[smwinc]

Yes, if you're still progressing with your learning as a trader, the last thing you want to do is increase your variable/fixed costs.

Let's be real here. Imagine you were jumping out of an aeroplane tomorrow, and you're buying your parachute gear today. Do you go to Wall-Mart, and buy the cheapest brand, super-basic, 'generally works' parachute gear? Or do you get the worlds best, most reliable, safe as possible, gear?

I use TT & CQG. They are both expensive, but I can 100% rely on them. If something goes wrong, I can call someone who knows me personally, to fix it, NOW.

$2,000 / month is a lot of money, but keep it in perspective. It's less than the median salary in many countries. If you are an experienced trader, and making less than the median salary, something is wrong here.

Last night was a very nice day in the markets. I have a backup account with TransAct Futures, and received an email that they were having data outages right on the US Session open.

I was notified 42 minutes later (to be exact) that the TransAct data issues were resolved.

In the space of those 42 minutes, we had a 15 point move up off the open in the S&P e-mini. On 10 contracts, you just paid for nearly 4 months worth of data fees with CQG. Or worse, if you were trading with TransAct data, think about how much you might have lost if you were in a position.

I rarely use anything sophisticated in CQG - I'm paying for reliability.

Like any business, if you are always trying to cut costs, and choose the cheapest option, it WILL come back to bite you.