My Investments Update – July 2024

Nick Investing reviews, events 0 Comments

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. Note that this month due to other commitments I am publishing this post a few days early. You can read my June 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 £24,250. Last month it stood at £23,744, so that is an increase of £506.

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,911 compared with £3,808 a month ago, a rise of £103. 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 ‘Refer a Friend’ bonuses. As you can see from the screen capture below, this portfolio is now worth £772 compared with £766 last month, a small rise of £6.

As you can see from the charts, June was generally a decent month for my Nutmeg investments. Their overall value has risen by £615 or 2.18% since the start of June. They are also up by £2,618 or 9.95% in the six months since the start of the year.

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.

• You may like to note that I am no longer an affiliate for Nutmeg. That means you won’t find any affiliate links in my review (or anywhere else on PAS). And you will no longer see the no-fees-for-six-months offer I used to be able to promote as an affiliate. However, the better news is that you can still get six months free of any management fees by registering with Nutmeg via my Refer a Friend link. I will receive a gift voucher if you do this, which is duly appreciated 

Don’t forget, also, that the new tax year began on 6 April 2024 and and you now have a whole new £20,000 tax-free ISA allowance for 2024/25. In a change to the rules, you can now open any number of ISAs with different providers in the same tax year, as long as you don’t exceed your overall £20,000 allowance. So opening a stocks and shares ISA with Nutmeg won’t prevent you from also opening one with another S&S ISA provider (should you so wish) later in the financial year.

Moving on, I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £833 invested with them in 7 different projects paying interest rates averaging around 7%. I also have £540 in my Kuflink cash account after another loan was recently repaid. I am still considering whether to reinvest this money with Kuflink or withdraw it and invest the money elsewhere.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean that the option to test the water with a small first investment has been removed. It also makes it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to five years. Interest rates range from 7% to around 10%, depending on the length of term you choose. Full up-to-date details can be found on the Kuflink website.

You can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual ISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing 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 AE portfolio has generated a respectable £188.95 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 12 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 2 are breaking even, and the remaining 16 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £32.84, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £156.11. 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 Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

The overall fall in capital value of my AE 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 most recent 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 AE 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 AE as far as i am concerned (especially after Kuflink raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

• As I noted in this recent post, Assetz Exchange 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 AE 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 AE grows at an accelerating rate and becomes more diversified as well.

My investment on Assetz Exchange 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 Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate]. Note 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 $1,288.64 an overall increase of $266.38 or 26.06%.

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 just under 12% profit. That’s okay but not spectacular. Obviously my copy trading investment with Aukie2008 has been doing better. The Oil WorldWide port is currently being rebalanced by eToro, so I am hoping this may boost its performance. 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.

• 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 three more articles published in June on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is How to Save Money on Your Purchases by Haggling. In this I set out a range of tips for saving money by haggling. As I say in the article, you might think this is an ancient practice reserved for bustling bazaars or flea markets in distant lands. But it’s actually a skill that can serve you well in everyday life, even in the modern shopping landscape of the UK.

Also in Mouthy Money last month I revealed How to Cash in on Your Old Gadgets. In this article I described various ways you may be able make money from your old tech (mobile phones, tablets, cameras, satnavs, games consoles, and so on) even if – in some cases – it’s no longer working.

My third article in Mouthy Money in June was Could You Save Money With Home Wind Power? In this article I looked at home wind turbines – what they are, how they work, and the pros and cons of installing one. I also revealed an alternative way of saving money through wind power by investing in a wind farm with Ripple Energy (something I have done myself – see below).

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. From the wide range of articles published in June, I particularly enjoyed Things We Can Learn From Other Countries About Money by MM’s editor, Edmund Greaves. Ed has lived and worked in various countries around the world, from Argentina to South Africa. He has some eye-opening observations about attitudes to money in these different countries and what we in Britain can learn from them.

I also published several posts on Pounds and Sense in June. Some are no longer relevant due to closing dates having passed, but I have listed the others below.

