August 20, 2023

UK Bloggers’ Back to School Giveaway 2023

Nick Everything Else events, competitions, families 0 Comments

Yes, it’ s time for another exciting giveaway on Pounds and Sense. This one has a ‘back to school’ theme. In most parts of the UK, of course, this occurs in early September. Scottish schools generally return a little earlier, around mid-August.

Again I have clubbed together with some of my fellow UK bloggers to provide a smorgasbord of great prizes. And the best news is, it’s entirely free to enter. The giveaway is open now and will close on August 30 2023.

The prizes have been hand-picked for children and young people returning to school this autumn, so they should be ideal for your children or grandchildren. But if you want to keep any for yourself, we promise we won’t tell!

This event has (again) been organized by Rowena Becker, who blogs at My Balancing Act. No small amount of effort has been involved in arranging and co-ordinating it, so many thanks again to Rowena for her hard work and dedication.

Without further ado, then, I’ll hand you over to Rowena to introduce the giveaway…

Back to School Giveaway

With only a couple of weeks left until the start of the new school year, some of the top UK bloggers have come together to offer one lucky winner an amazing bundle of prizes to send their kids back to school in style. This is not only a giveaway but also a great Back to School Guide to help you get ideas and inspiration for your kid’s new school year.

The Prizes

Microsoft Surface Go 2 Intel Pentium Gold from Tier1

Tier1, refurbishers of laptops, desktops and tablets and more, are the perfect solution for parents looking to equip their kids with great but affordable technology as they head back to school. Tier1 take pre-owned devices and put them through a rigorous process of testing, cleaning, and repairing to ensure they are in excellent working condition. Not only do these devices offer significant savings compared to buying brand new, but they also provide a reliable and efficient way for students to engage in online learning, complete assignments, and explore educational resources.

With Tier1, parents can find high-quality laptops and tablets that meet their children’s needs without breaking the bank, allowing them to invest in their education without compromising on affordability. We have the Microsoft Surface Go 2 Intel Pentium Gold from Tier1 for our lucky winner. Right now, Tier1 have their summer sale on, making those back to school savings even greater!

Futliit LED Backpack

Introducing the Futliit LED Backpack, the perfect accessory for those walking or cycling home after school. Safety is paramount, especially when it comes to being visible in the dark. Are you worried about your kids walking home in the dark? Don’t worry! The Futliit LED backpack is here to keep them visible to passing traffic, ensuring their safety.

Equipped with two strands of LED lights and reflective panels, the backpack guarantees maximum visibility on your journey. But that’s not all – the backpacks come loaded with features. With a spacious main compartment, a padded device sleeve, and ample storage space, your kids can keep all their school essentials secure.

Don’t miss out on this chance! Enter our giveaway for an opportunity to win the Futliit LED Backpack. Ensure your kid’s safety and embrace the #BeFutliit movement!

Premium Start-Rite School Shoes

‘Motivate‘ and ‘Encourage‘ deliver the very best protection Start-Rite has to offer, and here’s your chance to win either style of your choice! These robust shoes are packed with the best Start-Rite intelligence, from Air Rite technology to biomechanical soles, reflective tabs, toe and heel bumpers, padded ankles, dyed through leather and adjustable rip-tape fastenings.

The durable designs of these two new styles launched by Start-Rite, in collaboration with ‘The Daily Mile’, strengthen the joint ambition to support healthy development and physical activity for all school children.

‘Motivate’ – available size S10 – L4 (Standard and Wide width fitting)

‘Encourage’ – available size S9 – L2 (Standard and Wide width fitting)

To browse the full Start-Rite school shoe range – https://www.startriteshoes.com/school-shoes

Create-A-Space™ See-Thru Storage Caddy

Keep your kid’s art and crafts supplies organised when they go back to school with the Create-A-Space™ See-Thru Storage Caddy from Learning Resources. The set comes with 4 very handy see-through storage bins on a portable base with a carry handle. It’s the perfect caddy for creative kids, and we have one to give to our lucky winner!

SMASH Lunchbags and Water Bottles

Going back to school with SMASH means you’re going back in style! Our lucky winner can grab their kids the following lunchtime accessories:

- SMASH Blue Camo Insulated Lunch Bag

- SMASH Blue Camo Sipper Bottle

- SMASH Orange Leopard Insulated Lunch Bag

- SMASH Orange Leopard Sipper Bottle

The water bottles have an easy carry handle and a fast-flow straw sipper. The lunch bags are not only super cool and super stylish but they are also fully insulated with an anti-bacterial lining. Oh, and super easy to clean too! If you can’t wait to see if you’re a winner, these affordable lunch bags and water bottles are all available from Dunelm.

Brainstorm Toys E2001 Light Up 2 in 1 Globe Earth & Constellations, Multicolour

Help your kids learn when they go back to school with Brainstorm Toys Light Up 2 in 1 Globe of the Earth and constellations. The Earth and Constellation Globe is two globes in one with a day-time and night-time view. In the daylight, the 22.8 cm diameter globe shows political boundaries, oceans, equator, longitude and latitude lines, country names, capital cities and other major cities for each country in the world. By night the illuminated star map shows constellations with their common names. The globe is at a scale of 1:55,900,00, and it sits on a sturdy, stylish silver stand with a matching graduated meridian.

The Earth and Constellation Globe has an automatic light sensor, so when the globe is turned on and the surrounding area is dark, the globe will transform into a beautiful glowing globe showing the star constellations. It is a great learning tool for geographers and astronomers, but also a great feature for your child’s bedroom. And we have one for our lucky winner!

The Bloggers

In order to be able to bring you this incredible giveaway, some of the UK’s top bloggers got together and contributed. A massive thank you to our bloggers! The bloggers taking part are:

How to Enter

You can enter the Giveaway by completing as many Rafflecopter widget entry options below as you like. All entries will be collected and one winner will be randomly chosen. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and Conditions

UK entries only
The giveaway will run from 7 pm 20th August 2023 to 11.59 am 30th August 2023.
The winners will be notified by email from rowena@mybalancingact.co.uk
The winner will have 7 days to respond after which time we reserve the right to select an alternative winner.
This prize draw is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, BlogLovin or Pinterest or any other social media platform.
Prize open to over 18s only. Age verification may be required to receive some prizes.
If any prizes are out of stock then we will do our best to find a suitable replacement but cannot guarantee it.
Anyone who unfollows before the giveaway ends or doesn’t complete the required entry action will be disqualified.
The prize is non-transferable, non-refundable and cannot be exchanged for monetary value.
We may be using a parcel service or Royal Mail for some of the prizes and their standard compensation will apply in the event of loss or damage.
Some items may be sent directly by the supplier and we do not have responsibility if these go missing and we cannot replace these.
In the unlikely event one of the companies withdraws a prize, we cannot offer an alternative.
The winner’s name will be stated on some or all of our bloggers’ websites and announced on Twitter/X and other social media channels. It will also be displayed on the Rafflecopter Entry. By entering this prize draw, you give your permission for this.
Please note the winner may have the same name as you, so if you see your name displayed, be aware that you are not the winner unless you have been notified by us. There may be some delays in receiving prizes.

