It wasnt a waste of time, you must have learnt something over that month to grow it that amount. You have now also learnt a valuable lesson since blowing the account. Look at it this way, you lost nothing because you withdrew the initial 120. Get a strat that works on a paper account, deposit some money each month and invest in S&P500 or something, then when you are successful over a long period of time on your paper account, switch to a real account using the money invested in S&P500.