If you could double your income in a couple of years without changing jobs would you do it?

Of course you would, and you're probably thinking this is some get-rich-quick scheme where you hand over all your hard-earned savings to a deposed prince in an obscure African province.

It's no scheme - the Australian College of Financial Education (ACOFE) can show you how to substantially increase your income by becoming a trader on the stock market. To many people, the stock market is a mystery - they think you have to be a brilliant mathematician or a computer geek to understand it and to make money from it.

But Judy, 42, of Buderim, a student of the college, strongly disagrees and is quick to dispel these myths.

"You don't have to be academically brilliant" she says." I'm hopeless at maths and keeping records, but I've been a member of the college for 18 months now and I'm now at the stage where I am living off the income of trading."

Judy's passion is her sport; she spends most of her day training to compete in regional competitions. She's had a number of high-profile jobs in the past and before she joined the college her main problem was that she had a large asset base but not enough income.

"My hobbies and sporting pursuits, were costing me a fortune" she says. When the company she was employed with was hired to design a website for the college Judy became intrigued by the idea of learning to trade in stocks and enrolled as a student. "It was the missing link I was looking for" she says.

The course consists of weekly traders' groups and regular weekend workshops. Students learn how to recognize and analyse trends in the stock market and, very importantly, learn risk management strategies. "They teach you how to cut your losses short and how to reduce your risk so that you're only exposing yourself to a minimum of risk" says Judy. "It's very important to understand your own risk profile."

The traders groups - small informal learning groups are very popular. "There are people from all walks of life, from brick layers to doctors, teachers and stay at home mums. It doesn't matter what profession you're in, everybody's doing the same as you and you're all really motivated."

Judy started trading on the stock market after six months at the College. "I'm getting better and better" she says."For example, I recently bought some shares at 17 cents and sold them for 82 cents."

Once you enroll in the ACOFE you can be a member for life and can continue to attend training and update your knowledge of the stock market for as long as you want. It's not time consuming, many of the students are also in full time employment and you don't have to have a large capital outlay to trade in the stock market.

"Nowadays we're living longer and retiring earlier" says Judy."And a lot of people are dissatisfied with the fact that after, say 20 years, they might only have $20,000 in a super fund and maybe a house. This is one way you can increase your income and gain some financial independence on a long term basis. The good thing about the college is that you learn how to make money in the down times as well as the up times."

Dave Beveridge, the director of ACOFE, says that Judy's success is quite within the reach of the average person. "Judy is a very effective trader and she is typical of the majority of students. People often think it's beyond them but what she is doing is very achievable. "Judy readily agrees that becoming a student at ACOFE and learning to trade on the stock market has changed her life. "It's very satisfying" she says, "but the most important thing is it's given me the freedom to follow my passion and to spend my time doing what I want."