Good luck, and I hope a Pounds and Sense reader wins this fabulous prize bundle!

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August 17, 2023

Mintos Crowdlending Platform – Bonus Offer!

Nick Investing events, reviews, crowdfunding 0 Comments

Updated 20 November 2023

Today I’m spotlighting Mintos, a European crowdlending platform based in Latvia but open to people in the UK. You may have seen my earlier post on Investing Basics for Beginners, which was sponsored by MIntos.

With Mintos, your money is invested in loans to businesses and private individuals arranged by Mintos’s partner lending companies around the world. Mintos act as intermediaries between lenders and borrowers. They aim to ensure that both groups act responsibly and loans are repaid in a timely way.

Currently Mintos offer the opportunity to invest in agricultural loans, business loans, car loans, car rentals, invoice financing, mortgage loans, personal loans, pawnbroking loans and short-term loans.

You can begin investing with just €50 (around £43). Since 2015, investors with Mintos have earned a 9.54% net return per year on average. Of course, past performance is no guarantee of how any investment platform will do in future. Currently, however, interest rates on the platform are averaging around 12.50%.

What Guarantees Are There?

To ensure security, Mintos provides a return-on-investment guarantee. If a loan instalment remains unpaid 60 days after becoming due, Mintos say they will repay the investment at face value with any accrued interest.

Mintos further insist that all lenders on their platform maintain 5-10% of any loan on the platform themselves. This means that in the event of a default, the lender will lose some of their own money also. So they have ‘skin in the game’, as the expression goes 🙂

The other main risk, of course, is the collapse of the platform itself. While this could happen, it’s worth noting that Mintos is licensed and supervised by Latvijas Banka, the central bank of Latvia, and a member of the Latvian national Investor Compensation Scheme. If Mintos fails to provide investment services, retail investors are entitled to compensation of 90% of the irrevocable loss resulting from the non-provision, up to a limit of €20 000.

In addition, as is generally the case with crowdlending/P2P platforms, your assets are held quite separately from Mintos’s assets.

Investing in Euro

As Mintos is a European operation, you will need to invest in euro and your returns will be paid in this currency. That obviously adds a layer of complication for UK residents, but there are various ways round this. If you have a UK bank account you will normally be able to make (and receive) payments in euro, but may be charged a transaction fee.

You could use your own bank to fund your account initially, but if you become a regular investor with Mintos you might want to use a service/account that charges lower fees. You could use a money transfer service such as Paysera or Wise (formally TransferWise). These will enable you to transfer funds between Mintos and your own bank account with (potentially) lower charges and a more favourable exchange rate.

Another option would be to open a euro account with a provider such as Starling. This will allow you to receive and make payments in both sterling and euro, again at a lower overall cost.

Opening an Account

To open a Mintos account, your first step will be to click on Create Account at the top of the Mintos homepage. There are then certain preliminary steps you will need to take…

Verify your identity and answer some questions about yourself
This is necessary to comply with anti-money laundering laws and KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements.
Take the Suitability & Appropriateness assessment
As a licensed investment firm, Mintos are required to ensure that the products they offer are suitable and appropriate for investors. Based on your answers, they will make certain methods of investing available to you and set a responsible investment limit for your account. You can retake the assessment at any time if your situation changes.
Transfer funds to your Mintos account (see above)

Once this has been done, you can start investing. You have various options here. The simplest is to use one of Mintos’s automated strategies. These work as follows:

Choose a strategy that matches your preference: Diversified, Conservative, or High-yield.
Your strategy will buy small fractions of many different loans or Sets of Notes from different lending companies around the world.
You will be shown the weighted average interest rate of available investments before you invest.
Mintos can (if you wish) reinvest your returns so your money can work continuously and earn even more interest.
You can get your investment back any time by cashing out funds from your Mintos strategy.
You can start or stop your strategy at any time.
Your exposure is capped at 15% per lending company.

Alternatively, you can use a custom strategy, where you choose from a huge range of available investments yourself. You can filter by more than 20 different investing criteria and diversify your portfolio according to your preferences. You can do this entirely manually or create a custom automated investing strategy based on the rules you set.

When you want to withdraw money, your Mintos Core portfolio will automatically sell investments in your portfolio to other investors. Selling may take from a couple of minutes to a few days, depending on demand from other investors at the time. Note that loans which are in default cannot be cashed out this way, and you will have to wait until the loan in question is back in good stead or the 60-day guarantee (see above) kicks in. In some circumstances you may be able to sell loans which are unavailable for cashing out on Mintos’s secondary market, for which a 0.85% fee will be charged. This article on the MIntos website has more information about the cashing out rules and restrictions.

Special Bonus!

Until 30 November 2023, if you click through any link to Mintos in this article and invest €1000 or more, you will get a €50 instant bonus and a 1% bonus of your average investment in the first 90 days.

If you invest €5000, for example, in addition to the returns advertised (currently averaging 12.5%), you will also receive a €50 instant bonus and a further 1% bonus of €50 after 90 days. Effectively that’s an extra 2% bonus. Remember, this special offer closes on 30 November 2023.

If you have any comments or questions, as always, please do leave them below.

Disclosure: I am not a registered financial adviser and nothing in this article should be construed as personal financial advice. You should always do your own ‘due diligence’ before investing, and if in any doubt seek advice from a registered financial adviser before proceeding. All investing carries a risk of loss.

This post includes affiliate links. If you click through and make an investment (or perform some other designated action) I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or any charges you may pay. Note also that the special bonus referred to in this article is only available if you click through one of my links. It will not apply if you go to the Mintos website directly.

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August 15, 2023

English Heritage Discount Offer

Nick Saving Money, Everything Else events, property, travel 0 Comments

A quickie today to let you know that until the end of August 2023, you can get a massive 25 percent off the cost of a new English Heritage membership if you pay by annual direct debit. This applies to all types of membership, including Over-65s (which is already discounted).

English Heritage looks after nearly 400 historic sites and buildings across England, including Stonehenge, Hadrian’s Wall, Dover Castle, the Iron Bridge in Telford (see cover photo), and more. Members get free admission to all properties. Other benefits include free parking in car parks owned by English Heritage, free or reduced-price admission to hundreds of special events, and free entry to properties for up to six children per member. You also receive a free members’ handbook and a magazine (published three times a year).

A further attraction of joining English Heritage is that they have reciprocal arrangements with Scottish Heritage and CADW in Wales. Members therefore get reduced or free admission to most properties owned by these organizations as well.

You can get current membership prices from the English Heritage website. Family, Joint, Individual and Lifetime memberships are available. To claim the current special offer discount, you have to enter the code IMAGINE50 on the online form when applying.

