Given that our last income report was in June, and our blog-posting hasn’t been very regular since then, you’d be forgiven for thinking we might have packed up. I’m pleased to say that’s not the case.
In this income report we’re going to catch up on everything that’s happened since June – it’s fair to say, in flight terminology, that we’ve been experiencing some turbulence. But the main thing, is we’ve kept this bird in the air.
A quick recap
As we all know, the last 6 months have been dominated by the C word – and this is hopefully the last time in this article that I’m going to write the word ‘coronavirus’.
Ben has blogged nicely on his feelings towards it (see last week’s musings on the subject) so it doesn’t need much further special treatment here. Speaking personally, however, this whole crisis has sapped more time, energy and focus than I ever thought possible.
Near the start of the year there were three people in the team I work in, during my day job. For the past 9 months, we’ve been down to just me. It’s not fair, it’s not sustainable, and it has taken a toll on many areas – including my ability to focus on this blog. I’m hoping that 2021 is going to be better work-wise, otherwise I shall be looking at moving on to pastures new.
Dave, meanwhile, has been enjoying the arrival of a new baby earlier this year (his first) and, rightly, he wanted to spend time with her, not letting those precious first moments pass by.
Which leaves, Ben, who has heroically been continuing to keep this thing going – in spite of his own challenges, I’m sure. In between tweeting bitterly about how the leaders of this country have handled this crisis, he’s been hard at work generating the pennies. Genuinely, the man is a hero.
Summary of result for the last 6 months
Considering all of the excuses that I got in above, we’ve made some pretty decent gains over the past 6 months. Here’s how it panned out.
Cryptocurrency (+£1221.62)
We’ve already banned one ‘C-word’ above, but the last 6 months was also about another very good C-word: ‘Cryptocurrency’.
Seven months ago crypto was in the gutter and I vowed never to touch a bitcoin ever again. 6 months later this happened to the value of our portfolio:
The graph is, of course, misleading. There was no steady march from our June valuation up to December – we just didn’t bother recording the value of our portfolio during that time. For the most part, we just forgot it over the past 6 months, until recently when it has absolutely soared in value!
Nobody is more surprised by Bitcoin reaching these dizzy heights than me. Personally, I take a line similar to the Financial Conduct Authority here in the UK who told cryptocurrency investors at the start of January 2021: “prepare to lose the lot” (BBC News link there).
I can personally see no sense in such an enormous valuation for something with so little intrinsic value. But I’m not going to get into that debate again – nor am I going to spend my time railing against a situation which has resulted in us making handsome profits. This is one gift horse not to look in the mouth.
Despite the FCA’s gloom, I can see a scenario where Bitcoin goes higher still. We’ve agreed to stay invested in it, though we have cashed out around £700 of our total £1,800 position, so that we protect some of our gains in the event of a sharp correction.
Those who do wish to speculate on where cryptocurrency is heading from here are warmly welcomed to do it in the comments! Are you holding on? Are you topping up your positions, you crazy buggers?!
Matched Betting (+£772.27)
Mainly driven by Ben, matched betting has been a good source of income over the period. Personally, I don’t see as many good offers as we used to – times are probably not great for the bookies at the moment, either.
But there’s still been ample opportunity to make some money. And Paddy Power were kind enough to send me a free wooly hat, so now I can also keep my head warm as I try to make profits from them.
Surveys (+£587.39)
Thank goodness we discovered Prolific this year. It’s brilliant.
The surveys are unbelievably better than YouGov. They’re all different, usually interesting, and you know exactly how much you’ll be paid and roughly how long it will take. It’s everything a survey site should be. I can’t sing its praises enough.
In fact, I went on just now to see if there was a survey available, and there is. I’ve just been asked a question about whether I’ve ever cried during sex – a bit personal, but I’ll take questions like that over the monotony of YouGov market research any day.
Ben covered Prolific surveys in more detail in this article if you want to check out why we like it.
Other methods of earning from surveys have been Focus Force, and also YouGov – although Dave now swears he will never touch another one of these again in his life after he’s finally cashed out his £50.
Shares (+£203.66)
We continued to invest in shares over the period, and now hold:
- £1,269 of Blackrock Consensus 85 fund
- £712 of VWRL (Vanguard World) ETF
We’re up 16% on our initial investments too, which is no great achievement as that is simply the up-tick we’ve seen in the market in general. Still, it’s nice that we’ve been able to ride it.
Personally, I struggle to justify the current high equity prices, given that I’m seeing major businesses struggling and new reports of high-street brands going out of business ever month.
I do wonder if things are overvalued, but we’re going to continue to carry on and increase our investments over the coming months – to ensure that we put our cash reserves to good use.
eBay (+£20.03)
It has been very quiet for us on eBay. Some people have done really well out of e-commerce during the last 6 months. Not us.
Franky, we haven’t had the time to really get stuck into e-commerce. A missed opportunity? Perhaps, but with everything that’s been going on, it’s hardly a regret.
Other items (+£23.03)
Some quick hits for you here, which don’t really warrant much more discussion.
Old favourite, UserTesting, was good for 3 jobs over the period. Each paid $10 each. I wish I’d had the time to do more.
In 2019 app: BeMyEye was a great little earner. In current conditions, the idea of performing mystery shopping is far less appealing, rendering the app next to useless as a money-maker. It will surely return as the situation improves, but during the last 6 months only £11 has been earned through it.
We decided to cash out and exit Football Index, taking a loss for the period but we took a small gain overall. Ultimately, we didn’t really understand it that well, and it was taking up too much time. In the interest of simplicity, it had to go.
Lastly, our stamps venture dried up. We were earning stamps through doing some market research each month. That has now stopped, so won’t be a feature from now on. A shame, as it was a solid £10 a month.
Total value of the fund
So, let’s see where all that brings us to at the end of December:
And the all-important, motivational progress-over-time chart looks like this – unfortunately we didn’t plot any readings between July and November 2020 because we didn’t have the time (hence the straight line).
And here’s where all of our money is held / invested:
We’ve got quite a lot of cash now, and need to find something to do with it. Expect further investments in shares.
Quite a bit of our money is also tied up in matched betting accounts – but that’s put to regular use funding our stakes each month. So that can stay where it is for the time being.
The thing that we haven’t talked about yet is the money that we invested in a business. The sad news is that we just didn’t have the time to get it off the ground and we took the tough decision to shut it.
Our hearts said that we should keep trying with the business, but our heads said that it was turning a loss; facing difficult trading conditions; and we didn’t have the time to get it going. As in most money-making decisions, our heads won.
Aims for 2021
Absolutely nothing went to plan in 2020 – so you’ll forgive us for being a bit hesitant about setting too many grand objectives for 2021.
All-in, we made some really good money in 2020. We’ve got a good platform to build on in 2021, so we’d simply like to:
- Try to generate an average of £300 per month (that’s a really ambitious target).
- Pursue some new investment ideas so we can put our cash to some use. We’ve got a few ideas, but would welcome your thoughts in the comments!
Finally, we’re hoping 2021 is going to be a better one not only for us here at the money mountain, but for everyone. We’re going to try to post more regularly than we have been – hopefully see you around here more often.