Proving that life is about balance, just as lockdown is lifted, you get a second article in two weeks from me. Yes, yes, yes, I know it says Chris, but he does all the complicated stuff with the tables, graphics and numbers and leaves me (it’s Ben by the way) to do the painting by numbers stuff. More on this later…
Summary of result for the month
All-in-all May was a reasonable month. We didn’t quite hit our target of £250 for the month, but distractions have been many. Mrs Dave is expecting a baby, Chris has been working like a Trojan and I am just lazy. That said, there has been some positive passive gains which is everything an investor can hope for.
Matched Betting (+£50.85)
The return of the Bundesliga was most welcome and meant that there were a few offers up for grabs. Virgin Bet wasted no time in gubbing me, although I thought it was a little harsh: They sent me a free bet for my birthday, which I duly dispatched and made about £7.50. Lovely jubbly. Two days later, WHAM! “On yer bike, son.” And that was the end of that.
Skybet and Betstars have been quite generous which meant with relatively little effort I racked up some decent numbers with Dave chipping in with the all important £’s to get us over the £50 mark for the month.
The return of the Premier League is, as it was until March, the Golden Goose so will hopefully provide a welcome boost to June’s numbers. Growth of our investments is welcome, but adding more is the name of the game right now. Matched Betting, is still the easiest and most profitable route to do this.
Shares (+£46.67)
Positive momentum in the world’s stock markets meant a welcome capital gain in the value of our holdings. My tracker fund has now increased by over 10% since we bought it, which is excellent growth in a short period of time out of such a low risk investment. We are under no illusion as to the sustainability of this in the medium, let along long term.
Chris spent a few more £ on his investment in keeping with our different approaches (I went at it like a bull in a china shop, Chris chose a more refined approach befitting a gentleman with poise. As for Dave…Chris and I are considering nicking his £550 and spending it ourselves.
Chris added another 2 units to his fund, taking his total to 5…all of which are chugging along nicely, bringing home the bacon.
We’re considering some further investments/an expansion of our share/unit trust/ETF portfolio. The ball has been set rolling, we just have to decide yes/no; I hope to have an update for you by the time we get to next months update.
Cryptocurrency (+£38.95)
What to say about Bitcoin? Has anyone worked out what is going on and why it goes up or down??? A good month in terms of gain, although we are still below our purchase price. The momentum is positive and our investment is heading back towards “0” so let’s hope this is maintained for the next few weeks/months.
I’ve given up trying to understand it as an investment. Every time I look at Apple News there is an article about someone who predicted $1000 bitcoin now predicting $1,000,000 bitcoin or someone who predicted the crash in pork belly pricing is now predicting the demise of bitcoin. None of them know; they are all snake oil salesmen.
Stamps / Kantar (+£27.08)
Some welcome news from Dave was that he actually had more stamps than he thought! Hurrah. This adjustment is reflected in the numbers and includes Dave’s usual £12 worth.
As there was over £250 worth of stamps sitting around doing nothing, we’ve decided to cash in on them, with Dave now selling them on eBay. It’s bringing decent amounts of cash into the bank account and we’ll report back in full when we have fully liquidated with the final value of the sales, relative to the value of the stamps.
Usertesting (+£23.70)
Chris has well and truly found his niche with Usertesting and a favourable exchange rate meant the $30 for the three jobs he did in May will cover the next round of Happy Meals when we can finally meet up again.
Curiously enough, Chris, who is the least Gucci person I know, was asked to review the Gucci website. Confidentiality prevents Chris from revealing any details, but I can only begin to imagine that the poor soul who got Chris’ data had quite a surprise waiting for them.
Surveys (+£14.76)
Last week I wrote about Prolific. Chris and I have been ploughing away with the research, Chris has cashed his in which is the £14.76 we see here. I’ve got a few quid sitting in the account right now (about £50 at the time of writing), which, as I haven’t cashed it in yet, doesn’t show in the accounts. I may well cash it out in June if I hit the magic £100.
Football Index (+£11.61)
Sounds good, doesn’t it? What if I told you that £10 of the £11.61 was courtesy of a welcome bonus? Not quite so impressive, really is it? The actual gain amounts to around 2-3%, so better than having money in the bank earning 0, but nothing stellar, especially when, despite Weenie’s best efforts, I still have no idea how it works.
We’ve made our investment and values of the players we’ve bought is slowly increasing now that football is showing signs of life again, so that’s a positive. I think we’ll just let it run and cash out in a year or so, depending on how things go. As flippant as it sounds, if we lose the £50, we lose the £50, but at very least it gives us something to write about. You can expect a more detailed post on Football Index next week.
Total value of the fund
So, let’s see where all that brings us to at the end of April:
And here’s how that’s grown over time. We seem to be on a consistent trajectory recently.
And, here’s where all of our money is held / invested:
With our £250 a month target for 2020, we would be closing in on a five figure bank balance by the end of the year, which considering what we’ve done is something anyone can do with a standing start, is quite satisfying.
Aims for June
Last month I said we were going to have to decide what we’re going to do with the business. Chris and I had a call about it during May; Dave has his hands full already and the baby isn’t even born yet! We’re keeping him updated with things and he’s giving us feedback and input (a polite way of saying “gives us a clip around the ear”) when we need it.
We decided to make a go of the business, so it’s coming off furlough and will be back up and running in June. Chris, having the skills and the knowhow is going to focus on the business, so to free up his time, I’m going to be taking care of The Money Mountain for at least the next 4 weeks. What could possibly go wrong? You’ll be getting a couple of updates from me in the next week, namely the ever-popular lockdown diary and the Football Index report, this time next week. After that, I’m making it up as I go along.