In my case I qualified for Over-65 membership. This would normally cost £63 a year, but with my 25% discount it was reduced to £47.25. Of course, the discount price is for one year only, but you can always cancel the direct debit before it’s due to renew if you wish.

There are various English Heritage sites near where I live. Later this week I am planning to visit Boscobel House in Staffordshire, which is only around 30 minutes’ drive from where I live. Although I have only just joined, I received a temporary membership card by email prior to my full membership pack arriving in the post. So I will be saving at least £11 straight away!

I duly visited Boscobel House on Thursday 18 August. My temporary membership was accepted without quibble, so I saved £11 on admission and also £3 on parking. I also discovered another benefit of English Heritage membership which I couldn’t see mentioned on the website. Once you have been a member for a year or more, you qualify for a 10% discount on any purchases in their shops or tea rooms.

English Heritage obviously has some similarities with the National Trust, but it’s an entirely separate organization and only operates in England (though see my comments above about reciprocal arrangements with organizations in Wales and Scotland).

I know from messages on social media that some people have been deterred from joining or rejoining the National Trust due to their controversial stance on some current issues (see this article, for example). So far anyway, English Heritage seem to have stuck to their core remit of looking after heritage sites and properties and avoided divisive political messaging. For those who have resigned from the National Trust or no longer wish to join, English Heritage may therefore offer an attractive alternative. Of course, there is nothing to stop you joining both if you wish!

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this post, please do leave them below.

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August 1, 2023

My Investments Update – August 2023

Nick Investing crowdfunding, events, property 4 Comments

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my July 2023 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll start 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 £21,548. Last month it stood at £21,044 so that is a rise of £504.

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,383 compared with £3,293 a month ago, an increase of £90. Here is a screen capture showing performance since the start of this year.

This has clearly been another good month for both my Nutmeg pots. Their total value has risen by £594 or 2.44% month on month. Since the start of 2023 the net value of my Nutmeg investments has grown by £2,010 or 8.78%. Compared with mid-October last year that’s an impressive rise of £3,118 or 14.29%.

Of course, all investing is (or should be) a long-term endeavour. Over a period of years stock market investments such as those used by Nutmeg typically produce better returns than cash accounts, often by substantial margins. But there are never any guarantees, and in in the short to medium term at least, losses are always possible.

Also, as you may know, both my Nutmeg pots have quite high risk levels (9/10 main, 5/5 Smart Alpha). If you haven’t yet seen it, you might like to check out my blog post in which I looked at the performance over time of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 . I was pretty amazed by the difference risk level makes, with higher-risk ports over almost any period of three or more years in the last ten generating significantly better overall returns. If you are investing for the long term (and you almost certainly should be) choosing a hyper-cautious low-risk level might not therefore be the smartest strategy. The one exception is if you plan to withdraw your money soon and don’t want to risk losing too much if there is a sudden downturn.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and Junior ISAs as well.

I also have investments with the property crowdlending platform Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have £2,185 invested with them in 18 different projects paying interest rates typically around 7%. 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.

Last month a couple of my Kuflink loans were repaid, so I got my capital back with interest. I decided to withdraw about half of the proceeds to help pay for a couple of big purchases. The other half I reinvested in short-term loans on Kuflink’s secondary marketplace.

I heard this month that Kuflink are changing their terms and conditions. Specifically, from Monday 21st August there will be 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 their reasoning, though it does mean the option to ‘test the water’ with a small first investment has been removed. It will also make it harder for small investors (like myself) to build a well-diversified portfolio on a limited budget. As mentioned, my current portfolio of £2,185 comprises 18 different investments ranging from £50 to £200. Once the minimum £500 per project limit applies, the same amount of money would only stretch to four!

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 three years. The rates on offer from August 1 2023 are shown in the graphic below.

As you may gather, 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. Note that I haven’t updated the information there about minimum investments as yet, but will do so shortly. You can of course still invest smaller amounts than £500 until the August 21st deadline.

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 £128.32 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, 1 is breaking even, and the remaining 13 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £17.46, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £110.86. 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.

Obviously the fall in capital value of my AE investments is slightly disappointing. But it’s important to bear in mind that unless and until I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I have chosen to reinvest in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

I also spoke to the CEO of Assetz Exchange, Peter Read, recently. He made the point that capital values on the platform simply reflect the latest price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands on their exchange. They do not represent objective or independent valuations of the properties. If you are investing long term with AE, the annual yield from rentals is really a much more important consideration.

Peter also made the point that the current high inflation rate has actually been beneficial for Assetz Exchange investors. That is because properties on the platform generally have an annual review when rentals are increased in line with inflation. That means from the end of the financial year in April, rentals have increased in most cases by around 10%. Assetz Exchange recently published a blog post about this which is worth a read.

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.

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].

Last year 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 capture below, my original investment of $1,022.26 is today worth $1,208.40, an overall increase of $186.14 or 18.20%. in these turbulent times I am very happy with that.

In the last month my Tesla shares and my copy trading portfolio with Aukie2008 have both done well. I am also pleased that my investment in Oil Worldwide is back in profit again. This has happened since the Oil Worldwide portfolio was rebalanced by eToro – which is, of course, as I hoped

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.

eToro also recently introduced the 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 recently and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here.

I had two more articles published in July on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first was How to Make Money Selling Photos to Stock Photography Services. If you enjoy photography – even if only on your mobile phone – this is definitely an opportunity you should check out.

My other article was How to Find Out What Your State Pension Will Be. The state pension is a very important component of most people’s income in later life (including mine). In this article I discuss changes to the state pension age and explain how to check when you will become eligible and how much you are on track to receive. I also discuss what options you may have if your projected pension is less than you hoped.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I particularly like the ‘Deals of the Week’ feature compiled by Jordon Cox (‘Britain’s Coupon Kid’) which lists all the best current money-saving offers for savvy shoppers. Check out the latest edition here 🙂

I also published several new posts on Pounds and Sense in July. One of these was Make a Sideline Income Renting Out Your Driveway. As I explain in the article, this is a money-making opportunity that – if you’re in a position to do it – can bring you a steady income for very little effort.

Also in July I published an article explaining why it was Time to Use or Exchange Your Old Non-Barcoded Postage Stamps. That deadline has now passed, but if you still have any ordinary non-barcoded stamps lying around, as the article explains, you can still exchange them using Royal Mail’s ‘Swap Out’ scheme.

Investing Basics for Beginners is a collaborative post with my friends at the European crowdlending platform Mintos. The article sets out some basic principles for anyone who may be considering investing for the first time (though it may also be of interest to more experienced investors).

Finally in July I published Five Things I Have Learned from my eToro Virtual Portfolio. Anyone with an eToro account gets a $100,000 virtual account to practise trading and investing with. I have found this interesting and enjoyable, not to mention educational. In the article I set out five lessons learned from my virtual account that have helped inform my real-life investing decisions. I am considering publishing a further update about my virtual portfolio and how it’s doing, if there is sufficient interest in this.

