Sarah Davidson
Published November 25, 2025 8:00am
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Lewis says Metro got him out of a dead-end job (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
At 24, Lewis Crompton was working in a dead-end job in London when his boss told him he didn’t ‘deserve’ a pay rise. That day, he made a decision. And it all started with an advert in Metro.
‘I was working on a shop floor earning £19,000 doing a rubbish job which I absolutely hated and when my horrible boss said that to me, I just thought, why am I doing this? I need to change this, now.’
The question was, how?
‘I didn’t actually have a plan until I was reading Metro on my way to work and saw a seminar on how to become a successful property investor advertised,’ says Lewis, now 36 and living in Lincolnshire with his husband.
‘This is it, I thought. So I went along to the introductory workshop but accidentally got the wrong one and ended up learning about day-trading. It was a no brainer for me.’
Lewis went to a training workshop on property investing, but ended up learning about day trading (Picture: Supplied)
Lewis was living in a rented flat share just off the Edgware Road in West London and money was tight. Even so, he was committed to getting his life turned around.
In what he now describes as a ‘bit of a gamble’ he borrowed £9,000 – part loan and part on his credit card – and paid the £8,000 it cost to go on the weekend training course, where he learned about day-trading strategies and how to go about getting started.
‘It was half my annual salary and, yes, it was a risky decision. But it was also definitely worth it,’ he says.
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Previous Page Next Page‘I had some money left which I used to get started. It was hard work doing the research necessary to put those strategies in place and it did take time to get it right. I really did have to put a lot of work into it.’
Lewis began by placing a combination of day trades and swing trades, where he set up instructions to buy and sell foreign exchange securities known as Forex, spread bets and contracts for difference – either in the same day or over a few days or weeks.
Luke had to do financial research out of his work hours to get his investing journey started(Picture: Getty Images)
‘I spent an hour or so in the morning before work analysing the market, reading up on the financial news according to what we’d been taught in training, and then I’d place my trades and head to work.
‘I’ve used various platforms and brokers over the past 12 years doing this, including Trading 212, FXCM and IG Capital – they’re each good for doing different things, depending on what you want.’
It was a bit hairy to start with but after three or four months, Lewis started to see ‘some proper returns’.
What is day trading?
Day trading is the practice in the investing world of buying and selling a ‘financial instrument’ (such as a stock or a share) in the same trading day.
This allows the investor to profit from short-term price movements.
Day traders close all positions, or trading deals, before the market closes, avoiding the risk of holding financial instruments overnight.
Seven months after placing his first trade, Lewis quit his job. And 18 months after taking that £9,000 debt on, he’d paid it off completely.
‘I made a risky decision out of frustration with my circumstances and fear about what my future was looking like if I did nothing,’ he says. ‘It worked.’
Then, aged 26, Lewis decided to try his hand at property.
‘I thought I’d have a go at buying something, doing it up and selling it on. It didn’t work. In fact, investing in property was where I made most of my mistakes and lost most money,’ he admits.
He stuck at it though, buying properties he’d then rent out and building a portfolio of 10 rental properties over six years.
Luke also earns money through the property sector (Picture: Getty Images)
‘To be honest, it was crazy doing property the way I did it – I fell out of love with it fairly quickly.’
Today, Lewis has eight rental properties, having sold some of the less successful ones and concentrating on quality accommodation with a strong yield.
That’s just part of what he does now.
‘In 2019 I set up a company educating other people who wanted to start investing,’ he says.
‘It sort of just snowballed from people asking me to mentor them online and eventually it was big enough to turn it into a business I called StarTrading.’
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He still trades, bringing in around £50,000 to £60,000 a year. A further £50,000 of his annual income comes from property and he has roughly £50,000 in earnings from businesses he’s invested in directly.
It is imperative to do the research before you start investing, says Luke (Picture: Getty Images)
‘The way I’ve done it won’t be for everyone,’ says Lewis. ‘It depends what sort of investor you want to be and it’s vital to learn the skills you need to stay safe day trading.
‘But people think keeping money in cash savings isn’t investing, but it is. The bank is investing that money, then paying you a crap rate of interest and keeping the rest of the profit for themselves.
‘If you’re not someone who wants to take risks, there are lots of other options. Sticking your money into a long-term passive index tracker is probably going to earn you something like 8% a year, compared to less than 4% on cash savings. In my view, everyone should be investing at least something. It’s changed my life.’
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