In How to Ensure You Can Cast Your Vote in the General Election, I set out some tips to ensure you are able to cast your vote in the General Election on 4th July 2024. Among other things, I highlighted some issues that older people may face. I also discussed the requirement to bring some form of photo ID to the polling station with you.

Also in June I published How to Protect Your Savings and Investments Under a Labour Government. With the likelihood of this increasing, in this post I set out some hints and tips to help preserve your assets in light of the tax and other economic changes that Labour may introduce. Of course, many of these tips would apply equally to a new government of any persuasion in these challenging times.

Another post was my Review of the New Trading 212 Cash ISA. This new product from the popular Trading 212 platform has been generating a lot of interest, so in this post I took a closer look, setting out the pros and cons as I see them. I also explained why I have opened a Trading 212 Cash ISA myself

A little to my surprise, Trading 212 also reopened their free share offer last month, so I updated and republished my blog post Get a Free Share Worth Up to £100 With Trading 212. This explains how, if you haven’t done so already, you can get a free share when you open a new Invest or Stocks ISA with Trading 212. Note that opening a Cash ISA alone will not qualify you for a free share, but of course you can do both. My advice is to start by opening a Stocks ISA or (non-ISA) Invest account to qualify for your free share, and apply for the Cash ISA after that.

Finally, I published Could You Benefit From Help to Save? This is a government-backed savings account that offers a generous bonus to low-income earners. Launched in September 2018, it aims to encourage regular savings by offering a 50% bonus on the amount saved over four years. There are no age limits to apply, but you must be in receipt of one of three work-related benefits. See my blog post for more information.

Next, a few odds and ends. Last time I mentioned that I recently invested some money (just over £1,000) in a Scottish wind farm project via a platform called Ripple Energy. The way this works is that you pay a one-off fee towards building the wind farm, and in exchange receive lower-cost, ‘green’ electricity once the wind farm is up and running. This will continue for the life of the wind farm (an estimated 20 years). The original closing date for this was the end of May, but the date was extended and the share offer is still open at the time of writing.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can visit the Ripple website via my referral link. If you then decide to invest yourself, you will get a £25 bonus credited to your account when generation starts (and so will I). Note that you will need to invest a minimum of £1,000 to qualify for the £25 bonus, but you can invest from as little as £25 if you like.

Also as mentioned last time, I recently invested a small amount (£500) via a property loan investment platform called Crowdstacker. I have followed Crowdstacker for some time but never got around to investing with them. They are somewhat similar to Kuflink, but their minimum investment per project is lower (just £100) which makes building a diversified portfolio easier. In addition, rates of return are higher, typically 12% to 16%. Obviously higher returns are generally associated with higher risks, and it’s important to bear this in mind when investing – though as all loans are secured against property, you do have some protection. All investments are available in the form of a tax-free IFISA within your overall £20,000 annual ISA allowance.

Crowdstacker doesn’t have a referral programme as far as I know, so I am just sharing this info out of interest. If anyone has any questions or comments about Crowdstacker, feel free to leave them below as usual.

Finally, my usual reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter/X. Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today, except to remind you to get out and vote on 4th July. I know apathy holds sway across large parts of the country right now, but unless you cast your vote in the general election you can’t really complain about how things turn out subsequently!

As always, if you have any comments or queries, 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!

My Investments Update – May 2024

Nick Investing events, reviews 1 Comment

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my April 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 £23,502. Last month it stood at £23,859, so that is a fall of £357.

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,760 (rounded up) compared with £3,781 a month ago, a fall of £21. 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 ‘Refer a Friend’ bonuses. As you can see from the screen capture below, this portfolio is now worth £755 compared with £759 last month, a small decrease of £4.

It’s obviously a little disappointing that the value of my Nutmeg investments has fallen a bit this month. This is entirely to be expected with investments, however, where ups and downs are the norm. It’s also worth observing that their overall value has risen by £1,392 or 5.29% since the start of the year (not counting the £200 bonus I invested in my thematic portfolio in March).

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.