Lastly, I would mention that the opportunity to Get a Free ETF Share Worth up to £200 with Wealthyhood is still open. To remind you, Wealthyhood is a DIY wealth-building app aimed especially at people new to stock market investing. As from June 2023 they changed their fee structure to make it (even) more attractive to small investors. They have now increased the minimum investment to qualify for the free share offer from £20 to £50 – but on the plus side, they guarantee that your free ETF share will be worth at least £10.

That’s all for today. I hope you’re enjoying the summer, even though July has been a damp squib in Britain compared with June. If you’re looking for some ideas for short breaks, don’t forget to check out my blog post listing some of my favourite UK holiday destinations. Here’s hoping the warm, sunny weather makes a reappearance soon…

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!

Cover image courtesy of BingAI.

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July 21, 2023

Time to Use or Exchange Your Old Non-Barcoded Postage Stamps!

Nick Everything Else events, shopping 0 Comments

A quickie today to remind you that you have just 10 days left to use or exchange any remaining non-barcoded stamps you may have. The stamps concerned are the plain ones with the late Queen’s head on (all stamps with the new King’s head are barcoded).

Christmas stamps and other ‘special’ stamps with pictures on will continue to be valid for the foreseeable future, but it would still be a good idea to use them up now (or give them to a collector in the family!).

If you can’t use the stamps before the end of July, you can exchange them free of charge using Royal Mail’s Swap Out scheme. You will need to complete a Stamp Swap Out form for stamps worth up to £200, or a Bulk Stamp Swap Out form for stamps worth more than £200. Forms are available from post offices, though note that you cannot exchange the stamps themselves there.

An image from the Royal Mail website showing which stamps can and can’t be swapped is shown below.

The deadline for using plain non-barcoded stamps is 31 July 2023. If you use them after that date, the recipient will have to pay a fee (to be announced) on delivery. That’s assuming they are delivered at all, of course.

As well as post offices, you can print Swap Out forms from the Royal Mail website, or phone their customer services on 03457 740740 to request one. There is currently no deadline for the Swap Out scheme and it will continue after 31 July 2023, though again it may be best to do this sooner rather than later.

For more information on the Swap Out scheme – and barcoded stamps more generally – see Royal Mail’s Barcoded Stamps info page.

As always, if you have any comments or queries about this post (no pun intended!), please do leave them below.

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July 3, 2023

My Investments Update – July 2023

Nick Making Money, Saving Money, Investing events, travel 0 Comments

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my June 2023 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll start 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 £21,044. Last month it stood at £20,419 so that is a rise of £625.

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,293 compared with £3,175 a month ago, an increase of £118. Here is a screen capture showing performance since the start of this year.

This has clearly been a better month for both my Nutmeg pots. Their total value has risen by £743 or 3.15% month on month. Since the start of 2023 the net value of my Nutmeg investments has grown by £1,417 or 6.18%.

Of course, all investing is (or should be) a long-term endeavour. Over a period of years stock market investments such as those used by Nutmeg typically produce better returns than cash accounts, often by substantial margins. But there are never any guarantees, and in in the short to medium term at least, losses are always possible.

Also, as you may know, both my Nutmeg pots have quite high risk levels (9/10 main, 5/5 Smart Alpha). If you haven’t yet seen it, you might like to check out my blog post in which I looked at the performance over time of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 . I was pretty amazed by the difference risk level makes, with higher-risk ports over almost any period of three or more years in the last ten generating significantly better overall returns. If you are investing for the long term (and you almost certainly should be) choosing a hyper-cautious low-risk level might not therefore be the smartest strategy. The one exception is if you plan to withdraw your money soon and don’t want to risk losing too much if there is a sudden downturn.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and Junior ISAs as well.

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 £124.53 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, 12 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 2 are breaking even, and the remaining 12 are showing losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £15.53, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £109. 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.

Obviously the fall in capital value of my AE investments is slightly disappointing. But it’s important to bear in mind that unless and until I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I have chosen to reinvest in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

I also spoke to the CEO of Assetz Exchange, Peter Read, recently. He made the point that capital values on the platform simply reflect the latest price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands on their exchange. They do not represent objective or independent valuations of the properties. If you are investing long term with AE, the annual yield from rentals is really a much more important consideration.

Peter also made the point that the current high inflation rate has actually been beneficial for Assetz Exchange investors. That is because properties on the platform generally have an annual review when rentals are increased in line with inflation. That means from the end of the financial year in April, rentals have increased in most cases by around 10%. Assetz Exchange recently published a blog post about this which is worth a read.

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. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

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].

Another property platform I have investments with is Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £2,500 invested with them in 17 different projects. 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.

My loans with Kuflink pay annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. These days I invest no more than £200 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms in the past. My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are behind me now! Nowadays I mainly opt to reinvest the monthly repayments I receive from Kuflink, which has the effect of boosting the percentage rate of return on the projects in question

Obviously a possible drawback with Kuflink and similar platforms is that your money is tied up in bricks and mortar, so not as easily accessible as cash savings or even (to some extent) shares. They do, however, have a secondary market on which you can offer any loan part for sale (as long as the loan in question is performing and not in arrears). Clearly that does depend on someone else wanting to buy it, but my experience has been that any loan parts offered are typically snapped up very quickly. So if an urgent need arises, withdrawing your money (or part of it) is unlikely to be an issue.

You can read my full Kuflink review here. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year with built-in automatic diversification. Alternatively you can build your own IFISA, with most loans on the platform being IFISA-eligible.

Until 31 July 2023 Kuflink are offering enhanced promotional rates of up to 9.73% (gross annual interest equivalent rate) for their Auto-Invest products (IFISA-eligible). There is limited availability for this offer and it may be withdrawn any time before 31 July 2023 if the limit is reached. For more information, click here [affiliate link].

Last year 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 capture below, my original investment of $1,022.26 is today worth $1,153.25, an overall increase of $130.99 or 12.81%. in these turbulent times I am very happy with that.

Since last month the price of my Tesla shares has risen substantially and my copy trading portfolio with Aukie2008 has also done well (though less spectacularly). My most recent investment in Oil Worldwide has risen a bit this month but it’s still slightly down on when I invested. The Oil Worldwide portfolio has just been rebalanced by eToro, so I am hoping for better things in the months ahead

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.

eToro also recently introduced the 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 recently and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here.

I had two more articles published in June on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first was 10 Great Ways to Save Money on Amazon. Amazon is Britain’s – and the world’s – favourite online store. Prices on Amazon are generally competitive, but over the years I’ve discovered a variety of ways to ensure you get the best value for money from them. So in this article I set out my top ten tips for saving money on Amazon

My other article was Do You Need a Personal Financial Adviser? In this article I discuss the different types of financial adviser and what they do. I also revealed why – despite being a money blogger and considering myself reasonably financially savvy – I have a personal financial adviser myself.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving I always look forward to reading the articles by my fellow contributors. Shoestring Jane is a particular favourite and I enjoyed reading her recent article concerning how you can Save Money by Reducing Food Waste.

