started with $2500 account. then opened another account at same brokerage with $2k to avoid the day trading restrictions

What brokerage do you use?

td ameritrade. not sure if they still have the same promotion, but when i opened i got the first 60 days of trading commission free. it has definitely made a difference to my bottom line. I also just opened an account with suretrader as well, since td often does not have shares to short.