Forex

Hello Everyone,

Newbie James here - this is my first post I want to say hello and ask for your help.

I will not bore you with my whole sob story, but in the interest of back ground lets say that I lost one really good job; and to keep my head barely above water I am know working two jobs. (80+ hrs a week)
I have some trading experience I have traded options when I thought that might be my way to financial independence (1998) – I had mixed results.
Life would be really good if I could some day work one job again and hopefully one trading at home.
Right now though money is vary tight – I like the idea of fortex trading on news the whole thing really interests me, following basic economic indicators has been an interest of mine anyway I may as well make some money on it.

Any way the advice I would like is this – I will be starting with a very small account to start around $1000 (not yet secured) and I will most likely join one of the pay groups to get my feet wet most likely Diamonds. But that’s down the road in the mean time I would like to play in a practice account and trade using the free signals – In this way I think I can familiarize myself with the mechanics of working an account and get a feel for the movements of the various pairs. In your opinion is this a sound way to get started? Do you have a suggestion as far as what broker to go with on the practice account? I played with one a while back and it was only good for 30days I have read that I am exposing myself stating with such a small account, can I make it starting with $1000?

Thank you for any insight you can give.