do not learn personal finance, how to manage your money in school. Unless you’re lucky to have like a parents who know this and educate you, but most of the people they don’t. So I think it’s very important that we, when we grow up, we need to consciously looking for information and the knowledge to educate ourselves.

Because at the end of the day, you need to, money is a tool to allow you to have the freedom. Uh, to pursue the life you want, the projects you want and the how to manage the time, the way you like it. So I really highly, highly recommend every single person. If you are a beginner, uh, check out his book, I’ll put in the show notes and what’s a Twitter handle if people want to follow you? 

Kostas: And I also have the same handle for my sub stack. It’s kostasonFIRE and also the same one. Gumroad is gumroad.com/kostaonfire. So it’s easy to find me. 

Yasi: I’ll make sure everything in the show notes and thank you very much for being here today.

And I’m glad to glad to have you share your personal experience to inspire the other people like around your age, the younger generations level up your professional skills, increase your income, learn personal finance and achieve freedom in life. 

Kostas: Exactly. Yeah. Thank you very much.