June was a testing month for us here at TMM. Of the three of us, one was wiped out by the arrival of a new baby (his first – congrats Dave!) and another (Chris) was obliterated by an unprecedented amount of work demanded by his day job.
With both of them proving next to no use, it’s fair to say we needed a hero to save a decent result for the month. Luckily Ben came through in true superhero style to save the day (rumor has it, in cape, underpants and all)!
Summary of result for the month
Ordinarily, the below would be nothing special. But, considering that 95% of the result is solely down to the efforts of just one of us (Ben), this goes down as a cracking result.
Matched Betting (+£161.09)
As we all know, the Premier League is back, offering wall-to-wall football. And that has allowed Ben to get right back into the swing of matched betting, making a handsome profit.
There was some collateral damage, in the form of getting gubbed by Pokerstars, but as the old saying goes: “you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs”. I don’t think that phrase quite fits the analogy, but let’s go with it and move on.
Surveys (+£65.00)
Surveys are back on the radar thanks to the help of Prolific. Ben and Chris are both big fans of this site which seems to offer regular opportunities for making sensible money by completing short surveys.
It’s reliable, reasonably well paid and a million times better in my eyes than the slow grind of trying to crank some cash out of platforms like YouGov. Ben covered Prolific surveys in more detail in this article if you want to check out why we like it.
A healthy return of £65.00 for a month of occasional surveys is really very good going.
Stamps (+£19.81)
I talk about our TNS stamps venture every month. Unlike some parcel companies, this money-maker always delivers.
In addition, over the last two months we’ve been selling our stamps on eBay in order to convert our stash into cold hard cash. That has incurred a little expense, but we were happy to take the hit in order to readjust our portfolio and have our earnings held in a more liquid form so that it’s ready for exploiting any opportunities that come our way.
eBay (+£8.70)
Just the one sale in June, so nothing worth shouting too loud about. But when you consider that the item sold is something that you’d use for a sport specifically prohibited under the current lockdown rules, that’s not bad going.
As lockdown eases, hopefully more sales can be made. There’s at least £100 worth of our stock listed on eBay.
In worse news, we’ve acquired a load of protective face masks. We wanted to shift them on eBay. Sadly, eBay is enforcing a monopoly on the sale of masks on their platform at the moment. If you want some genuine masks cheaper than you can get on eBay then get in touch!
Avoid mask-disasters like the above!
Shares (+£6.13)
Whilst the profit we made isn’t particularly noteworthy, a couple of things are worth calling out here.
First, we bought another 2 shares of the VWRL ETF, taking our total holding of shares up to nearly £1,100. We might be a long way off ‘big boy’ territory, but at least it feels like we’re starting to get out of nappies.
Second, we’ve done nicely out of this so far. Our biggest win has come from Ben deciding to lay down £550 right at the start of the financial crisis, and that has helped power us to an overall 8% gain on our investments to date.
Thirdly, we received our first dividend! It might only be £1.52, but it felt much more significant than that. There’s something psychologically brilliant about a little bit of cash coming in on your shares. Here’s hoping for much more of the same in future!
Football Index (-£1.67)
Although the football season resumed, our football index portfolio hasn’t really got going. We made a moderate loss but it’s not much to get excited about either way.
It’s fair to say we know about as much about how this thing works than Jose Mourinho knows about playing sexy football. Yes, the three of us support Spurs – it’s looking like a tough run-in to the season for us.
Cryptocurrency (+£20.36)
The past two months had been excellent, so it was a long-shot to hope for the run continuing for a third month. Our gains scaled back a bit and it looks like Bitcoin has stabilised for the time being.
None of us are sure where Bitcoin is heading next, but it certainly keeps things interesting (and volatile). If you’ve got any wild predictions about Bitcoin, we’d love to hear them.
Total value of the fund
So, let’s see where all that brings us to at the end of June:
And the all-important, motivational progress-over-time chart looks like this – you could almost draw this year’s progress with a ruler – we’ve been so consistent:
And, here’s where all of our money is held / invested:
Last month stamps were 2.8% of the portfolio and that’s now down to 1%. Stocks and shares were 16.8% and are now up to 18.6%. The value of the ‘other’ piece has grown as we have started to accumulate profits in our matched betting accounts. At some point this will need transferring to our bank account.
Aims for July
It’s a simple one. No grand plans: Dave and Chris have just got to try to get back on the horse again and provide some assistance to Ben, who carried us single-handedly this month.
If we’re to hit our target of £250 per month then we’re going to need to dig a little deeper.
Hope you’re all doing well – feel free to let us know how June went for you in the comments below.