• Don’t forget, the new tax year began on 6 April 2024 and and you now have a whole new £20,000 tax-free ISA allowance for 2024/25!

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £1,570 invested with them in 10 different projects paying interest rates averaging around 7%. I also have £14 in my Kuflink cash account.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean that the option to test the water with a small first investment has been removed. It also makes it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to five years. Interest rates range from 7% to around 10%, depending on the length of term you choose. Full up-to-date details can be found on the Kuflink website.

You can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual ISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing 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 AE portfolio has generated a respectable £179.53 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 10 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 3 are breaking even, and the remaining 16 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £38.96, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £140.57. 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 Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

The overall fall in capital value of my AE 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 most recent 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 AE 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 AE as far as i am concerned (especially after Kuflink raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

• As I noted in this recent post, Assetz Exchange 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 AE 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 AE grows at an accelerating rate and becomes more diversified as well.

My investment on Assetz Exchange 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 Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

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 $1,275.17, an overall increase of $252.91 or 24.74%.

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.

• 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 April on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is What Is Thematic Investing and Is It For You? In this article I looked at the pros and cons of thematic investing. My editor at Mouthy Money edited the article to remove the specific examples I gave, in case this was construed as personal financial advice. As a consequence the published article is a bit shorter and vaguer than I intended! However, readers of PAS will know that I have thematic investments with Nutmeg and eToro. So far – as mentioned earlier – both have been doing well, but of course there are no guarantees this will continue in future. Thematic investing isn’t for everyone, so take a look at this article, read about the pros and cons, and see if you think it might have a place in your portfolio.

Also in April Mouthy Money published How to Avoid Becoming a Telephone Scam Victim. In this article I set out some tips and advice to avoid falling victim to phone scams. As with online scams, which I discussed in another recent article on Mouthy Money, telephone scams have become an unfortunate reality of daily life in the UK. It’s important to be aware of the risk, and to ensure that any elderly friends and relatives who might be particularly vulnerable don’t fall for them.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I am a particular fan of my fellow MM contributor and money blogger Shoestring Jane. She writes mainly about money saving and frugal living. Her latest article Eight Ways to be More Mindful With Your Money sets out various ways you may be able to save money relatively painlessly by adopting a more frugal mindset. You can see all of Jane’s articles for Mouthy Money via this web page.

I also published several posts on Pounds and Sense in April. I won’t bother mentioning those that are no longer relevant now, but the others are listed below.

In Why Now Could Be the Ideal Time to Take Advantage of Your New Tax-Free ISA Allowance I pointed out that (other things being equal) the start of a new tax year is the perfect time to invest in a new ISA. The main reason for this is that the sooner you invest, the more time there is for the power of compounding to start working. There are other good reasons as well for investing now – read the article for more details 🙂

I also published two sponsored guest posts in April. Sponsored posts help pay my bills, but I only accept those that I feel offer genuine value and interest to PAS readers.

Six Tips for Getting Free Stuff Without Dealing With Scams has some good tips for getting valuable freebies online without opening yourself up to a torrent of spam. And Seven Top Money-Saving Websites for Freebies sets out seven websites where you can apply for (genuine) freebies. Understandably my sponsors didn’t want me to link to all the sites as well as the one they were actually promoting, but you should find them easily enough with a little help from Google.

Finally, I posted My Review of the Simba Hybrid Mattress Topper. This is obviously another sponsored post, although in this case I received a free item to review rather than being paid for it. As you will see, this offer came at an opportune time for me. I was genuinely impressed with the Simba Hybrid Mattress Topper, even though it took a bit of  effort to get it up the stairs and onto my bed!

Also this year I became a regular contributor to the Over 60s Discounts website. You can read my latest article here: Could You Claim Attendance Allowance? As you will gather, this is all about this invaluable benefit for older people with care needs. It’s estimated that over three million people are eligible for this benefit but not claiming it. Read this article to discover if it’s something you – or an elderly friend/relative – would be qualified to apply for.

I highly recommend registering at Over 60s Discounts, by the way – they list a growing range of discounts and bonuses for older people, including some that are unique to O60D.

