My Investments Update – January 2025
Happy New Year! Here’s my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my December 2024 Investments Update here if you like.
I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA. This is the largest investment I hold other than my Bestinvest SIPP (personal pension).
As the screenshot below for the year to date shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £25,513. Last month it stood at £25,822, so that is a fall of £309.
Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £4,103 compared with £4,157 a month ago, a fall of £54. Here is a screen capture showing performance over the year to date.
Finally, at the start of December 2023 I invested £500 in one of Nutmeg’s new thematic portfolios (Resource Transformation). In March I also invested a further £200 from referral bonuses. As you can see from the YTD screen capture below, this portfolio is now worth £798 (rounded up) compared with £818 last month, a fall of £20.
As you will note, following a very good month in November, December saw the value of my Nutmeg investments fall back somewhat. Their overall value dropped by £383 or 1.24% since the start of December. Sadly there was no sign of a Santa rally this year…
Overall, 2024 has still been a good year for my Nutmeg investments though. They are up in value by £4,098 or 15.57% since January 1st 2024.
You can read my full Nutmeg review here. If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last eight years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), Lifetime ISAs and Junior ISAs as well.
Moving on, I also have investments with P2P property investment platform Assetz Exchange. This has now renamed itself as Housemartin. There have been a few other changes as well, so I shall be writing a separate blog post about this soon.
My investments with Housemartin continue to generate steady returns. Housemartin focuses on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. In June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment up to £1,000.
Since I opened my account, my HM portfolio has generated a respectable £225.17 in revenue from rental income. Capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.
At the time of writing, 14 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 2 are breaking even, and the remaining 18 are showing losses. My portfolio of 34 properties is currently showing a net decrease in value of £48.60, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £176.57. That’s still a decent return on my £1,000 and does illustrate the value of P2P property investments for diversifying your portfolio. And it doesn’t hurt that with Housemartin most projects are socially beneficial as well.
The overall fall in capital value of my Housemartin investments is obviously a little disappointing. But it’s important to remember that until/unless I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical, based on the latest price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I’ve reinvested in other HM projects to further diversify my portfolio).
To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of Housemartin as far as i am concerned. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.
- As I noted in this blog post, Housemartin is particularly good if you want to compound your returns by reinvesting rental income. This effectively boosts the interest rate you are receiving. Personally, once I have accrued a minimum of £10 in rental payments, I reinvest this money in either a new HM project or one I have already invested in (thus increasing my holding). Over time, even if I don’t invest any more capital, this will ensure my investment with Housemartin grows at an accelerating rate and becomes more diversified as well.
My investment on Housemartin is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Housemartin and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange/Housemartin here. You can also sign up for an account directly via this link [affiliate]. Bear in mind that, as from this financial year (2024/25), you can open more than one IFISA per year.
In 2022 I set up an account with investment and trading platform eToro, using their popular ‘copy trader’ facility. I chose to invest $500 (then about £412) copying an experienced eToro trader called Aukie2008 (real name Mike Moest).
In January 2023 I added to this with another $500 investment in one of their thematic portfolios, Oil Worldwide. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares.
As you can see from the screen captures below, my original investment totalling $1,022.26 is today worth $1,289.44, an overall increase of $266.98 or 26.14%.
You can read my full review of eToro here. You may also like to check out my more in-depth look at eToro copy trading. I also discussed thematic investing with eToro using Smart Portfolios in this recent post. The latter also reveals why I took the somewhat contrarian step of choosing the oil industry for my first thematic investment with them.
As you can see, my Oil WorldWide investment is showing a modest profit of 5.32%. That’s a bit underwhelming but the portfolio has just been rebalanced by eToro, so hopefully that will improve its performance going forward. The investment team at eToro periodically rebalance all smart portfolios to ensure that the mix of investments remains aligned with the portfolio’s goals, and to take advantage of any new opportunities that may present themselves.
My copy trading investment with Aukie2008 has been doing better, with an overall 23.92% profit. To be fair, I have held the latter investment a bit longer. My Tesla shares, which I bought as an afterthought with a bit of spare cash I had in my account, have done particularly well in recent weeks. If only I had put a bit more money into this!
You might also notice that I have small holdings in Prosus NV, a Dutch internet group, and South Bow, a Canadian energy infrastructure company. To be honest I don’t understand how I acquired these, but I assume they are some sort of bonus I have been awarded. In any event, I am happy to have them in my portfolio!
- eToro also offer the free eToro Money app. This allows you to deposit money to your eToro account without paying any currency conversion fees, saving you up to £5 for every £1,000 you deposit. You can also use the app to withdraw funds from your eToro account instantly to your bank account. I tried this myself and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here. Note that it can also serve as a cryptocurrency wallet, allowing you to send and receive crypto from any other wallet address in the world.
I had two more articles published in December on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is How to Save Money on Rail Fares With Split Ticketing. In this article I discussed a money-saving hack called ‘split ticketing’ that savvy travellers can use to reduce their fare costs, often by a substantial amount. Split ticketing involves breaking a journey into two or more smaller segments, purchasing separate tickets for each segment rather than one through-ticket. In my article I discussed how to apply this method and revealed my favourite split-ticketing app.
Also in December Mouthy Money published my article How to Check and Improve Your Credit Score. In this article I shone a spotlight on a vital aspect of our financial health. Your credit score affects everything from loan approvals to mortgage rates. It’s a measure of how reliably you handle credit and debt, and lenders use it to assess risk. My article reveals everything you need to understand, check and improve your credit score.
As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. If you haven’t checked it out yet, why not get the new year off to a good start by visiting their website. Besides a wide range of interesting articles by me and other writers, currently you can enter a free competition to win one of five copies of How to Retire by Christine Benz.
With flu and other seasonal viruses (although not Covid) currently surging, in Stay Healthy This Winter: The Best Supplements for Cold and Flu Season I set out eight of the best supplements to support your immune system during the colder months. This post was researched and written with the assistance of AI (ChatGPT).
And in My Top Twenty Posts of 2024 I listed the top twenty posts on Pounds and Sense in 2024, based on comments, page-views and social media shares (excluding any posts that are no longer relevant). I hope you will enjoy revisiting these posts, or seeing them for the first time if you are new to PAS.
Lastly, a reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter (or X as we have to call it now). Twitter/X is my number one social media platform and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account on Twitter/X, you are definitely missing out.
- I have also just joined the new BlueSky social media network. My username there is poundsandsense.bsky.social. For the time being at least, Twitter/X will remain my main social media platform, but I will also post details of my latest blog posts, third-party articles and other financial news and resources on BlueSky for those who prefer to follow me there.
That’s all for today. Once again, I should like to wish you a very happy and prosperous new year. As always, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 
Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.
Note also that posts on PAS may include affiliate links. If you click through and perform a qualifying transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or the terms you are offered, but it does help support me in publishing PAS and paying my bills. Thank you!