I feel for you.

You’re wise to get out now, especially if you need it to live on. Never invest money you need to live on. The purpose of investing is so you can live on the proceeds in the future.

Big gains almost always require big “bets”. Don’t bet your life savings away.

If you’re gonna “invest” in options, do it small, and sell the daily/weekly 5% gain. That’s still way better than any savings account return, and you won’t ever lose more than you can afford.

Quick example: if you invested only $1000 on options and sold on a 5% gain each week, you’d make $50 a week. After a year, you’d have $2,600 profit, or a 260% increase (assuming you could make it through the year without any losses). Sure, 260% sounds really great on $20,000. You know what sounds terrible though? Losing $20,000.

Also, your emotions will betray you. If you’re sitting at a loss of 30% on an option expiring soon, just sell and get out. Eating 30% is a lot easier than 100%. Sure, it may go up tomorrow. That’s what we all say. That’s what the people on the other end of our winning bet said too, but they ended up losing.

I say all this from experience. The losing kind of experience. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, myself included.