50 Trades in - A Reflection

Like many new options traders, I initially thought day trading was the route I should take. A good friend of mine who's an ex-Fidelity guy (and has done very well since) suggested I replace basically everything I was thinking about day trading, including the term itself, with options. I'm pretty risk averse and don't have deep pockets, so I worked with my friend to develop an approach designed to mitigate as much risk as reasonably possible. I did a bunch of research ahead of time and paper traded throughout January 2026 before finally pulling the trigger in February. For what it's worth, this has been my system so far: * Highly liquid ETFs - primarily SPY and QQQ * $10-wide put credit spreads * Originally 30+ DTE * One contract per trade for at least my first 30 trades, then gradually increased position size as buying power/experience grew * Generally ≤ .25 delta at entry * Close at or above 60% premium realized More recently, I've tightened that into 40+ DTE, ≤ .20 delta and usually 3 or 5 contracts per position. I've also added an early harvest rule: if a new 40+ DTE position reaches 30%+ profit within its first five trading days, I'll take the profit rather than waiting weeks for theta to accelerate. Then I'll redeploy the buying power if another qualifying setup is available. You can see in the spreadsheet (you may have to zoom - apologies) where I deviated from the system and experimented with debit spreads, iron condors and butterflies. I had some wins and some losses there before ultimately returning to the boring, disciplined approach. Full disclosure: I recognize that a generally flat-to-up market (since February) has been favorable to the strategy, even though we've had some pretty substantial bouts of volatility along the way. Bottom line: so far it's fitting my personality fairly well. I'm mostly posting because I've learned quite a bit from lurking here and figured I'd share what's been working for me so far. I'd also be interested in hearing where more experienced traders see weaknesses in the approach, particularly as I continue increasing contract size.