I also published several new posts on Pounds and Sense in June. One of these was My Short Break in Bath. Bath is, of course, a historic city on the River Avon, about 12 miles from Bristol. I went there for three days in June, the first time I had been for over 30 years. In my post I discuss the self-catering apartment where I stayed and reveal some of the things I did and saw. I also share a few top tips for visitors to Bath. The cover image shows the famous Pulteney Bridge, one of Bath’s best-known landmarks.

Also in June I published a guest post titled How to Manage Your Time and Money in Retirement. This came from my friends at Equity Release Supermarket and I thought it was very informative. I also added some thoughts of my own, as you will see.

I also published a post based on a survey of Britons’ investing habits. This addressed questions such as what are the main barriers stopping people investing and where do people get their investment advice from. I thought the results were quite eye-opening. Take a look if you haven’t already.

Finally, I wanted to highlight that the free share offers described in last month’s update are both still open if you haven’t done them yet. The opportunity to Get a Free Share Worth up to £100 with Trading 212 was reopened after closing briefly. It is now on offer till 27 July 2023.

The opportunity to Get a Free ETF Share Worth up to £200 with Wealthyhood is also still open but the terms have changed slightly. To remind you, Wealthyhood is a DIY wealth-building app aimed especially at people who are new to stock market investing. As from 1 June 2023 they changed their fee structure to make it (even) more attractive to small investors. They have now increased the minimum investment to qualify for the free share offer from £20 to £50 – but on the plus side, they guarantee that your free ETF share will be worth at least £10.

That’s all for today. I hope you’re enjoying the summer months and taking the opportunity to get out and about in our beautiful country (or further afield).

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!

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June 4, 2023

UK Bloggers Father’s Day Giveaway!

Nick Everything Else events, competitions, families, shopping 1 Comment

Summer is here, so it’s time for another exciting giveaway on Pounds and Sense. This one is themed around Father’s Day, which this year is on Sunday June 18th.

I have clubbed together with some of my fellow UK bloggers to provide a bunch of great prizes guaranteed to put a grin on any dad’s face. And the best news is, it’s entirely free to enter! The giveaway is open now and will close at 11.45 pm on Sunday June 18th.

This event has (again) been organized by Rowena Becker, who blogs at My Balancing Act. No small amount of effort has been involved in arranging and co-ordinating it, so many thanks again to Rowena for her hard work and dedication.

Without further ado, then, I’ll hand you over to Rowena to introduce the giveaway…

Father’s Day Giveaway

And we’re back! This time to spoil your dad. We have a number of incredible prizes that will make his day! This is not only a giveaway but a gift guide to help you get ideas and inspiration for gifts for your dad (or other special man in your life) this Father’s Day. And for more ideas and inspirations check out these blog posts, The Ultimate Father’s Day Gift Guide and Frugal Father’s Day.

The Prizes

Treat Him Experience Box from Buyagift

Give your dad a fun and unique gift with the Treat Him Experience Box from Buyagift!

Buyagift has hand-picked the finest selection of Tasty Treat, Driving Blast and Adrenaline Adventure experiences to create the perfect gift for any man. From zorbing to supercar driving, gourmet dining to overnight stays, our lucky winner can treat their dad to a wonderful experience he will never forget!

Hoover Cordless Vacuum Cleaner with ANTI-TWIST™ (Single Battery)

Make your dad’s life easier with this incredible prize! Not only will the Hoover Cordless Vacuum Cleaner with an anti-twist and single battery, make cleaning time quicker and easier, but it’s also a practical and useful present. With a Hoover, your dad can easily keep his home clean and tidy, without much effort. It’s a thoughtful way to make his daily routine easier and hassle-free. Plus, who doesn’t love a clean and fresh home? Our lucky winner can surprise their Dad with a Hoover, and watch him become the happiest dad with the cleanest house around!

Features:

- NEW ANTI-TWIST™ floorhead

- Up to 45 Minutes of Power

- Space-saving design and stands unaided for easy storage

- Converts instantly to a handheld with 2-in-1 dusting/upholstery tool

- Lightweight and easy to use

- Exclusive 3-year warranty with this product. Only available at Hoover Direct website, hooverdirect.co.uk

Opinel Complete Picnic+ Set

The Opinel Picnic+ set is the ideal gift for busy dads who need to eat their meals on the go.

The set comes with:

- A No. 08 knife

- Two inserts (a fork and a spoon) that attach to the No. 08 knife

- A microfibre towel case that is both a storage and cleaning device

The inserts are made of stainless steel, so they are nice and sturdy and hygienic (compatible with wooden handled N°08 knives, equipped with the Virobloc safety ring marketed since 2000). We have one picnic set for our lucky winner!

Silk Route Spice Company Grinders

This gift set is undoubtedly the perfect present for your resident chef or culinary friend, especially if they love French food as much as we do. The grinders contain carefully balanced mixtures of herbs and spices hand-selected by specialist chefs to impart a taste of France to any dish of your choosing, be it your homemade soupe a l’oignon or boeuf bourguignon.

The four mixes are: Herbs de Provence, Mustard & Garlic mix, Fine Herb Seasoning and French Quatre mix. Available from Amazon and donated by Dordogne Vie.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

The Bloggers

In order to bring you this incredible giveaway, some of the UK’s top bloggers got together and contributed. A massive thank you to our bloggers! Those taking part are:

How to Enter

You can enter the Giveaway by completing as many Rafflecopter widget entry options below as you like. All entries will be collected and one winner will be randomly chosen. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and Conditions

UK entries only
The giveaway will run from 11:45am 4th June 2023 to 11.45pm 18th June 2023.
The winner will be notified by email from rowena@mybalancingact.co.uk
The winner will have 7 days to respond after which time we reserve the right to select an alternative winner.
This prize draw is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, BlogLovin or Pinterest.
Prize open to over-18s only. Age verification may be required to receive some prizes.
If any prizes are out of stock then we will do our best to find a suitable replacement but cannot guarantee it.
Anyone who unfollows before the giveaway ends or doesn’t complete the required entry action will be disqualified.
The prize is non-transferable, non-refundable, and cannot be exchanged for monetary value.
We may be using a parcel service or Royal Mail for some of the prizes and their standard compensation will apply in the event of loss or damage.
Some items may be sent directly by the supplier and we do not have responsibility if these go missing and we cannot replace them.
In the unlikely event one of the companies withdraws a prize, we cannot offer an alternative.
The winner’s name will be stated on some or all of our bloggers’ websites and announced on Twitter and other social media channels. It will also be displayed on the Rafflecopter form. By entering this prize draw you will be deemed to give your permission for this.
Please note the winner may have the same name as you, so if you see your name displayed, be aware that you are not the winner unless you have been notified by us.
The prizes won’t arrive in time for Father’s Day and there may be some delays in receiving prizes.