Also in April I enjoyed a short break on the beautiful Isle of Man (see cover image). It was the first time I had visited the island, and in fact the first time I had been anywhere by plane since Covid.

I had a great time, with wall-to-wall sunshine until my last day when I was going home anyway. It was a heritage-railway-themed holiday, so I got to ride on the island’s steam and electric trains, and also travelled on buses between towns not served by the railways. The trip was arranged by Newmarket Holidays, and I do recommend this if you are new to the IOM and want a well-organised introductory tour covering all the main places of interest (with a heritage-railway bias, obviously). I will aim to post a fuller review of my Isle of Man holiday on PAS soon.

• The one downside to the trip was the chaos on my outward journey from Birmingham Airport. There is loads of building work going on there and, coupled with an apparent shortage of staff, this caused massive queues and delays. Although I arrived before the check-in opened, it took me almost two hours to get through security. By then it was the final call for boarding, so I had to do a mad dash to the gate to avoid missing my flight. There are posters up at the airport saying that all this work will result in a better experience for passengers, but I’ll believe that when I see it. Currently I don’t recommend flying from Birmingham if you can possibly avoid it.

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter/X. Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today. As always, if you have any comments or queries, feel free to leave them below. I am always delighted to hear from PAS readers 

The cover photo, taken by me, shows an Isle of Man Steam Railway train arriving at Port Erin station. 

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!

My Investments Update – April 2024

Nick Investing events, reviews 0 Comments

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my March 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 £23,859. Last month it stood at £22,994 so that is a welcome increase of £865.

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,781 compared with £3,640 a month ago, a rise of £141. 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). As you can see from the screen capture below, this is now worth £759 compared with £530 last month, an increase of £229 since last month.

I should though say that £200 of this is ‘new money’. This came from a ‘Refer a Friend’ bonus, which I decided to pay into this pot rather than withdrawing. So if you disregard that, this portfolio has actually risen in value by £29 since last month.

March was obviously another good month for my Nutmeg investments. Overall – and disregarding the £200 RAF bonus – I was up £1,035 or 3.55%. And since the start of the year (again disregarding the £200 RAF bonus in March) I am up by £1,882 or 7.15%. In these turbulent times I am more than happy with that.

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.

• Don’t forget, the current tax year ends on 5 April 2024 and after that the 2023/24 tax-free ISA allowance of £20,000 will be gone forever. But the good news is that you will then have a whole new £20,000 ISA allowance for 2024/25!

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £1,570 invested with them in 10 different projects paying interest rates averaging around 7%. I also have £14 in my Kuflink cash account.

To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question.

There is now an initial minimum investment of £1,000 and a minimum investment per project of £500. Kuflink say they are doing this to streamline their operation and minimize costs. I can understand that, though it does mean that the option to test the water with a small first investment has been removed. It also makes it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget.

One possible way around this is to invest using Kuflink’s Auto/IFISA facility. Your money here is automatically invested across a basket of loans over a period from one to five years. Interest rates range from 7% to around 10%, depending on the length of term you choose. Full up-to-date details can be found on the Kuflink website.

You can invest tax-free in a Kuflink Auto IFISA. Or if you have already used your annual iFISA allowance elsewhere, you can invest via a taxable Auto account. You can read my full Kuflink review here if you wish.

Moving on, my Assetz Exchange investments continue to generate steady returns. Regular readers will know that this is a P2P property investment platform focusing 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 AE portfolio has generated a respectable £173.90 in revenue from rental income. As I said in last month’s update, capital growth has slowed, though, in line with UK property values generally.

At the time of writing, 8 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 7 are breaking even, and the remaining 14 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £35.05, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £138.85. 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 Assetz Exchange most projects are socially beneficial as well.

The overall fall in capital value of my AE 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 most recent 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 AE 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 AE as far as i am concerned (especially now that Kuflink have raised their minimum investment per project to £500). You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

• As I noted in this recent post, Assetz Exchange 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 AE 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 AE grows at an accelerating rate and becomes more diversified as well.