Good luck, and I hope a Pounds and Sense reader wins this fabulous prize bundle!

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:

June 1, 2023

My Investments Update: June 2023

Nick Investing events, reviews, property, crowdfunding, pensions 0 Comments

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my May 2023 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll start 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 £20,419. Last month it stood at £20,740 so that is a fall of £321.

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,175 compared with £3,201 a month ago, a small decrease of £26. Here is a screen capture showing performance since the start of this year.

As you can see, this has been another up-and-down month for both my Nutmeg pots. Pro rata, though, my Smart Alpha portfolio has again done a bit better than my main portfolio. I am therefore tempted to switch more of my money into it, although there isn’t a massive difference in performance between them.

The net value of all my Nutmeg investments has fallen this month by £347 or 1.45% month on month. That is obviously disappointing, but both pots are still comfortably up on where they were at the start of the year. And their total value has risen by £1,781 (8.16%) since mid-October last year.

Of course, all investing is (or should be) a long-term endeavour. Over a period of years stock market investments such as those used by Nutmeg typically produce better returns than cash accounts, often by substantial margins. But there are never any guarantees, and in in the short to medium term at least, losses are always possible.

Also, as you may know, both my Nutmeg pots have quite high risk levels (9/10 main, 5/5 Smart Alpha). If you haven’t yet seen it, you might like to check out my blog post in which I looked at the performance over time of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 . I was pretty amazed by the difference risk level makes, with higher-risk ports over almost any period of three or more years in the last ten generating significantly better overall returns. If you are investing for the long term (and you almost certainly should be) choosing a hyper-cautious low-risk level might not therefore be the smartest strategy. The one exception is if you plan to withdraw your money soon and don’t want to risk losing too much if there is a sudden downturn.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and Junior ISAs as well.

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 £117.63 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, 7 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 4 are breaking even, and the remaining 14 are showing (small) losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £23.62, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £94.01. 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.

Obviously the fall in capital value of my AE investments is a bit disappointing. But it’s important to bear in mind that unless and until I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I have chosen to reinvest in other AE projects to further diversify my portfolio).

I also spoke to the CEO of Assetz Exchange, Peter Read, recently. He made the point that capital values on the platform simply reflect the latest price at which shares in the property concerned have changed hands on their exchange. They do not represent objective or independent valuations of the properties. If you are investing long term with AE, the annual yield from rentals is really a much more important consideration.

Peter also made the point that the current high inflation rate has actually been beneficial for Assetz Exchange investors. That is because properties on the platform generally have an annual review when rentals are increased in line with inflation. That means from the end of the financial year in April, rentals have increased in most cases by around 10%. I don’t want to go into too much detail about this here, but it is a subject I may return to in a future blog post.

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. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

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].

Another property platform I have investments with is Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching every week. I currently have around £2,500 invested with them in 18 different projects. 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.

My loans with Kuflink pay annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. These days I invest no more than £200 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms in the past. My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are behind me now! Nowadays I mainly opt to reinvest the monthly repayments I receive from Kuflink, which has the effect of boosting the percentage rate of return on the projects in question

Obviously a possible drawback with Kuflink and similar platforms is that your money is tied up in bricks and mortar, so not as easily accessible as cash savings or even (to some extent) shares. They do, however, have a secondary market on which you can offer any loan part for sale (as long as the loan in question is performing and not in arrears). Clearly that does depend on someone else wanting to buy it, but my experience has been that any loan parts offered are typically snapped up very quickly. So if an urgent need arises, withdrawing your money (or part of it) is unlikely to be an issue.

You can read my full Kuflink review here. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year with built-in automatic diversification. Alternatively you can build your own IFISA, with most loans on the platform being IFISA-eligible.

Until 30 June 2023 Kuflink are offering enhanced promotional rates of up to 9.73% (gross annual interest equivalent rate) for their Auto-Invest products (IFISA-eligible). There is limited availability for this offer and it may be withdrawn any time before 30 June 2023 if the limit is reached. For more information, click here [affiliate link].

Last year 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. My original investment of $1,022.26 is today worth $1,093.00, an overall increase of $70.74 or 6.92%. in these turbulent times I am happy enough with that.

Since last month the price of my Tesla shares has risen and my copy trading portfolio with Aukie2008 has performed steadily. Unfortunately my most recent investment in Oil Worldwide is in the red, though. I am hoping for better things in the months ahead 🙂

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.

eToro also recently introduced the 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 recently and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here.

I had two more articles published in May on the excellent Mouthy Money website. The first was How to Save Money With Cashback Sites. If you ever buy anything online, you can almost certainly save money by signing up with these sites, which include Quidco and Top Cashback. You can read about my experiences with them and my top tips in this article.

My other article was Equity Release – Is It Right for You? In these financially challenging times, more and more older people are turning to equity release to release money tied up in their homes. My article explains the main options and sets out a range of points to consider before doing this.

As I’ve said before, Mouthy Money is a great resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving I always look forward to reading the articles by my fellow contributors. Shoestring Jane is a particular favourite and I enjoyed reading her recent article How to Start Comping and Win Big!

I also published a number of new posts on Pounds and Sense in May. One of these was about My Short Break in Aberdovey. This is a small town on the mid-Wales coast, between Aberystwyth and Tywyn. It was my first visit to Aberdovey and I recommend it for a chilled-out break – although (as I say in the article) I wouldn’t go there for the nightlife!

Also in May I published Get a Free Share Worth up to £100 with Trading 212. This offer is open until 8th June, so there is still time to take advantage if you haven’t already.

On a similar note, I published Get a Free ETF Share Worth up to £200 with Wealthyhood. Wealthyhood is a DIY wealth-building app aimed especially at people who are new to stock market investing. As from 1 June 2023 they changed their fee structure to make it even more attractive to small investors. It’s worth checking out, even if you only want the free share. This is an ongoing offer, but to qualify you do have to make a £20 minimum investment on the platform.

I also published an article titled Nibble Launches New Legal Strategy for investors. Nibble is a European crowdlending platform open to anyone. They are offering returns of up to 14.5% in their new Legal Strategy, which involves investing in loans that are in default and facing legal action (hence the name, of course). That is obviously higher risk, but NIbble guarantee to pay all investors in this strategy a minimum of 8% up to the maximum 14.5% depending how successful their recovery efforts prove. Average quarterly returns are currently 12.5%.

The other post I published in May was also about equity release. It’s titled Why Are People Opting for Equity Release? The article features some interesting research on why people are opting for equity release in the current economic climate, and what reasons are becoming more common. Definitely worth a look if equity release is on your radar.

One other thing I should mention is that I had an article published a couple of weeks ago in the Daily Telegraph newspaper about my investing experiences. If you read my monthly investment updates on PAS you won’t find too many surprises in it, but here’s a link anyway in case you’d like to check it out. Note that the article is behind a paywall so unless you are a Telegraph subscriber you will only be able to see the start.

Finally in May I enjoyed a short break in Yorkshire visiting my sister Liz and her family. Once again I stayed at the beautiful Hewenden MIll Cottages, between Wilsden and Cullingworth (near Haworth and ‘Bronte country’). If you’re looking for an unusual, rural-based short-break destination, Hewenden could certainly fit the bill. A photo of the old mill building (in which I stayed on a previous visit but not this time) is shown below. There is also a photo of the woodland at Hewenden in the cover image. You can read my original review of Hewenden Mill Cottages here.

That’s all for today. I hope you’re enjoying the better weather and taking the opportunity to get out and about in our beautiful country (or further afield).

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

If you enjoyed this post, please link to it on your own blog or social media:

April 8, 2023

Here’s Why Older Pensioners Especially Should Apply for Pension Credit

Nick Pensions & Benefits events, pensions, benefits 0 Comments

Updated 30 July 2024

Today I’m focusing on pension credit.

According to the government’s own figures, around a third of retirees who would be entitled to this state benefit aren’t currently claiming it. That means they are potentially missing out on an important boost to their pension.

Even more significantly, it means they may be missing out on a raft of other benefits and discounts too, for which pension credit acts as a gateway. More about this shortly.

Applying for pension credit is especially crucial for people who reached retirement age before April 2016 and therefore receive the old basic state pension rather than the new (higher) one. While it may seem (and indeed be) unfair that older pensioners receive a lower rate, they do have the opportunity to claim the savings credit element of pension credit, which newer retirees don’t.

Savings credit payments can provide an extra boost to your income and entitle you to other payments and benefits as well. And, very importantly, the eligibility rules are different from guarantee credit and (in my view anyway) a bit less stringent. But if you don’t apply for pension credit, you won’t get either.

But before we get into that, let’s recap on what pension credit is.

What is Pension Credit?

Pension credit is a state benefit that comes in two parts: guarantee credit and savings credit.

Guarantee credit boosts your weekly income to £182.60 if you’re single or £278.70 if you’re a couple (figures correct from 6 April 2023). You should be eligible for guarantee credit if you have reached state pension age and your total income is less than these amounts (even if you own your own home).

If you have under £10,000 in savings and investments this will not be taken into consideration. If you have over £10,000, it will be assumed that you earn £1 a week per £500 of savings and investments. This will be added to your total income when working out your eligibility for guarantee credit.

Savings credit is only available to people who reached the state pension age before 6 April 2016. It is meant as a reward for those who have made some additional provision for their retirement. It’s worth up to £15.94 a week for a single person or £17.84 for couples (2023/24 figures). Somewhat counter-intuitively, to qualify you must have a minimum income of £174.49 a week if you’re single and £277.12 a week for a couple (again 2023/24 figures). You must also have some savings or other extra income provision (e.g. a private pension).

It’s worth adding that if you pay mortgage interest or have other housing costs, have caring responsibilities, are responsible for a child, or are severely disabled, you may be entitled to more pension credit. If you receive attendance allowance or carers credit, for example, this may boost the amount that you’re entitled to.

The rules surrounding all this are complicated, but the government has provided a free online calculator you can use to work out whether you qualify and how much you might get. This is for guidance only, however. You can’t apply via the calculator and there is no guarantee you will receive the amount it shows you.

Until recently to actually apply for pension credit you had to phone the DWP’s pension credit helpline on 0800 991234 with your Nl number, details of your income, savings and investments, and your bank account details. The person you spoke to would then then take you through the application process. This option is still available, but recently an option to apply online has been added. This is quite separate from the free online calculator mentioned above.

As I recently helped an elderly friend do this, I can confirm that the online method works well, though the questions asked don’t entirely correspond with the questions on the free online calculator. But using the latter first should give you an idea whether you are likely to qualify for pension credit and how much you might get. You can also try the effect of changing the amount of capital/income in the calculator to see if you might qualify in future even if you don’t at present (perhaps due to having too much in savings).

Additional Benefits

As well as the money – which can amount to thousands of pounds a year – if you receive pension credit you will be entitled to a range of additional discounts and benefits. These may include:

reduced (or free) council tax
housing benefit
free TV licence if you are over 75
free NHS dental treatment
help towards the cost of glasses
help with the cost of travel to hospital
cold weather payments
automatic entitlement to the Warm Home Discount
free home insulation and boiler grants
extra money if you’re a carer
government cost of living payments
Winter Fuel Payments (as from winter 2024)

Even if you only receive a small amount of pension credit, you may be eligible for any of the above. So it really is important to apply if there is any chance you may qualify.

More About Savings Credit

As I said above, only older pensioners who retired before April 2016 can get savings credit. But potentially a lot more people in this category may be eligible for it than is the case with guarantee credit.

Whereas guarantee credit is only paid to pensioners on a low income and with limited savings, that isn’t necessarily the case with savings credit. As I noted above, to qualify for savings credit there is actually a minimum earnings limit. And you do actually need to have some savings (or other income source/s apart from the state pension) to be eligible.

The rules are complicated, so – as I said above – the best thing is to use the free online calculator. If it appears you are eligible for savings credit (or guarantee credit) it will tell you, and how much.

It should be said that if you are only awarded savings credit and not guarantee credit, you may not qualify for all of the extra benefits mentioned above (free NHS dental treatment, for example). But even if, with savings credit only, you don’t qualify for the whole of the discounts mentioned, you may at least be eligible for a partial reduction.

For the latest news and information about pension credit, please click here.

Closing Thoughts

To sum up, if you’re of state pension age and have a limited income or savings, you should certainly look into pension credit. Similarly, if you have elderly friends or relatives, you should check eligibility on their behalf (with their permission, of course).

As I’ve said above, this applies especially to anyone who started receiving the state pension before April 2016 and is therefore getting the old basic state pension. This is lower than the new state pension, but you may potentially be eligible for the savings credit element of pension credit (as well as guarantee credit, which anyone of state pension age can qualify for).

While savings credit is generally only a small amount, receiving it will make you eligible for a range of other discounts and benefits, including (as from winter 2024) Winter Fuel Payments. So it really is well worth checking on the free online calculator and then applying (by phone or online) if it appears you might be eligible.

Finally, you might like to know that (thankfully) my friend’s online application was successful. He got a letter a week later saying that he would be receiving pension credit (savings credit only) at a rate of about £5 a week, rising to just over £6 a week the following April. Naturally he was pleased to hear this. And he was even more pleased when he realised he would be getting the other benefits and discounts mentioned earlier as well. As an 84-year-old man who has recently lost his wife, this will certainly help make life a little more bearable for him.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, please do post them below. Just bear in mind that I am not a qualified financial adviser or benefits adviser and cannot provide personal financial advice. If you require specific advice or assistance, your local Citizens Advice office would be one good place to start.