My investment on Assetz Exchange 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 Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

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 $1,303.49, an overall increase of $281.23 or 27.51%.

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.

• 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 March on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first is Saving versus Investing – What’s the Difference and Why You Should Do Both. People often get confused between saving and investing, and it doesn’t help that the words are sometimes used loosely and interchangeably. In reality, though, there is a clear difference between them. In this article I explain why saving should always be your first priority, but ideally you should do both.

Also in March Mouthy Money published my article Are Solar Panels Still Worthwhile? As you probably know, solar PV panels generate electricity from sunlight. Growing numbers of homeowners (me included) have them on their roofs. At one time solar panels came with generous payment tariffs known as FiTs (feed-in tariffs), but those days are long gone. So in this article I examine what incentives exist today for installing panels and whether the sums still add up. I also look at the other pros and cons of solar panels.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I am a particular fan of my fellow MM contributor and money blogger Shoestring Jane. She writes mainly about money saving and frugal living. Her latest article Save Money on Gifts Throughout the Year sets out some top tips  for saving money on gifts without (of course!) being a skinflint. You can see all of Jane’s articles for Mouthy Money via this web page.

I also published several posts on Pounds and Sense in March. I won’t bother mentioning those that are no longer relevant now, but the others are listed below.

One was a reminder that the Trading 212 welcome offer has reopened. If you haven’t done this before, you can get a free share worth up to £100. As I said in the article, my free share in AMD is now worth £151.88! This offer closes on 16 April 2024.

Also in March I published Don’t Miss Out! Use Your £20,000 ISA Allowance Before It’s Too Late. This was a reminder to use your 2023/24 allowance before it vanishes on 6th April 2024. Obviously you will need to move very smartly if you are going to do this now. But (as I said earlier) the good news is that everyone will have a fresh £20,000 allowance from that date.

• Another bit of good news is that as from 2024/25, ISAs will become more flexible and you can invest in more than one of each type in the same tax year. Check out my post about the ISA rule changes in 2024/25 here.

Also this year I became a regular contributor to the Over 60s Discounts website. You can read my latest article here: Grand Adventures on a Budget – How to Save Money on Days Out With Your Grandchildren. I highly recommend registering at Over 60s Discounts, by the way – they list a growing range of discounts and bonuses for older people, including some that are unique to O60D.

One other bit of news this month is that I finally got around to buying a home storage battery to connect to my solar panels (see my recent MM article about panels). I used a local (Staffordshire) company called The Energy Box for this, and am very happy to recommend them.

I’ve had my battery for just over a fortnight now and it’s been quite eye-opening. Using the battery app I can see how much electricity my solar panels are generating at any time and how much I am using in my home. I can also check the battery charge level and whether it’s charging or discharging. Even at this time of year, if there’s a bit of sunshine I am generating enough electricity in the day to cover my needs and charge the battery to a level where I’m running the house from it till well into the evening.

In the summer I’d expect to be generating enough to live off solar-generated power entirely, meaning there will only be the dreaded standing charge to pay. So I will actually be saving more money than I originally anticipated, though admittedly it will still be a number of years before the cost is covered.

It wasn’t just a financial decision, though. My other aim was to be able to continue as normal in the event of power cuts (which I expect to become more frequent in coming years as the UK transitions away from fossil fuels), and that should be the case too. The only issue might be a power cut in the depths of winter when the battery hasn’t charged up from the panels. Even so, if I know (or suspect) a cut is coming I can charge the battery in advance from the mains.

I’ve written an article going into more detail about home storage batteries (including my own) for my regular clients at Mouthy Money. This will be published in April, so keep an eye out for it!

Finally, a quick reminder that you can also follow Pounds and Sense on Facebook or Twitter/X. Twitter/X is my number one social media platform these days and I post regularly there. I share the latest news and information on financial (and other) matters, and other things that interest, amuse or concern me. So if you aren’t following my PAS account, you are definitely missing out!

That’s all for today. As always, if you have any comments or queries, 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 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!