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April 3, 2023

My Investments Update – April 2023

Nick Making Money, Investing events, reviews, crowdfunding 1 Comment

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my March 2023 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), from which I recently started withdrawing again.

As the screenshot below for the year to date shows, my main Nutmeg portfolio is currently valued at £20,632. Last month it stood at £20,680 so that is a modest fall of £48.

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,170 compared with £3,162 a month ago, a (very) small increase of £8. Here is a screen capture showing performance since the start of this year.

As you can see, this has been a roller-coaster month for both my Nutmeg pots, though overall the dial hasn’t moved very much. My Smart Alpha portfolio has done a bit better than my main portfolio and I might be tempted to switch more of my money into it, though there clearly isn’t a massive difference in performance between them.

The net value of all my Nutmeg investments has fallen this month by £40 or 0.17% month on month. That is obviously a little disappointing, but both pots are still comfortably up on where they were at the start of the year. And their total value has risen by £1,890 (7.77%) since mid-October last year.

Of course, all investing is (or should be) a long-term endeavour. Over a period of years stock market investments such as those used by Nutmeg typically produce better returns than cash accounts, often by substantial margins. But there are never any guarantees, and in in the short to medium term at least, losses are always possible.

Also, as you may know, both my Nutmeg pots have quite high risk levels (9/10 main, 5/5 Smart Alpha). If you haven’t yet seen it, you might like to check out my blog post in which I looked at the performance over time of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 . I was pretty amazed by the difference risk level makes, with higher-risk ports over almost any period of three or more years in the last ten generating significantly better overall returns. If you are investing for the long term (and you almost certainly should be) choosing a hyper-cautious low-risk level might not be the smartest strategy. The one exception is if you plan to withdraw your money shortly and don’t want to risk losing too much if there is a sudden downturn.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are looking for a home for your annual ISA allowance, based on my overall experience over the last seven years, they are certainly worth considering. They offer self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and Junior ISAs as well.

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 £108.37 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, 6 of ‘my’ properties are showing gains, 4 are breaking even, and the remaining 16 are showing (small) losses. My portfolio is currently showing a net decrease in value of £26.97, meaning that overall (rental income minus capital value decrease) I am up by £81.40. That’s still a reasonable rate of 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.

Obviously the fall in capital value of my AE investments is a little disappointing. But it’s important to bear in mind that unless and until I choose to sell the investments in question, it is largely theoretical. The rental income, on the other hand, is real money (which in my case I have chosen to reinvest 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. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

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].

Another property platform I have investments with is Kuflink. They continue to do well, with new projects launching almost every day. I currently have around £2,500 invested with them in 18 different projects. 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.

My loans with Kuflink pay annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. These days I invest no more than £200 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms in the past. My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are behind me now! Nowadays I mainly opt to reinvest the monthly repayments I receive from Kuflink, which has the effect of boosting the percentage rate of return on the projects in question

Obviously a possible drawback with Kuflink and similar platforms is that your money is tied up in bricks and mortar, so not as easily accessible as cash savings or even (to some extent) shares. They do, however, have a secondary market on which you can offer any loan part for sale (as long as the loan in question is performing and not in arrears). Clearly that does depend on someone else wanting to buy it, but my experience has been that any loan parts offered are typically snapped up very quickly. So if an urgent need arises, withdrawing your money (or part of it) is unlikely to be an issue.

You can read my full Kuflink review here. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year with built-in automatic diversification. Alternatively you can build your own IFISA, with most loans on the platform being IFISA-eligible.

Until 31 May 2023 Kuflink are offering enhanced promotional rates of up to 9.73% (gross annual interest equivalent rate) for their Auto-Invest products (IFISA-eligible). There is limited availability for this offer and it may be withdrawn any time before 31 May 2023 if the limit is reached. For more information, click here [affiliate link].

Last year 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. I also invested a small amount I had left over in Tesla shares. My original investment of $1,022.26 is today worth $1,113.72, an increase of $91.46 or 8.95%. in these turbulent times I am very happy with that.

As I said last time, my big success was investing in Tesla at the right time, as their share price has risen by over 86%. If only I had put more than $19 into this!

My copy trading portfolio with Aukie2008 is well in profit. My most recent investment in Oil Worldwide, having started well, is still down fractionally (some might say this serves me right for investing in fossil fuels!). But I am certainly not going to worry about that at the moment.

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.

eToro also recently introduced the 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 recently and was impressed with how quickly and seamlessly it worked. You can read my blog post about eToro Money here.

I had two more articles published in March on the always-excellent Mouthy Money website. One is Some Ways to Save Money on Council Tax. Along with fuel bills and mortgages, council tax is many families’ single largest item of expenditure. There are various ways you may be able to reduce this bill (or even avoid it altogether), though. In this article I go through a range of methods, including household-based, income-based and property-based.

My other piece was Always Wanted to be in the Movies? Let TV Studios Use Your Home for Money. Clearly this opportunity won’t work for everyone. But if you live in a place with features that might be in demand by a TV or film production company, you can potentially make hundreds or even thousands of pounds. And as I say in the article, you definitely don’t need to live in a stately home. Studios need all types of properties – from two-bed terraces to penthouse flats, country cottages to 1970s-style bachelor pads!

Speaking of Mouthy Money, you might also like to read my in-depth blog post about this personal finance website which I wrote in March. It’s called (without any great originality, I know) Have You Seen Mouthy Money?

As you may know, I am nowadays contributing two articles a month to Mouthy Money, so you’ll understand that I have good reason for wanting to promote it 🙂 But that aside, it is an excellent resource for anyone interested in money-making and money-saving. I always look forward to reading the articles by my fellow contributors. Shoestring Jane is a particular favourite of mine. With Easter on the horizon, I highly recommend her latest article, How to Have a Frugal Family Easter.

Several of my other Pounds and Sense blog posts from March are no longer relevant due to deadlines passing so I won’t bother listing them here. You might perhaps like to read Two Places You Really Shouldn’t Turn for Tax Advice (and One You Definitely Should), though. This is an update of an article I wrote a while back, but it’s on a subject I feel quite strongly about and is still 100 percent relevant.

Finally, as I write this update there are just two days left to the end of the financial year on 5 April 2023. That means you have just two days remaining to make use of your 2022/23 tax-free ISA allowance before it is gone forever. With other tax-free allowances already set to be slashed in the years ahead, it’s more important than ever to make the most of this one while you can. Here’s a link to my recent blog post on this subject.

That’s all for today. I hope you and your family are coping in these challenging times. Don’t forget to check out the government’s Help for Households website, which sets out various types of financial assistance you may be entitled to and is regularly updated.

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!

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